Oman offered to sell Gwadar, then a small fishing village, to India in the 1950s. The government led by Jawaharlal Nehru declined the offer, and Pakistan in 1958 bought it for three million pounds. This is the story of how Gwadar, now a strategic port, could have been India’s and why Nehru might have turned down the offer. The prized Pakistani port city of Gwadar was just a little sleepy town of fishermen and traders until the Chinese ‘blessed’ it.
The hammer-shaped fishing village now houses Pakistan’s third-largest port, a tainted Chinese gift. Gwadar, however, wasn’t always with Pakistan. It was under Omani rule for almost 200 years, until the 1950s. Before Gwadar finally ended up in Pakistani possession in 1958, it was actually offered to India, which the Indian government under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru declined.
Gwadar had been in the possession of the Sultan of Oman, since 1783. The upcoming Lok Sabha polls recently brought back one of India’s strategic ‘blunders’, the handover of Katchatheevu island to Sri Lanka.
The allegation thrown by the BJP at the Congress, of undermining India’s territorial interests in the case of Katchatheevu, follows a series of previous allegations. However, unlike the Kashmir “blunder”, the “acceptance of Tibet as a part of China” (1953 and 2003) and the Katchatheevu giveaway (1974), the turning down of the Gwadar offer isn’t common knowledge and hasn’t become part of India’s political discourse.
“Not accepting the priceless gift from the Sultan of Oman was a huge mistake at par with the long list of post-Independence strategic blunders,” Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd) noted in a 2016 opinion piece ‘The historic blunder of India no one talks about’.
This story of Gwadar changing hands multiple times, gives rise to some obvious questions. How did a small fishing town end up with the Omani Sultan, across the narrow Gulf of Oman? Why did the Government of India, with Jawaharlal Nehru at its helm, decline to accept the port town? What would have happened had India taken possession of Gwadar in 1956?
How Oman Got Possession Of Gwadar
Located on the Makran coast of Pakistan’s Balochistan province, Gwadar first came into Omani possession in 1783. The Khan of Kalat, Mir Noori Naseer Khan Baloch, gifted the area to Muscat’s prince, Sultan bin Ahmad.
“Both prince Sultan and the Khan of Kalat had an understanding that if the prince ascended the throne of Oman, he would return Gwadar to the latter,” Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, the South Asia head of Eurasia Group, tells IndiaToday.In.
The city’s notable landmark, the Omani Qila, and some buildings in the Shahi Bazar are surviving imprints of Omani rule in the region. Peshukan and Sur Bander, two other fishing villages adjoining Gwadar on the Pakistani coast, were also in Omani possession.
Sultan Bin Ahmad kept Gwadar as his base for raids on Arabia, across the coast, until 1792, till he got hold of what he was eyeing for, the throne of Muscat.
But, Gwadar was not returned to the Khan’s Khanate, breeding a thorn of contention between the two. There were further proposals between 1895 and 1904, both by the Khan of Kalat and the Government of (British) India to purchase Gwadar from the Omanis, but no decision was reached, according to archivist Martin Woodward’s article ‘Gwadar: The Sultan’s Possession’.
From 1763, Gwadar was administered by a British assistant political agent, but the Khan of Kalat frequently demanded Gwadar be handed over to him amid indications of oil reserves in the region. In the meantime, the Sultan of Oman also kept negotiating with the British about the potential handover, in lieu of military and financial help against rebels, according to the letters of correspondence between the two.
Notably, it was the same Kalat Khanate that ruled Balochistan, until it was annexed by the newly independent Pakistan, under Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in March 1948. “Most of Balochistan was absorbed by Pakistan in 1948 but the coastal strip around Gwadar, called Makran, did not accede until 1952,” Pramit Pal Chaudhuri tells IndiaToday.In. Gwadar still remained outside Pakistani control.
When Oman Offered To Sell Gwadar To India
It was at this juncture that the Sultan of Oman extended the offer of sale to India – a deal, if done, could have altered the South Asian geopolitical dynamics and history.
“According to private conversations with two Indian diplomats who were familiar with the records, the Sultan of Oman offered Gwadar to Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru,” Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, a former member of the National Security Advisory Board, tells IndiaToday.In.
“After Independence, according to the diplomatic community grapevine, Gwadar was administered by India on behalf of the Sultan of Oman as the two countries enjoyed excellent relations,” wrote Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd), in his 2016 piece. “I believe the offer came in 1956. Jawaharlal Nehru turned it down and in 1958, Oman sold Gwadar to Pakistan for 3 million pounds,” adds Pramit Pal Chaudhuri.
This offer was probably made verbally, according to Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd). “The National Archives has documents and some newspaper articles on the Gwadar debate, but the views of the Indian officials are redacted,” says Pramit Pal Chaudhuri.
In fact, India’s Jain community was interested in purchasing Gwadar from Oman. “Declassified documents by the British government reveal that the Jain community in India also offered to purchase Gwadar. The Jain community possessed great wealth and could offer a good price,” wrote Azhar Ahmad in his paper ‘Gwadar: A Historical Kaleidoscope’.
