... a monument of misdirected energy,Historian Stanley Lane-Poole
Circa 1327 A.D: The Sultan of India undertakes to shift Delhi’s citizens 700 miles away from Daulatabad in the Deccan. He sees in this an economic opportunity for his trouble-torn, revenue-starved kingdom. He also reasons that shifting the centre of power to middle India would insulate the capital from the marauding Mongol hordes of Central Asia, providing him with the security to keep his dominions intact. Few wish to undertake the journey, but the Sultan orders a mass exodus of his subjects. Worn with fatigue, many of them die on the way. At Daulatabad, having recognised the folly and iniquity of his policy, the Sultan orders his subjects to shift back to Delhi. Very few survive the return. The economic costs are ruinous for the Sultan. History remembers the Sultan as Muhammad-bin-Tuglaq. Centuries later, Stanley Lane-Poole calls Daulatabad a monument of misdirected energy.
Circa 2005 A.D: A minister in the Delhi durbar, concerned by the energy requirements of a rapidly expanding economy, sees an economic opportunity in Central Asia. He wants to harness gas in India’s extended neighbourhood and transport it home. It’s an eloquent transcontinental dream: A pipeline originating on the shores of the Caspian and extending the right to China, or maybe, even Japan, in the Pacific. Fired by his dream, the minister launches a 10-day campaign across the Khyber Pass -- recorded history’s first such endeavour by an Indian adventurer. In the process, he becomes a pawn in the Great Game on the grand chessboard of Central Asia, where the world’s superpowers have been eyeing the castle forever. The world looks at Aiyar in amusement. Will history allow Mani Shankar Aiyar to realise his dream or will it record his pipeline as yet another monument of misdirected energy? Read on:
First the facts. Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, imports 99% of its oil, more than 90% of that from West Asia. All of it comes in Very Large Crude Carriers. Japan also imports its entire requirement of natural gas, 13% of its total primary energy supply, from the UAE, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, Qatar and Oman in huge ocean-going vessels. Deprived of natural resources, the world’s most industrious nation, imports almost all its raw material needs; even importing up to 133 million tonnes of iron ore every year to feed its giant steel mills. The Japanese never thought of a pipeline to transport crude oil and gas, much less, a transcontinental ropeway to carry iron ore from India. And they never became hostage to the fear of an energy meltdown. Because it makes sense for the Japanese to pay upfront for whatever raw materials the world has to offer without messing in the cesspool of global geopolitics, building fantastic dreams of an unrealistic infrastructure backbone.
Let’s get this right, Mr Aiyar, it’s one thing to dream big; it’s quite another to emerge a winner. And there are no winners in the Great Game being played in the wild and inhospitable terrain of Central Asia for 200 years now.
Perhaps, there never will be one. But then, chess is a game of manoeuvres. Of pawns and knights and elephants and horses and boats and kings and queens and castles. And it could always end in a draw. If the Great Game were ever to be played with a pack of cards, chances are Mr Aiyar would be called the joker.
But first, the dream: A gas pipeline connecting Turkmenistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan (TAP) has been in the works for some time now, first conceived a decade ago by Argentine energy magnate, Carlos Bulgheroni, known to the outside world as the “Voice of Taliban”. Bulgheroni’s dream remained in the pipe for so long that the world almost seemed to have forgotten it, until it was resurrected by Mr Aiyar last fortnight in his desire to bring Turkmenistan gas to India, and turn TAP into TAPI. Now, he also wants to hook Kazakh gas to the TAP(I) and Uzbek gas to that, and Russian as well. In other words, rename TAP (RUK)TAP(I). And as if that’s not enough, Mr Aiyar wants that gas to feed China’s manufacturing boom as well. So eventually, the TAP only gets that much longer as RUKTAPIC -- Russia-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India-China. So far so good. But it looks like a lot of good money going down the drain. Why should China hook on to a pipeline from Central Asia feeding the rest of the continent before it lands at its doorstep when all it has to do is build its pipeline across the Gobi desert? Why? Because Mr Aiyar believes that India needs to get Central Asian gas before China actually does. And it’s such a long distance from South China to the land of Genghis Khan. Ha! South China can do with all the gas in Myanmar and Malaysia and Brunei and Indonesia rather than care for a share of a pipeline that winds its way up and down the Himalayas. Or why should Russia, for that matter, sell its gas to India, when it’s profitable to sell that gas across the Eurasian plains to Europe without crossing the hurdles of Central Asian turbulence?
Even the original TAP. There are questions about its viability. By Pakistan’s own admission, Turkmenistan’s gas reserves are not proven. And Afghanistan remains an unstable country. Coming, as it does, from Pakistan, the original intended beneficiary of TAP, Mr Aiyar’s looks no better than a pipedream. Mr Aiyar’s also looking at a second pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan, in discussions for years, and now, a near reality. The problem’s Big Brother US is watching. And it will make sure that Pakistan, if not India, has nothing to do with Iranian gas. You’ve read of the threats of US sanctions against Pakistan even if it wants to smoke the peace pipe with India on the Iranian venture. And the US threat is for real. It will take years of convincing the US and, maybe, even a regime makeover in Tehran, before any of that gas can cross Iran’s borders. This, no matter what confidence-building the Pakistanis may have to do with India in the name of subcontinental peace and prosperity. There’s a third pipeline -- the Baku-Tbilsi-Ceyhan pipeline -- that Mr Aiyar’s been eyeing as well. Carrying crude oil from the Caspian to the Mediterranean for Europe and further west to the US. Mr Aiyar wants some of that oil to flow into India, first by ship to Israel than through a disused Israeli pipeline to Red Sea and onward to India by large crude oil tankers. This is when it would make sense to build a pipeline from Azerbaijan to Iran and onward to Pakistan and India. The problem is Iran and Azerbaijan don’t see eye to eye. So the expensive Mediterranean Sea-Red Sea-Arabian Sea route. It’s time to get real Mr Aiyar and follow the time-tested model of Japan. You don’t need a pipeline to build a pan-Asian dream. You only need so much money to buy your oil and gas from whoever is willing and able to sell on the spot.
Great Game? Well, they have played it for 200 years now. Or maybe for several centuries longer. But there’s no telling for certain which way the wind blows in the massive and turbulent Central Asian steppes. It never was.
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