Emerging new economic dimension to Afghan policy

In the brouhaha over Anna Hazare, the mainstream media seems to have missed this very interesting development on Afghanistan. An Indian consortium of PSUs and private secotr companies presented a final bid for the enormous Hajigak mines in Afghanistan's Bamyan province. The consortium is led by SAIL, and has 3 PSU and 3 pvt sector companies. Importantly, the Foreign Ministry is taking keen interest in the affair, with the new Foreign Secretary, Ranjan Mathai, taking personal interest in pushing the deal through.

This represents a marked shift in India's Afghan policy, which has been hitherto primarily predicated on a large aid programme, and a somewhat diffident political agenda (of balancing Pak influence). If the Hajigak bid is successful, it will mark the start of the building of a strong economic and a qualitatively different strategic content to India's approach in Afghanistan.

The economic content of the deal is self explanatory, the strategic content is co-terminus.

To start with, the iron ore from Hajigak can only be evacuated through the Chabahaar port in ran. India spent a lot of money and patience in building the Zaranj-Delaram highway,hoping to use that as a crucial linkage to Chabahaar, the only route to India (from Af) that doesnt pass through Pakistan. While some infrastructure has been created, the route has been used sparingly. This deal, if successful, will mean that we would need to use it substantively. Ergo, relations with Iran need to be rescued from the confusion that it has fallen into in the last few years.

Second, while Bamyan is a relatively "peaceful" area, the project would stick out like a large, juicy target to every Taliban/terrorist-type in Afghanistan. Its vulnerability will increase manifold when the US starts drawing down troops from there. We would therefore need to deploy significantly larger numbers of troops there (not the diffident effort of a few hundred ITBP policemen that we have till now) for physical security of the project. Which in itself would entail sorting out a supply chain, maybe through the same Chabahaar route, but also through the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) currently used by NATO as an alternative to its Pakistan routes. NDN traverses through Russia and Central Asia, and given that the logistics lines are "oiled", our efforts would be more political (in taping the principals up) rather than infrastructural (as in Chabahaar). Which in turn would require a very different quality of engagement with Central Asia.

Afghanistan is Great Game territory, but today, the game needs substantive economic narratives. Its good that we are waking up to it, but are we prepared to play?