Gwadar, now a city in Pakistan, was given to India in the 1950s

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party slammed the Congress party’s decision to hand over the strategic Kachathivu island to Sri Lanka in the 1970s, accusing the party of “undermining” the country’s integrity and interests. However, the rejection of the Gwadar City proposal was not well known and did not become part of the Indian political discourse. In 1958, before the city of Gwadar finally fell into Pakistani hands, the Sultan of Oman offered it to India, but it was rejected by the Indian government of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Commenting on the decision in a 2016 opinion piece, Brigadier General Gurmeet Kanwar (retd.) noted, “Not accepting the priceless gift from the Sultan of Oman was a huge mistake, along with a long list of post-independence strategic mistakes.”