It’s a bad idea to interlock India’s energy supplies with Pakistan. Period.
It was a stupid idea right from the start. Of course, it looks a lot more stupid now. Swaminathan Aiyar points out why the IPI gas pipeline project should now be officially declared dead. But you don’t have to read Mr Aiyar’s article at all if you had been reading The Acorn during the halcyon days of the ‘peace process’ when it was unfashionable to point out that ideas such as “creating mutual dependencies” with Pakistan are masochistic and that the risk premium will junk the business case in any case.
After explaining why involving Pakistan in a gas purchase deal with Iran is such a bad idea, Mr Aiyar inexplicably proposes a shallow undersea pipeline with a different architecture. It might be better than the overland pipeline but it still carries the risk of a Pakistan hurting itself to hurt India.
It makes far more sense to invest in LNG. This calls for investing in the technology, processing and domestic distribution infrastructure required to handle the imports. This calls for developing a maritime strategy that ensures that India’s LNG supply routes are secure, around the world. And it calls for foreign policy that ensures that LNG becomes the predominant way to ship the world’s natural gas, and the global market becomes competitive.
Of course all this is tall order. But let’s face it—its better than letting Pakistan hold us by the…you know what.
God knows what it’ll take Indian populace to realise that only thing preventing Pak from crumbling by itself is their common, shared hatred towards Hindus. Apart from the pipeline, another common “progressive measure” pushed forward by leftists is “people to people”contact.
@Ajay,
It was interesting to watch Kuldip Nayyar on TimesNow over the weekend. He still maintained that we should have ‘prominent people from Pakistan come here and meet our prominent people’; whatever thats supposed to mean. Guess candle-lighting sessions are going to continue for some time.
I thought it was already put to rest the day we signed Nuclear deal? š
According to Swaminathan Aiyar:
At this point, the pipeline can divide into two, with one section going north to Pakistan and the other going west to Kutch. Any sabotage of the main pipeline will hit Pakistan as badly as India -it will mean mutually assured destruction (MAD) of gas supply.
What if the Indian part of the pipeline is sabotaged? After all, aren’t the Mumbai attacks proof that this could happen?
I wonder, what thinking and precautions has Mukesh Ambani put in place while conceptualizing their Refineries so near to the Pakis.
There were stories that Ambani Sr. had assuarances from Nawaz Sharif that they won’t attack their Refineries at Jamnagar. But I reckon that Ambani’s may be smarter than relying on a Pakistani word – even if it is in writing.
Re:IPI Pipeline
We all know it too well to trust Pakistanis with such an important project as IPI.But what about Iran!The present leadership and regime there cannot be relied upon either.When it comes to crunch,Shia Iran will stand by Sunni Pakistan against kuffar India.Our fatal weakness has always been our failure to recognize who our true friends are and our lack of will to stand by and with them.It doesnot take an Einstein to figure out that the only true allies we have are the U.S and Israel?Do our leaders have the courage and fortitude to accept this!I am afraid not!
See what the Gazprom pipeline through Kazakhstan has led to… This, despite the fact that Russia and Kazakhstan do not even have a history of a no-holds barred bitterness as India and Pakistan have.