North Pole calls Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting five Central Asian countries plus Russia this week and the next. Indian Opposition parties have already berated him for what they say are avoidably frequent and expensive as well as markedly low-yield overseas trips. His foreign supporters too seem to be losing enthusiasm in his zeal to visit them. Blame it on tardy progress on the economic promises he made to them.

During much of the Cold War, Central Asia was part of the revered Soviet Union, which more or less single-handedly shored up India’s defence capabilities. To cap it all Moscow underwrote India’s 1971 military outing against Pakistan. In return, Indian traders sold tea and leather jackets to a generously captive Soviet market. Some pharmaceutical goods also found their way. With the new meat policy of India’s ruling party and its impact on leather trade, Delhi may be left with even less with which it can strive to challenge China, Russia or even Iran in Central Asia as some Indian analysts wish the country to do.

There’s a gap in what India’s notoriously prescriptive scribes want for it and the possibilities that exist on the ground. Sample the choices. After the Cold War, newly rich traders from Karol Bagh and other shopping districts of India — from Maharashtra, Punjab and Gujarat mostly — began making a beeline to select Central Asian destinations. They did not go with tea or leather goods to offload, but to have low-budget sex. North Indian male obsession with “fair” skin is not confined to bleaching creams alone.

If Mr Modi were to take an Uzbek airlines flight from Delhi to Tashkent instead of his cocooned Air India journey, he might be able to observe the less factored side effects of the rupee’s partial convertibility. He would glean from the gross demeanour of his compatriots, their escapades, beginning with the way they harass the female flight attendants. Of course, the rot began to set in the early days of the Soviet Union’s dismemberment. That’s when Indian carpetbaggers began making predatory swoops on their former allies. In other words, the very people that once got the protocol reserved for demi-gods from Moscow became desperate partners in the economic scavenging that befalls a people trapped in any disaster zone.

There is plenty on offer to India. Kazakhstan, the largest of the landlocked states, has a tie-up for space research and crucial uranium and mineral exports. One-sided trade, however, scarcely constitutes a strategic prospect, at least not when you are dealing with China or Russia as challengers. Given Kazakhstan’s lurking insecurities over the presence of substantial Chinese and Russian minorities in its social mix, it is conceivable that there may be room for the potentially less volatile Indian labour. But it could be years before language and other required skills are aligned in this sphere.

It is difficult to figure out any cause for the fuss over a future Iranian train service from the Chahbahar port that will link Indian trade to Central Asia. If faraway countries like South Korea and Japan can be present there in a major way, selling industrial goods and building infrastructure what is the excuse for India to cite transportation as a hurdle to improve its presence? What will the trains carry? Tea?

“A counterpoint to China’s inroads”, screamed the headline in a major Delhi newspaper weeks ahead of the Modi visit. Did anyone consider the sheer scale of the challenge it thus posed? In May this year, Russia signed an estimated $400 billion gas supply deal to deliver 38 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas through the Power of Siberia (POS) pipeline to China, with first gas to be delivered in 2018. According to reports, the pipeline deal is so large that it will change gas dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region.

Will India’s elevation as full member at this week’s meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Council in Russia, together with Pakistan’s elevation, improve the frequently bristling equation between Delhi and Beijing? One hopes so. Delhi’s renewed interest in the Tapi gas pipeline could augur happier prospects also in the larger South Asian neighbourhood. Can India exploit a clear advantage it has over Pakistan in much of Central Asia as it is seen to be a more reliable ally against Islamic extremism that stalks the region? Delhi can also exploit local misgivings that flow from an overbearing Chinese and Russian presence. What does it have to offer in return? Perhaps some useful intelligence, but would that constitute a strategic march over the other players?

As he ponders some of these unavoidable hard questions during the eight-day swing through the region, Mr Modi could also explore some old cultural links with Central Asia, including the ancient Buddhist connection. Also, is the tradition of horsemeat eating in Central Asia linked with the ancient Indian custom of Ashwamedha, the horse sacrifice?

If he wants to locate the thesis of Guru Golwalkar that the North Pole was originally situated between Bihar and Orissa, he might even want to take a short flight from Russia to meet the people there. They might turn out to be our ancestors, if Golwalkar is right.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi
By arrangement with Dawn