Maps show why India’s ‘role’ may be key to BRI’s success

A random selection of maps available on Google and on China’s largest search engine, Baidu, of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which is deemed as the new Silk Route, hints at how the repeated marking of Kolkata on several maps of BRI drawn by different countries, see India’s attendance at BRI crucial, though the Indian government has been at odds with it.

These visual presentations also reflect the perception around BRI that China and Russia are central to the project and how cities and not countries are expected to play a crucial role. A BRI map available on Baidu and labelled in Mandarin, marks several port cities, but the only countries that are marked are China and Russia, thus leading to the speculation that BRI is seen as a project which is expected to have only two countries as central players. However, Marina Kaneti, a China-India Fellow, Leaders Initiative, the New School, New York, is of the view that this type of labelling can also hint towards China’s willingness to let other countries have a say in BRI. “Even though BRI was envisioned by China, China is open to involvement of other countries on it and maybe some kind of entity with different representations can overlook operations of BRI,” Kaneti said.

While there are mostly one or two countries marked on this selection of BRI maps, cities seen as crucial to BRI are specifically marked. Since these selected maps are drawn by people from the across the world i.e. from Germany, United States, China etc., marking of cities over countries in most of them reflect the importance of cities over countries. Kaneti said, “The people who have been involved in carving down these maps perhaps have tried to emphasise that cities will play a bigger role than the countries since only specific cities have been marked on the maps. The message can be that for BRI to become a success, cities must be deeply involved.” In a map popularly used in Chinese media, a total of 27 cities are marked on the map that showcases the route of BRI. These cities starting from China are X’ian, Lanzhou, Urumqi, Huoerguosi, Almaty, Bishkek, Samarkand, Dushanbe, Tehran, Istanbul, Moscow, Dutsberg, Rotterdam, Venice, Athens, Nairobi, Kolkata, Colombo, Jakarta, Kuala Lampur, Hanoi, Haikou, Belhai, Zhangjiang, Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Fuzhou. Several such maps of BRI from Chinese and non-Chinese sources only feature Kolkata and not any other city in India as an anticipated part of BRI. Kaneti said: “It is interesting to see an Indian city prominently featured on BRI maps, but I do not think that there is a single answer to ‘why Kolkata?’ It can be because Kolkata has historically been a crucial trading centre in India or because of the past warm relationship that Kolkata and China shared.” In the 1800s and early 1900s, Chinese labourers had migrated to Kolkata to work in sugar refineries since India was a huge producer of sugar which was extracted out of sugarcanes, but Chinese excelled in the art of refining the brown lumps into white crystals. While the Indian government had to spend only Re 1 as legal fees to save the life of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, the Pakistan government has already spent 200 million Pakistani rupee (close to Rs 11.5 crore) to make sure that Jadhav is proven a spy, as the neighbouring country claims. The Indian government paid Re 1 to lawyer Harish Salve for putting across India’s arguments at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Hague.

As per the latest budget documents submitted by the Pakistan government in National Assembly, it has till now provided Rs 200 million to lawyer Khawar Qureshi, who is arguing for Pakistan at the ICJ in Hague. This figure, when read in the context of Pakistan’s budgetary allocation to other heads, gives an indication of how much Pakistan is desperate to execute Kulbhushan. In the 2016 federal budget, the money that it had allocated to “fire protection” was Rs 183 million, Rs 38 million for prison administration, and Rs 31 million on research and development related to public order and safety. Qureshi, who is a 1990 law graduate from Cambridge University, has the distinction of being the youngest advocate to appear before the ICJ and has been the standing counsel for the British government. The fact that Salve, former Solicitor General of India, was charging only Re 1 for the Kulbhushan case was disclosed by Minister for External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, on Twitter in May last year.

The Pakistan government is facing a lot of public criticism for expenditure overruns and last week it sought Rs 600 billion supplementary grants for expenditure overruns and re-appropriations which include the fees that were paid for Kulbhushan Jadhav, an unexplained expenditure of Rs 4.3 billion for the ISI to “accomplish a special assignment” and Rs 21 million for public diplomacy initiative in Washington. The hearing on the Kulbhushan case is likely to begin in the ICJ in January next year. Despite the Centre’s massive electrification drive, the electrification of households is still lagging behind the ambitious 100% target set by the Narendra Modi government in several states, including Jharkhand, Assam, Odisha, Bihar, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura, according to data of the Ministry of Power.

According to the government’s own data on the electrification of households, the states that are behind the target include Jharkhand (47% electrified), Assam (55%), Odisha (63%), Bihar ( 73%), Rajasthan ( 79%), Arunachal Pradesh (65%), and Tripura (72%).

Recently, the Centre’s announcement of achievement of 100% electrification of villages across the country came under attack from Opposition leaders who blamed the Centre of misleading the country. However, as per data of the Ministry of Power, 83% villages have been electrified till date and the government’s claim was not for the household electrification target.

As per the definition of electrification adopted by the Ministry of Power since 1997, a village is deemed to be electrified if basic infrastructure such as a distribution transformer and distribution lines are in place in the inhabited local- ity, electricity is provided to public places like schools, panchayat offices, health centres, dispensaries, community centres, and at least 10% of the households in the village are electrified.

The record of growth in electrification has been remarkably good since the Narendra Modi government came to the power, but the electrification has been limited to the installation of electric towers and connection to public buildings in a village.

At present, the Ministry of Power is connecting 30,000 households daily with electricity, but to achieve the 100% target of electrification of households, the ministry will need to work four times faster and will have to connect 1,33,000 households daily with electricity.

The data of the Ministry of Power also says that almost 3 crore households are living under darkness due to the lack of electricity connections.

To accelerate the electrification work in the country, a new scheme, Saubhagya, was launched last year by

States that are behind the target include Jharkhand, Assam, Odisha, Bihar, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura .