Offshore Iran, in an area of the Persian Gulf known as South Pars, lies a resource that could redirect the course of history in Southasia, 3000 km to the east. The resource is natural gas – essentially methane – and its import has become necessary in order to feed the demand for energy in faraway India. And so a gas pipeline is proposed that will traverse the Makran coast that Alexander walked during his last, ill-fated campaign, traverse the Balochistan-Sindh desert to Multan, and cross the Indus River to arrive finally in Rajasthan – to quench the thirst for energy of the Southasian economic behemoth. Along the way, the gasline would also top up the energy needs of Pakistan, whose own known reserves are expected to run out in a dozen years.
Till only a couple of years ago, this was a pie-in-the-sky project to all but a few visionaries – there is no other word to describe them – who understood how a long pipe carrying gas could also serve as the mother of all confidence-building measures. For the passage of natural gas through Pakistan to India, its price set at a fair level by Tehran and its uninterrupted flow guaranteed by Islamabad, will change the geopolitical landscape of the Subcontinent. In one stroke, the joint stakeholding of an economic resource will defuse the five and a half decade long India-Pakistan hostility. Many tightly-wound bilateral problems, including the matter of Kashmir, will suddenly become manageable.
Indeed, the geopolitics of Southasia will be transformed the moment the New Delhi housewife is able to turn on the tap for cheap natural gas piped directly into her kitchen, finally rid of the cumbersome red cylinders of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) that have been her burden for decades. Even more significantly, natural gas via pipeline will provide Indian industry with a massive boost in sectors ranging from petrochemicals to fertilisers; electric power production will increase dramatically and a myriad of new commercial uses will be supported. Once Pakistan begins to receive transit fees that could run to USD 600 million yearly and Islamabad is asked to give international undertakings not to turn off the tap in any circumstance, a threshold will have been crossed in India-Pakistan relations.
For long, hard-headed state-centric analyts in Delhi and Islamabad regarded the pipeline proposal as one prepared by and for romantics who floated outside the perimeter of reality. Perceptions began to change when the Federal Cabinet in Islamabad approved the concept of a gasline to India and President Gen Pervez Musharraf announced that he would allow unconditional passage of Iranian gas. The immediate reaction across the border was skepticism fuelled by the inertia of the intelligence and foreign policy establishments. Horrors! How could Pakistan be entrusted with a resource whose blockage would devastate a dependent Indian economy? What if Islamabad turned off the tap? "This project is a lemon," announced a New Delhi heavyweight to his colleagues.