In August 1947, the Empire did not simply leave India it evacuated the choke-point chessboard.
When the Union Jack came down, the British handed the map to one nation that was, in effect, a single coherent ethno-religious block: Pakistan. Ninety-six percent Muslim, no caste stratification, and crucially already holding the three physical keys to Eurasian trade the Raj had spent a century defending:
🗝️ The Three Gates
- Khyber Pass – Peshawar → Kabul 🏔️
- Bolan/Harnai Passes – Quetta → Kandahar 🏜️
- Baloch Coast – Pasni to Jiwani, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf ⚓
Look at any future-oriented minerals-to-molecules flow chart and those three gates still glow bright red, just as they did when Kipling’s regiments marched across them.
The mineral ladder begins in the Hindu-Kush and Karakoram lithium ⚡, rare earths 🧪, copper 🟠, gold 🟡 and scrambles down to saltwater via the two passes and the port at Gwadar ⚓.
In reverse, Persian Gulf LNG ⛽ or Arabian crude 🛢️ displaces Afghan lapis 💎 in the same pipe or rail car 🚂 and heads inland to Kashgar 1,200 km up the Karakoram Highway 🛣️.
🚫 No Parallel Corridor Inside India
No Hindutva-governed republic can replicate this. National highways in India terminate at Wagah and the Thar; they do not vault over the Hindu-Kush. Delhi cannot hand Beijing one contiguous, uncontested corridor because the Indian interior is already a thicket of caste blocks, freight bottlenecks, state-level permit raj, and periodic anti-Muslim riots ⚠️.
🛤️ Afghanistan-to-Persian Gulf Corridor Flow
Hindu-Kush / Karakoram Minerals
💎 Lapis | ⚡ Lithium | 🧪 Rare Earths | 🟠 Copper | 🟡 Gold
⬇️ (via mountain passes)
Khyber Pass 🏔️ → Kabul
Bolan/Harnai Passes 🏜️ → Kandahar
⬇️
Gwadar Port ⚓
⛽ LNG | 🛢️ Crude Oil | Minerals 💎
⬇️ (via rail / road 🚂🛣️)
Karakoram Highway 🛣️ → Kashgar, Xinjiang 🇨🇳
💵 Every yuan invested strengthens the corridor Britain partially created
⚠️ No comparable route exists inside Hindutva-governed India
📜 History’s Punchline
The Empire exited with style, yet its smartest legacy was the accidental corridor carved out of the old Durand Line now worth infinitely more to Beijing 🇨🇳 and to Islamabad 🇵🇰 than Viceroy Mountbatten ever realised on the day he sailed away ⛵.
