The biggest obstacle to a broad framework for peace in Afghanistan will be Rawalpindi. Meanwhile, India could take the lead towards ensuring non-interference and economic development via a regional process
Periodically, questions are asked on the political dividend gained by India from its economic aid worth two billion dollars to Afghanistan over the last decade and would it not have been wiser for the investment to have been made in Nepal or Sri lankaIJ The question is even more relevant today, given the sizeable strategic shift from India in President Ashraf Ghani’s foreign policy.
With Pakistan, there is a visible transformation in relations: From former President Hamid Karzai’s policy of animosity to Mr Ghani’s one of amity. This is god-send for Islamabad which has tried strenuously to turn relations around with Kabul. Mr Ghani’s other foreign policy objective is to delay the withdrawal of the US and foreign forces from Afghanistan. Improved relations with Pakistan will depend upon how and when, Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif will deliver the Afghan Taliban for the reconciliation and peace process and ceasing cross-border terrorism.
By any yardstick, the foe-to-friend re-orientation will likely marginalise India in Mr Ghani’s strategic calculus in which the once firm ally, New Delhi, was relegated to the outer rings of a five-circle foreign policy. Sensing this change, India has gone slow on its development assistance and is currently in wait and watch mode.
The recent remarks of Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit at Kolkata that Afghanistan-Pakistan relations were improving in a constructive way are welcome. As convenor of the India-Afghanistan Policy Group which contributed to the Afghan-scripted Friedrich Ebert Stiftung paper titled, Afghanistan’s Region: 2014 and Beyond, we recommended in 2013, the immediate need to establish a permanent national-level multi-disciplinary Afghanistan-Pakistan Joint Experts Working Group to remove the causes of the trust deficit. Incidentally, a copy of this report was seen by Mr Ghani and certain confidence-building measures have been taken by both sides. Mr Basit’s other notable comment at Kolkata was: “We are not against India-Afghanistan relations as these will complement Pakistan-Afghanistan relations.” If this is indeed true, it marks a departure from the Pakistan Army’s previous stance that India has no business to be in Afghanistan.
After the July 2007 Saarc summit in Thimpu, former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir held preliminary talks on Afghanistan and agreed to the need of starting an institutionalised dialogue on Afghanistan. A Track II dialogue on Afghanistan had already started the previous year and a trilateral India-Pakistan-Afghanistan commenced in 2008, a natural corollary to the two parallel dialogues Mr Basit has mentioned. Unfortunately the idea of dialogue was shot down by the Pakistan Army, on the ground that any formal conversation would “legitimise” India’s role in Afghanistan. Apparently Mr Basit had not run his script past GHQ Rawalpindi.
Pakistan’s concerns in Afghanistan are old wine in old bottles. Combating the fear of Indian encirclement by acquiring strategic depth is a concept coined by the former Army chief, Gen Mirza Aslam Beg. The civilian Government’s current interpretation of strategic depth is a friendly Government in Kabul next, of course, to the unachievable return of the Taliban. At present, Islamabad wants a broad-based inclusive and democratically elected Government.
Similar to the employment of jihadi tribal raiders in Kashmir since 1947, Pakistan has been needling Afghanistan since the 1950s to maintain pressure on its western front with an eye on keeping dormant the unsettled border along the Durand line. No Government in Kabul, not even the Taliban Supreme leader Mullah Omar, whose pictorial biography was released earlier this month, has accepted the Durand line.
Against India’s role in Afghanistan, Islamabad has been raising other fanciful issues: Covert activities of its consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad (ISI chief lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar would give his right arm to have them closed); New Delhi’s military assistance to the TTP and anti-nationals in Balochistan and other inimical cross-border activities. It is likely that these complaints have been lodged with the new Government in Kabul sans evidence.
Mr Ghani has reached out to Pakistan, even calling on Gen Sharif in Rawalpindi, an indignity that went down badly with members of the Karzai regime. Mr Karzai has warned that Afghanistan is in danger of slipping under Pakistan’s hand. Mr Ghani has also closed the chapter on seeking arms from India. While Mr Karzai gave India an exaggerated sense of importance, New Delhi’s Afghanistan policy was largely conditioned by Washington — the bottom line being it should not antagonise Islamabad. The West has looked at India through the Pakistan prism even as the host country encouraged it to do more on the security side, which it did not.
The impressive economic development package coupled with several hearts-and minds-winning soft power initiatives earned for India huge goodwill and popularity, but little political influence. Former chief of Afghanistan Intelligence, Amrullah Saleh recently encapsulated India-Afghanistan relations: “India makes no conditionalities...for what it does for us. It is like Bollywood.” It is this foreign policy lacuna that has got embedded without any immediate prospect of redemption. India should have proactively deployed, at some risk, a comprehensive training team and a field hospital in Kabul. The door is closed for the moment.
In my previous column, I had said that a meaningful reconciliation and peace process was a pipe dream. Still, Mr Ghani has decided to give it a try. A likely Plan B is contained in the post-2014 Afghanistan paper which recommends a UN-brokered mechanism for non-interference in Afghanistan, endorsed by P5 members and backed by a monitoring mission, ultimately leading to Enduring Neutrality. Afghanistan has had a strong tradition and culture of neutrality, which is required after endless foreign intrusions and wars.
The grand bargain with Pakistan will entail Islamabad ending support for the Afghan Taliban, non-interference in Afghanistan by Pakistan and providing a land corridor through Balochistan to the sea for Kabul accepting the Durand line. Pakistan will benefit manifold: Reduce a two-front situation to one front; neutralise the TTP in Afghanistan ; eliminate the danger of any Pushtoon nationalism; ensure better US-Pakistan relations following break with the Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups; prevent the creation of a failed state on the border with attendant threats of refugees, drug trafficking etc.
This is a broad framework for the grand bargain to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. Its biggest obstacle though, will be GHQ, Rawalpindi. Meanwhile India could take the lead towards ensuring non-interference and economic development in Afghanistan via a regional process.