Buses for Afghanistan take Pak roads, wheat awaits nod

A consignment of 1 million tonnes of wheat meant for the Hamid Karzai interim government is still lying in India because Pakistan refuses to allow passage for the wheat. Transportation via Iran is three times more expensive, with Tehran refusing to reduce the price of transporting goods across the land border with Kabul.

Clearly, as India’s passionate rhetoric on Afghanistan gives way to grim reality, New Delhi has been forced to its swallow pride and ask Kabul to ask Islamabad to allow the passage of Indian goods overland through Pakistan.

So just as the Afghan government requested Islamabad to allow the 25 Indian buses, driven by Afghan drivers, to cross Pakistan, New Delhi hopes that the same magical formula will work with the wheat still lying in godowns here.

The wheat story really encapsulates New Delhi’s big problem. After the December 13 attack on Parliament, India hoped to get around the humiliating task of requesting Islamabad for passage and requested the World Food Programme to lift the Indian wheat to Kabul. But Pakistan refused outright, saying that the Indian wheat was infested with the Karnal bunt. By February, Kabul had asked Islamabad for passage for the wheat.

Today, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh handed over the 25 buses to visiting Deputy Afghan Minister for Transport Syed Sadi Mutafakkir during a ceremony at Hyderabad House. The 25 buses are the first batch of the 50 buses that India would be sending to Afghanistan.

Handing over the keys to the first bus to driver Singh said, ‘‘these are not buses made of iron and steel but much more than that. These buses symbolise the emotions that bind our two countries together.’’

The MEA cannot be accused for want of trying, but good intentions, observers point out, may not always make for good foreign policy. For example, the MEA has persuaded Kabul to give permission to open consulates in Mazar-e-Sharief and Herat, another major city near the border with Iran.

The wheat example has put a real dampener on businessmen — delegations from CII and FICCI were in Kabul a couple of months ago — who realise that they are unable to move heavy machinery on Ariana flights to Kabul. Pakistan’s stranglehold on land passage and the high cost of sea transportation to the Iranian port of Bandarabbas and onwards by land to Afghanistan is becoming a real worry.