In a late breaking development the contentious issue of Sir Creek between India and Pakistan found its way into the Gujarat election less than 24 hours before the polls opened for the first phase. In an open letter addressed to the Prime Minister of India written in his personal capacity, Narendra Modi has warned Manmohan Singh over any concessions to Pakistan on Sir Creek. The open letter was followed by public remarks at a campaign event in Mehsana where Modi also reminded his audience of the 1965 India-Pakistan conflict and the strategic significance of Sir Creek. The Prime Minister’s Office in a late evening press release denied Modi’s charges to dodge the issue without offering anything substantial on his Government’s plans on discussing Sir Creek with Pakistan later this month.
It would be facile and naïve to take the PMO’s contention that this was a case of just politics on election eve at face value.
A week back on December 5, 2012, the Times of India in a lead editorial made an argument for a settlement on Sir Creek between India and Pakistan citing the resolution from a two-day ‘strategic seminar’ in New Delhi. Among the ideas floated in this Aman ki Asha seminar were formulations like “Joint Administration”, making one wonder what concrete steps has Pakistan taken to date on 26/11 to warrant reposing trust in it over the “joint management” of something as strategic as the Sir Creek. The proposals endorsed by the Times of India first appeared in the Pakistani media in late November describing Sir Creek as a low hanging in fruit.
There is no need to be surprised about Sir Creek issue surfacing in the middle of the Gujarat election. As far back as April, noted columnist Ashok Malik writing in The Pioneer had forewarned on why making any unilateral concessions on Sir Creek without seeking inputs from Gujarat would be foolhardy. Ashok Malik also goes on to explain the strategic significance of Sir Creek from a hydrocarbon exploration standpoint with its Shale Reserves.
Speaking on April 16 at the Chief Minister’s Conference on Internal Security, Narendra Modi made a strong pitch on what he termed the “serious security implications” of our “current energy dependence”. The reason behind the pitch Modi made on energy independence had at its heart a call for exploring the potential for hydrocarbon reserves in Sir Creek, including shale gas. Curiously enough the remarks by Modi not only found their echo within social media but also made their way into a blog post on the Reuters by Myra McDonald who went on to the extent of saying that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Pakistan policy now faces a Narendra Modi veto.
It would also be narrow to take a last minute political view of the Modi concerns on Sir Creek. Energy independence has been a central theme of his governance agenda for a long time now. This public stance on Sir Creek has to be viewed in combination with the sequence of events in Gujarat over the past many months on what was a political roadmap for energy independence.
It began first with the launch of one of the largest solar farms to come up in barren land with the promise of producing up to 500 MW of solar power. Next a unique pilot project from Chandrasan village of Kadi taluka in Mehsana district of Gujarat on generating about one megawatt of solar power. The power generation capacity may be small but the innovation of the pilot project lay in covering up real estate over the Narmada canal with solar panels to simultaneously generate power and conserve water. It may be early days but the estimate is up to 90 lakh litres of water would be prevented from evaporating annually with this dual use of technology. This may be scratching the surface on the potential of distributed power generation with the many pilots across Gujarat on rooftop power generation that allow consumers to become produces of power by selling back energy into the grid.
At a time when shale reserves and renewables are spurring a global debate on the race towards energy independence it was puzzling that the strategic significance of Sir Creek did not find its way into the Gujarat election debate all these weeks. By taking a public stance on Sir Creek, Narendra Modi has sent two signals — one to Delhi and the other to his constituents in Gujarat, asking them to not throw away their votes out of casteist spite, for national interest is also at stake in this election.
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