“In 1958, after learning that the Indians were also trying to purchase Gwadar, the government of Pakistan intensified its efforts and succeeded in concluding an agreement with the British government on August 1, 1958,” added Azhar, based on a 2016 conversation with Akram Zaki, Pakistan’s former secretary general of foreign affairs who served as an ambassador to China and the United States.
Gwadar was transferred from Oman to British control, subsequently passing to Pakistan. Given the historical involvement of the British in the correspondence between the Khan of Kalat (under British suzerainty) and the Omanis, the British acted as intermediaries in the handover. Even though the British let go its colonies, they had their presence in the region to counter the Soviets.
Why Nehru Didn’t Want To Purchase Gwadar
However, then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru did not reach the decision to reject the Omani offer of Gwadar by himself. The decision to reject the Omani offer was dictated by the circumstances too. “The then Foreign Secretary, Subimal Dutt and probably the Indian Intelligence Bureau chief, B N Mullick, recommended against accepting the Sultan’s offer,” national security expert Pramit Pal Chaudhuri tells IndiaToday.In.
Had Nehru accepted and bought Gwadar, it would have been an Indian enclave in Pakistan without any land access. The situation would have been similar to what Pakistan faced logistically with East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
“The argument was that Gwadar was indefensible from any attack by Pakistan. Given Nehru was still hoping to work out an amiable relationship with Pakistan, having an enclave like Gwadar was probably seen as a pointless provocation,” explains Pramit Pal Chaudhuri.
Today, almost 65 years later, the decline of the “priceless gift from the Sultan of Oman”, might look like a diplomatic blunder, while others might be of the notion that it was a nuanced and pragmatic thing to do at that point in time. Debates apart, what did India let go of? Probably not just the hammer-shaped hamlet of fishermen.
The Strategic Importance Of Hammer-Shaped Gwadar
Gwadar, the strategic port overlooking the Gulf of Oman, has long piqued the interest of global powers. Pakistan had long been surveying Gwadar to develop it as a deepwater port, but it finally became a reality only in 2008. Gwadar’s metamorphosis to a strategic linchpin was a result of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The Chinese were looking to bypass the Strait of Malacca, which China uses for 80% of its energy imports. To overcome the vulnerable chokepoint at Malacca, it came up with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).The “Crown Jewel” of Gwadar, thus, emerged as the cornerstone of the CPEC, whose rail lines and motorways would start at Gwadar, traverse Pakistan upwards north to reach Kashgar in China’s Xingiang.
The CPEC has been vehemently opposed by India as it passes through Indian territory that Pakistan has illegally occupied. The $45.6-billion infrastructure and energy project, since 2015, has, however, been marred by incomplete projects and protests by the Balochis.
“The windfall infrastructure ‘Game Changer’ boom (Gwadar) has so far robbed many of Balochi livelihoods,” notes Patial RC, a retired Indian Army officer in a 2023 ‘EurasiaReview’ opinion piece.
“Despite the top leadership from both countries getting involved to keep things on track, it all (the CEPC) appears to be going slow,” added Patial RC, involved in counter-insurgency operations in Sri Lanka.
The people of Balochistan, where Gwadar is located, see the CPEC as another attempt by Pakistan, aided by China, to extract the mineral wealth of Pakistan’s poorest province without developing it.
That is why Gwadar and its Chinese assets have seen widespread attacks in the recent past by Balochi insurgents and separatists. Voilent attacks on Pakistani and Chinese assets have seen an uptick in recent years. The Chabahar port in Iran, less than 200 km to Gwadar’s west, was thus developed by India to counter the Chinese presence in the region.
Through the Chabahar port and the Zaranj-Delaram Highway, India intended to connect to Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics (the stans), given Pakistan, China and the mighty Himalayas come in the way of a land trade route.
What If Nehru Hadn’t Rejected The Gwadar Ofer?
This brings us to a more important question. If India under Jawaharlal Nehru had accepted it, had Gwadar yielded any favourable outcomes for India’s strategic and economic interests? “If India had bought Gwadar from Oman, it would have been defensible but for only a short period of time,” Pramit Pal Chaudhuri tells IndiaToday.In.
Gwadar’s geography and topography, though strategic, are also its Achilles’ Heel. Gwadar rests upon a promontory resembling a hammer, linked by a thin isthmus (800 metres wide) to the mainland, obstructing military access.
“The city would need to be supplied by sea or air, which would have been difficult for India at the time,” says Chaudhuri. However, national security expert Pramit Pal Chaudhuri believes that the “enclave would have been more useful as a diplomatic bargaining chip over a more important dispute like Kashmir”. “Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” sang Lily Williams.
The decision to reject the Omani offer of Gwadar was taken, keeping the realities of that time in mind. Today, Gwadar is on a list like Katchatheevu, just that it is not discussed at all.