Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan’s article dated 30 August 2019 in The New York Times begins with drawing similarities between the challenges faced by India and Pakistan. The article explains that after becoming the Prime Minister of Pakistan, he made overtures to his Indian counterpart in order for both the countries to co-exist in peace. While these statements sound truly noble, when compared to Pakistan’s actions, they seem to indicate a sense of hypocrisy.
It is interesting to note that in the same article, Imran Khan invokes challenges such as climate change. While it is true that climate change has emerged as a global challenge, Pakistan’s conduct towards mitigating risks arising out of climate change and helping other countries in and around South Asia, has been far from helpful. In fact, its conduct towards facilitating transportation and trade of clean fuel to other countries in South Asia such as India, can be characterised as highly obstructionist and damaging. One of the ways in which the risks of climate change can be negated is by using fuels such as natural gas that have already demonstrated their efficiency and emit less carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels.
Given South Asia, and particularly Pakistan’s proximity to natural gas producing regions such as Iran and Turkmenistan, the prospects for regional natural gas cooperation were immense. Back in the early 1990s, there were ambitious plans which were drawn up by countries in the region to bring natural gas to energy deficit countries. The Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipelines had the potential to alleviate the energy and developmental landscape of South Asia in a significant manner. Recently, reports have suggested that Pakistan, despite imports, would still be facing a shortfall of 3.6 billion cubic feet per day by FY2024. However, a perusal of Pakistan’s conduct in the domain of natural gas trade demonstrates that Pakistan to this date has been the single biggest impediment to regional energy integration.
All it required for the two projects was willing stakeholders who could adopt an accommodative, sincere and well-intentioned attitude to ensure their early realisation. However, the negotiations, at least on the IPI, did not follow an expected path. While commercial issues have certainly posed some challenges to the early realisation of the IPI project, Pakistan’s misconduct in handling events in the province of Balochistan precluded any substantial momentum on the projects.
It could be seen that Pakistan’s attitude, right from the initial stages of talks for these pipeline projects were found not to be in good faith. For Pakistan, as literature points out, the pipeline could be used as a lever against India at times of conflict between the two countries. In his op-ed column, R.K. Pachauri notes that initially the Indian Government preferred an India-Iran deep sea pipeline, an option, which he observes, was expensive in comparison to an overland route, but much safer.
Secondly, it is a well-documented fact that Pakistan’s misconduct and damaging role in the province of Balochistan has ensured that energy projects passing through the region would remain perpetually vulnerable to security threats. “Enforced disappearances” of civil society activists, use of disproportionate force, complete ignorance towards developmental challenges and parameters has ensured that Balochistan is not conducive for regional energy trade. In view of these facts, hypothetically speaking, even if US sanctions on Iran were to be lifted in the immediate future, it would hardly be encouraging for any investor to view the current circumstances favourably and fund the IPI gas pipeline.
The TAPI gas pipeline project which was expected to have been operationalised few years ago, continues to face an uncertain future due to events in Afghanistan. Since Pakistan has a certain degree of influence in areas controlled by the Taliban, the continued violence perpetrated by Taliban that has enjoyed political and military support by Pakistan, presence of several foreign terrorist organisations, drug trade etc. have limited Afghanistan’s efforts to make a fresh start towards peace and development. It is sad to see that for a country like Afghanistan, though uniquely placed between energy-rich Iran and Turkmenistan, has been unable to make use of its geographical location to become an industrial powerhouse in the region. It goes without saying that economic and industrial development inside, Afghanistan could naturally have benefitted Pakistan too. However, the continued interference in Afghanistan’s affairs by Pakistan and its security agencies has prevented any of these development spillovers from being realised. Although Pakistan has recently extended assurances to Turkmenistan that the progress on TAPI gas pipeline project will not be impeded due to ongoing tensions with India over Kashmir, the support that Pakistan continues to give to non-state actors inside Afghanistan will cast a shadow on any visible progress on the project.
As a result of its misdemeanours within its own provinces and neighbourhood, Pakistan is today compelled to forgo any regional energy projects and instead seek energy supplies through the sea route. Given that the both IPI and TAPI have failed to make any substantial progress, Pakistan continues to look for such expensive alternatives, which would by all means prove to be an avoidable burden for an already cash-strapped economy. A country which could have facilitated energy trade between South Asia with other regions and made a fortune, is instead today desperate and unsure of securing its own energy supplies. The machinations and scheming which the Pakistan’s security establishment has adopted in the last few decades have certainly made overcoming its developmental challenge an expensive affair for the people of Pakistan.
Given this situation, India, which would have been one of the biggest beneficiaries of such regional energy integration, has chosen to move on. India is itself becoming an energy hub in South Asia. The country has embarked on a journey to bring clean fuel to kick-start its economy. The share of fuel such as natural gas is expected to substantially increase in the primary energy mix by the year 2030. India and Nepal have recently accomplished the construction and inauguration of a bilateral pipeline for petroleum products. Similarly, quite recently, there were reports that suggested that India is now considering using Bangladesh territory to send LPG supplies to India’s Northeastern states. Additionally, it is also reported that the hydropower cooperation between India and Bhutan has received another boost with the inauguration of the Mangdechu hydropower project. These are no mean achievements and the road onwards is only going to be more positive.
Therefore, before invoking the argument of cooperation on developmental issues with India, the Pakistani Prime Minister would be well-served to take a look at the conduct of Pakistan’s security establishment and political class in sabotaging prospects of its own economic and industrial growth in a sustainable manner and holding the South Asian region to ransom for their vested interests. On its part, the common Pakistani must certainly demand some level of accountability from Pakistan’s policy makers and its security establishment, enquiring as to why they are being deprived of essential supplies of clean energy.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
PREV
