Well, the first thing we should ask is whether something like the IMEC already exists. Governments love to make grand announcements that can sound dazzling and exciting. The connections between India, the Middle East and Europe date back millennia — as they do with other parts of Asia and Africa too. Certainly, massive new investment in infra, energy, transport and communications can, and will, help boost trade even further. But this is a proposed stimulus to something that already exists. The Middle East is already home to a large Indian diaspora, and there are very close trade ties already; the same with Europe.How will you compare this maritime route with the Silk Road that connected China?
These routes and corridors are and always have been abstract rather than concrete. Labels like ‘maritime route’ or ‘Silk Roads’ are used by historians and commentators as short-hand for exchanges of all kinds. Most serious scholars would argue that maritime and land routes are not distinct but part of a single ecosystem of ‘Silk Roads’.
Trying to suggest they are alternatives is something that has in part sprung from China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ — and the implication that there are two different sets of connections. I steer well away from that myself… I am also cagey of the current vogue of some Indian scholars to push a ‘maritime model’ that divorces Indian history from routes and connections to the north and the west is dangerous, especially in today’s increasingly toxic political debates.
More useful, I suppose, is to think about whether the point of IMEC in fact is not about evocations of the past, but a response to BRI — which is how it has been presented in many quarters. But even then, I’d push back: this is no ‘alternative’, as of course investments into IMEC will benefit China (and others) if they prove successful.
What are the lessons to be learnt from history for the IMEC?
First, it tells us to be suspicious of grandiose announcements. Second, we should be thinking clearly about who is financing what, on what terms, and where. Third, we should think about what is missing. How does India square IMEC with Chabahar, or with Iranian oil imports, for example, given Iran’s relations with the rest of the Gulf? How does Pakistan fit into this scheme… I am not pessimistic about IMEC, but fair to say that at the moment I am holding my breath rather than get carried away by hype.