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Connectivity without political bottlenecks /BIGSTOCK
India must re-think the One Belt One Road initiative
The One Belt One Road (OBOR) mega project, now renamed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is arguably the greatest trade connectivity and infrastructure project in the history of mankind.
It aims to connect all of Eurasia and also Africa in a well-knit zone where trade, industry, and commerce will not be bogged down by infrastructural and political bottlenecks.
Much more than a Chinese project
The main force behind this initiative is the People’s Republic of China, but it is much more than a Chinese project — it is veritably the network on which future economic development of much of Eurasia will lie.
To isolate oneself from this network is to be at a huge competitive disadvantage. OBOR, in many ways, is the principal economic axis of Europe and Asia, on land and on the seas.
The recent meeting about the OBOR in China attracted huge number of heads of state from all corners of the world, from Russia to Chile to Sri Lanka.
If one looks at the map of Asia and colours the countries that have decided to join the One Belt One Road project, it will be clear that much of Asia will get coloured.
In that grand Eurasian economic union, one landmass will look very isolated. That is the Indian Union. Staying out of One Belt One Road is set to have grievous consequences for future economy of the Indian Union. More importantly, this staying out will sabotage the great geo-economic potential that eastern territories of the Indian Union have.
Grave consequences
West Bengal and the North-Eastern territories of the Indian Union will be huge economic beneficiaries in terms of revenue, infrastructure, and much more if the Indian Union joins OBOR. But Delhi decided to stay out of the recent meeting and was virtually isolated in the international stage.
Even the US joined the meeting as did Vietnam which has many border disputes with China. Vietnam did so because it is sane enough to prioritise its real world economic development in comparison to territorial claims which have no effect on the daily lives of its citizens in any practical, objective sense.
Delhi cited a part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), an important axis of OBOR, as the reason it decided to boycott. It is true that a stretch of the CPEC actually passes through areas that have been held by China and Pakistan for a very long time but are claimed by the Indian Union.
In practical terms, for the last 70 years or so, Delhi has never had any practical jurisdiction over the area except the comic charade of having empty seats in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly that correspond to those areas that are not under Indian Union administration.
In terms of extending its administration to these areas, Delhi’s activities have been limited to doing anti-Pakistan PR that very few listen to (very few countries unequivocally share Delhi’s position on the Kashmir issue) and going after the random map which might have drawn the area according to ground realities and not according to Delhi’s fantasies.
Neither does Delhi have any practical roadmap to acquire these territories from Pakistan and China. Vietnam has maintained its territorial claims while it has joined One Belt One Road. The Indian Union could have done the same; it did not.
So to cite this completely impractical position as the reason to boycott One Belt One Road is completely self-defeating.
India defeats itself
But then the question arises, what is this “self” when I said self-defeating? It is an important question because the long and continued presence of all the Beijing-administered but Delhi-claimed territories never stopped the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi from going to China to seek investments.
Neither has that stopped the outsourcing to China the manufacturing of the giant Ballabhbhai Patel figure, the so-called “Statue of Unity” (comically, “unity” here means the Indian Union’s territorial unity). Nor will that stop the $1 billion China Industrial Park in Gujarat.
The long and continued presence of all the Islamabad-administered but Delhi-claimed territories have not stopped Delhi from bestowing the “most favoured nation” (MFN) status to Pakistan.
When Delhi boycotted, hardly anyone cared. Except Bhutan. Every other nation in South Asia deserted Delhi and joined the OBOR — Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka
Why then, when the question of development of West Bengal and Indian Union’s north-eastern territories are involved that all these questions are raised?
If Delhi has the money to bankroll the infrastructure and connectivity development in these states, why doesn’t it? The truth is quite the opposite.
If anything, West Bengal is fiscally looted by Delhi and this has been the reality since 1947 with particular egregious things, like the Freight Equalisation policy, that were designed to destroy any economic and industrial advantage that the East, primarily West Bengal, but also Jharkhand and Odisha, had.
If Delhi takes such a hypocritical attitude vis-à-vis Chinese engagement, then it is unfortunate. Delhi can order that all trade with China will stop. But it won’t because it can’t.
No comparison
China’s manufacturing strength and market hold is so deep compared to the Indian Union that there is no comparison. It is only in Delhi’s sycophant media that something like Sino-Indian rivalry and comparison exist.
To the rest of the world, there is no comparison. Which is why when Delhi boycotted, hardly anyone cared. Except Bhutan. But wait, Delhi controls Bhutan’s foreign policy. Every other nation in South Asia deserted Delhi and joined the OBOR — Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka.
This also shows that the Indian Union is not only isolated internationally on this question but isolated even in its immediate neighbourhood.
This is a sad testament to the performance and judgment of Delhi’s policy wonks and diplomats but, most importantly, it shows how the high octane foreign connect of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is for domestic jingoistic consumption.
Delhi must do a re-think on OBOR. Coining other alphabet soups in the name of some African Economic Corridor or some US-Japan-sponsored Indian Ocean-centric mini project is no match to OBOR.
No one will be fooled by these, just like everyone understands that BIMSTEC, BCIM, or BBIN type of regional connectivity plans have only earned frequent flyer miles for policy-makers on junkets. They have not yielded much else.
Even Bhutan has refused to be part of BBIN’s crucial motor vehicle agreement. If the Indian Union has to prosper, its states must prosper.
Delhi is holding back the real world economic development of the Eastern and North Eastern states to satisfy some position on the sovereignty issues of territories where the Indian flag has never flown ever in history.
With a Gujarati at the helm in Delhi, one would have thought that the Indian Union would have worked out a good bargain. But that has not happened.
The Indian Union’s eastern states might have lost the biggest economic rejuvenation possibility in a generation while Gujarat’s own wooing of China goes on. These double standards are, by now, shamefully stark.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/opinion/op-ed/2017/06/05/one-belt-rule/
