India needs to relook its Afghan policy
Comments by External Affairs Minister SM Krishna on the eve of the London [ Images ] conference on Afghanistan, that there is little difference between the "good" and the "bad" Taliban [ Images ], are a manifestation of the schizophrenic disconnect within the Indian establishment over its policy on Afghanistanand its neighbour, Pakistan.
Committing $ 1.2 bn in aid to Afghanistan, which makes India [ Images ] the sixth-largest donor in the world, has created an unprecedented space for manoeuvre in the Hindukush heartland. With projects in every district in Afghanistan, from electricity transmission lines to training women in the SEWA way, India's benign presence has been vindicated by a recent study commissioned by the BBC, ABC and ARD the British, American and German broadcasters, respectively which found that 71 per cent of the Afghan population was in favour of India playing a big role. And yet, SM Krishna threw it all away in London.
The tragedy is that even as Krishna spoke for the country in London, a change in India's mindset attitude, policy, strategy, call it what you willis already under way in Delhi [ Images ]. The establishment core in another part of South Block is preparing to "evolve" its own black-and-white positions on the Taliban and present a more "nuanced" approach to the global community.
The argument behind this significantly sophisticated approach is that India must return to playing a much bigger role in the ever-changing great game in the innards of Asia. Of course, oil and gas and all those crucial transit routes into central Asia over which Afghanistan sits, like a veritable Nandi bull, are terribly important.
Actually, this strategy is not new. It dates back to the first year of National Security Adviser Shiv Shanker Menon as foreign secretary in 2006-07, when the first ideas of distinguishing between the "good" and "bad" Taliban were floated around the corridors of South Block. Menon had just returned from Pakistan as high commissioner, all hell was breaking loose in the Af-Pak region, and that's when ideas beyond the realm of common thought and speech began to be articulated.
In fact, the evolution of India's strategy on Afghanistanwhich Krishna either missed in London or didn't want to talk aboutis really its first big strategic move on the international stage, in the wake of the Indo-US nuclear deal, and it's all about announcing that India is now part of the solution in Afghanistan.
Of course, all the western powers in London didn't want to discuss the parameters of such a "regional solution" in public glare, even though Gordon Brown [ Images ] had mooted the idea and US leaders like Hillary Clinton [ Images ], Robert Gates and Richard Holbrooke [ Images ] had confirmed it. All of them had told Delhi that they wanted India to play a bigger role, including training Afghan security forces.
Here is the western argument favouring India: Pakistan is playing fast and loose with the Afghan Taliban, Iran can't be trusted, China is too much of a competitor to also be allowed to win in Afghanistan, while Russia [ Images ] ... well, Russia is already a big power. That leaves India, a benign presence with both civilian and security capabilities, to upgrade its presence, so that the US and NATO forces can go home peacefully.
Except, the Pakistani veto hangs over the West. The Pakistani army and the ISI, which is playing such a crucial role in battling the Pakistani Taliban in the Swat and Malakand valleys and now in South Waziristan, have told the Americans that they would not tolerate an enhanced Indian influence in Pashtun areas like Kandahar and Jalalabad and in the rest of the country.
This is what explains Pakistan's oft-repeated statement that only Afghanistan's "contiguous neighbours" can be allowed to participate in any "regional" mechanism or structure that may be set up to help the Afghans take charge of their own future. (India, to counter this, has now begun saying that it is a neighbour as Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir [ Images ] hugs the Wakhan corridor.) That is why Turkey, under Pakistani pressure, did not invite India to participate in its day-long conference on Afghanistan in Istanbul on Monday (on the eve of the London conference). That is why several influential Pakistani analysts link a resolution of the Kashmir dispute with promises to the US that they will upgrade the fight against the Afghan Taliban.
So, with SSM now the new czar, will we see his ideas slowlo come into the picture and India begin to assert herself more in A'tan?
. Thats one of the reasons IMO as to why India is coy about drawing attention to how pupular it is with Afghans and how much TSP is hated. Once again TSP will do an equal equal and bring attention to how much India is hated by Kashmiri Muslims. TSP and its 3 and half friends have managed to bring in Kashmir alongside Af-Pak, putting India on the defensive. All India can do is keep quiet, do good work, compile dossiers, and sing aman ki aasha as TSP cocks a snook at India and satisfies its periodic India blood thrist by attacking Indian interests in Afganisthan or something more daring like Mumbai.
