News Highlights:
According to the Ministry of External Affairs(MEA), India will send its subsequent shipment of wheat to Afghanistan under the Taliban regime via Chabahar port.
Key Takeaway:
- India has been providing humanitarian aid and support to Afghanistan for several years, including food and medical supplies.
- The latest shipment of wheat is a part of India’s continued efforts to assist Afghanistan during its humanitarian crisis.
India’s Current Assistance:
- Financial and Material Aid:
- Till August 2021, when the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, India had invested nearly $3 billion in aid and reconstruction activities in Afghanistan.
- These have included infrastructural works like the construction of Afghanistan’s Parliament, Salma Dam, schools and hospitals, power stations, and stadiums, as well as material and financial support like shipments of wheat and pulses, medicines etc.
- In February 2023, India announced development aid of Rs 200 crores to Afghanistan.
- Medical Aid:
- Even after the Taliban’s takeover, in January 2022, India sent 500,000 Covid vaccine doses to Afghanistan as part of humanitarian aid for the people of Afghanistan.
- Humanitarian aid:
- In February 2022, India sent 50 trucks carrying 2500 MT of wheat as humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.
- In June 2022, India sent 27 tonnes of emergency relief assistance for the people of Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 5.9-magnitude earthquake.
- In March 2023, India announced it would send 20,000 tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan through Iran’s Chabahar Port.
- Scholarship support:
- As of 2023, there were around 14,000 Afghan students studying in India with scholarship support from different institutions like the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR).
Chabahar Port:
- About:
- In 2016, India signed a deal with Iran entailing an $8 billion investment in Chabahar port and industries in Chabahar Special Economic Zone.
- The port is being developed as a transit route to Afghanistan and Central Asia.
- India has already built a 240-km road connecting Afghanistan with Iran.
- All this was expected to bring cargo to Bandar Abbas port and Chabahar port and free Kabul from its dependence on Pakistan to reach the outer world.
- Completing this project would give India access to Afghanistan and beyond to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Europe via the 7,200-km-long multi-modal North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).
- India’s strategic vision:
- When the first agreement for Chabahar was signed by then-PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003, the plan had a three-fold objective:
- To build India’s first offshore port and to project Indian infrastructure prowess in the Gulf.
- To circumvent trade through Pakistan, given the tense ties with India’s neighbour and build a long-term, sustainable sea trade route and
- To find an alternative land route to Afghanistan, which India had rebuilt ties with after the defeat of the Taliban in 2001.
- Subsequently, PM Manmohan Singh’s government constructed the Zaranj -Delaram Highway in Afghanistan’s South.
- It would help connect the trade route from the border of Iran to the main trade routes to Herat and Kabul, handing it over to the Karzai government in 2009.
- In 2016, PM Modi travelled to Tehran and signed the agreement to develop Chabahar port, as well as the trilateral agreement for trade through Chabahar with Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani.
- Current scenario:
- India’s quest for Chabahar has hit geopolitical roadblock after roadblock; the biggest issue has been over Iran’s relationship with western countries, especially the United States.
- In years when western sanctions against Iran increased, the Chabahar project has been put on the back burner.
- However, the nuclear talks resulted in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015 coming into being, and the Chabahar port has been easier to work on.
- In 2018, the Trump administration put paid to India’s plans by walking out of the JCPOA and slapping new sanctions on dealing with Iran.
- India also snapped ties with Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, which put an end to the humanitarian aid of wheat and pulses that were being sent to Kabul via Chabahar.
- When India restarted wheat aid this year, it negotiated with Pakistan to use the land route to Afghanistan instead.
Pic Courtesy: Freepik
Content Source: The Hindu