Afghanistan - News and Discussion

ramana · 06-10-2009, 01:55 AM

From Pioneer, 10 June 2009

QUOTEEDITS | Wednesday, June 10, 2009 | Email | Print |

Dealing with Afghanistan

Ashok K Mehta

The Obama Administrationâs special envoy for AfPak Richard Holbrooke said last week in Islamabad that India had a legitimate role in providing stability to Afghanistan and the region and though he was not designated to India, he kept in constant touch with its officials. Such comments are bound to ruffle feathers in Islamabad where the establishment remains concerned about Indiaâs encirclement of Pakistan to negate its dated quest for strategic depth in Afghanistan. Some Afghans complain that New Delhi and Islamabad are using their soil to fight their battles adding insult and injury to a deeply divided country trapped between foreign forces and the Taliban.

The Taliban say that while Americans have the watches, they have the time. Mullah Omar, the elusive Taliban leader who âwants foreigners to leave Afghanistanâ, forgets that US-led Nato forces are in no hurry to leave the region even though âan exit policyâ is a political imperative of the new AfPak strategy. Afghans have begun to understand that sovereignty and decision-making will remain in the hands of outsiders who are both part of the problem and the solution. If they were to leave, their fear is that the Taliban would take over.

Without contiguous borders and a transit corridor through Pakistan, India realises the limits to what it can do in Afghanistan. New Delhi has always sought an India-friendly regime in Kabul and had supported the Northern Alliance in retention of a toe-hold in Badakshan, warding off Pakistan-backed Taliban assaults in the late-1990s. It was from this launch pad that the US-led forces rolled back the Taliban in 2001.Â <!--emo& Tongue

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' />

New Delhiâs strategic priorities are to ensure that the Talibanâs ideology and its brand of terror are not exported to India; there is no shade of the Taliban represented in the Government in Kabul; external interference is minimal; it can create space for access to central Asia and Afghans are able to stand on their own feet, recovering their strategic autonomy. In other words, making their own decisions.

The role India gets to play is circumscribed by Islamabadâs exaggerated fears of New Delhi and Kabul ganging up against its own legitimate interests, a concession that the US and the West make for Pakistanâs cooperation in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The recent Pakistani Army offensive in Malakand division has impressed the US and Pakistan will extract a price which could include seeking a further dilution of Indiaâs activities in Afghanistan.

India has been largely kept out of the political and security dynamics in Kabul â confined to development and reconstruction activities while maintaining a strong bilateral relationship with Afghanistan, employing its rich soft power. While India engages more than 30 countries in a strategic dialogue, strangely this does not include any SAARC country. India remains on listening watch as part of the wider regional contact group with a special envoy accredited to it.Â :?:

Pakistan has credited the four Indian consulates at Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Jalalabad and Kandahar, and the trade office in Khost, with surreal capacity for anti-Pakistan operations. The eight-man consulate in Kandahar, for example, is depicted as 800-strong, up to no good and fomenting insurgency in Baluchistan. Similarly, the Jalalabad consulate, which is also close to the Pakistani border, frequently hits the headlines and is on the Taliban-ISI hitlist, as are other Indian assets and projects inside Afghanistan. The suicide bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul last year, executed by the Taliban, an acknowledged ISI strategic asset, has not been forgotten.

Kabul recognises the centrality of New Delhi in its reconstruction and peace-building programme. Iran and Pakistan are the other two active regional players with Afghanistanâs Northern and Central Asian neighbours keeping a low profile. India is the sixth largest bilateral donor with $ 1.2 billion committed in numerous projects varying from building toilets to transmission lines spread across the country in all 27 provinces. The development projects are conceived by the Afghans with security being provided by them.

The Delaram-Zaranj blacktop road, the first in Nimroz province, was built by Indian Border Roads Organisations, 400 ITBP men providing close protection were guarded by 1,400 Afghan security personnel â 139 of them were killed protecting the Indians.

The development assistance programme, the largest outside India, is regarded a foreign policy success and falls into four categories: Humanitarian, infrastructure, small development projects and capacity-building. These include building medical missions, the Parliament building, transmission lines for electricity from Uzbekistan to Kabul, frequently called the capital of darkness, 50 small projects and providing training facilities for Afghan public services, scholarships for higher education, rehabilitation of war widows and much more.

Lack of land access is the biggest impediment to relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation work. Pakistan has refused passage to 100,000 tonnes of protein biscuits meant for school children and 250,000 tonnes of wheat to serve as Afghanistan strategic food reserve. This despite India meeting its condition of removing âMade in Indiaâ labels and allowing Pakistani trucks to carry the cargo. The alternative route, via Chabahar Port in Iran, involves 30 per cent time and cost overruns.

Although the Afghan Defence and Interior Ministries want Indian participation in these sectors, New Delhi keeps out in deference to Islamabadâs sensitivities. Instead of cooperating in Afghanistanâs development and even undertaking joint projects, India and Pakistan try cancelling each other out. Mistrust and suspicion are of high order. Both countries should discuss their legitimate interests, avoiding bitterness and conflict. There are 40 countries and 120 NGOs active inside Afghanistan but none as antagonistic to each other as India and Pakistan.

Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are conflict-ridden countries, stricken with terrorism and religious extremism that spills across to India, which, therefore, has a legitimate interest in the internal stability and security of both countries. As soon as the composite dialogue in whatever shape is resumed, a frank bilateral conversation on Afghanistan is of paramount importance.

Afghanistan has no bilateral dialogue mechanism with Pakistan. In 2007, during a Pakistan-Afghanistan summit in Islamabad, President Hamid Karzai provided a list of Afghan Taliban safe-houses in Quetta. But there was no action â for Pakistan, these were the âgoodâ Taliban. New Delhi, Islamabad and Kabul can find common ground for peace by collectively confronting the entire Taliban, good, bad and ugly.

For the present, Indiaâs strategic restraint in Afghanistan includes no boots on the ground, again not to rock relations with Pakistan. The western frontier astride the Durand Line and the Hindukush is the historical invasion route to New Delhi and its first line of defence. We should be looking at Paakpiya and Pakpika in Afghanistan, not Panipat.

Login




Remember me Lost Password?