India-Afghan relations beyond Pakistan’s shadow
The upscaling of India's relations with Afghanistan is not sudden and Pakistan-centric. The 90-minute warm exchanges between Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and Afghan Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi last week in Dubai in the aftermath of the deteriorating Afghanistan-Pakistan relations were a coincidence.
The Afghan Foreign Office stated that the meeting conformed to its determination to strengthen political and economic ties with India "as a significant regional and economic partner." India is equally determined to continue to connect with Afghans and prevent the hiatus that existed from the mid-1990s to 2001 (during the factional warfare within the Mujahideen government and the rule of the Taliban) when the Indian embassy and consulates remained shut.
The Indian decision to step up India-Afghanistan relations is in line with India's progressive engagement with the Taliban. JP Singh, Indian government's point person for Afghanistan, pursued this periodically through contacts with the relevant Afghan authorities. Over time, both sides felt the need to expand their relations beyond humanitarian assistance from India in foodgrains, pesticides, vaccines, medicines and de-addiction and relief materials. Although the Taliban regime is non-inclusive and mistreats minorities and women, the law-and-order situation has improved and opium cultivation has almost gone. Isolating the Taliban is unlikely to moderate them.
The conspiracy-obsessed Pakistani social media is viewing the Dubai meeting as a plot hatched against it. Its commentators invariably see any growing closeness between India and Afghanistan as two sides of a nutcracker trying to crush Pakistan. They disregard India's stake in Afghanistan's stability, the traditional connection between Indians and Afghans and the Indian security consideration (to assure itself that Afghan territory is not used by terrorist groups against India). India meets its strategic objective if Afghanistan can stand on its feet and make its own decisions.
The establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan led to triumphalism in Pakistan. The Taliban bristles at the suggestion that it is a Pakistani puppet. The Pakistani euphoria has since turned to disquiet because of the refusal of the Taliban leadership to accept its tutelage. To pressure the Taliban, Pakistan has pushed back Afghan refugees at a time when the authorities in Kabul cannot handle the numbers. Pakistani actions have resulted in unfriendly relations with three of its five neighbours — Afghanistan, India and Iran.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif described the recent Pakistani cross-border military strikes as a "teeth-breaking response" to the Taliban's perceived non-cooperation in curbing the activities of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. Besides, Pakistan has a grudge against the Afghan refusal to acknowledge the Durand Line as the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Following border skirmishes between the two, Pakistani aerial bombardment of 83 locations in Afghanistan led to many civilian deaths, including women and children. The Pakistani punitive strikes have been "unequivocally" condemned by the Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson.
The former army chief of Pakistan, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, altered the erstwhile Pakistani idea of establishing 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan — propounded by one of his distant predecessors, General Mirza Aslam Beg — by qualifying that Pakistan should do so without control over Afghanistan.
The Pakistani establishment has done the opposite — not just eschewing the quest for control but also engaging in aggression against Afghanistan. No wonder, the Afghan reaction is fierce. Acting Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai reminded Pakistan that though Pakistan had named its missiles Ghaznavi, Abdali and Babur, it should remember that Afghanistan had many Ghaznavis, Abdalis and Baburs equal to atomic bombs.
Afghanistan seeks recognition and increased economic interaction with the rest of the world. No country has recognised the Islamic Emirate, though 40 countries engage with it in various ways. Unlike China, which has accepted an ambassador sent by the Islamic Emirate and sent its ambassador to Kabul, India continues with the arrangement of maintaining a technical unit in its Kabul Embassy and interacting with the Afghan mission in New Delhi, headed currently by a chargé d'affaires who was an appointee of former President Ashraf Ghani. Most other Afghan diplomats in India have since taken asylum in western countries.
The absence of adequate staff hampered work in the Afghan diplomatic offices in India. The Ministry of External Affairs facilitated the selection of an official in the Afghan consulate in Mumbai. The person appointed has studied in India for eight years under the scholarship scheme of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations and obtained a PhD degree. The tricolour of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan still flies atop the Afghan diplomatic representation in India. After all, Afghan officials, including ministers, travel abroad on the Republic passports and the Afghan cricket team plays with the Republic colours.
A distinguishing feature of the erstwhile Indian development partnership with Afghanistan was that India sought Afghan priorities and proceeded with those it could practically accomplish. The Indian readout of the Dubai meeting highlighted four areas of cooperation: material support for the health sector and the rehabilitation of refugees, strengthening sports (cricketing) links and the increased use of the Chabahar Port for trade and commercial activities.
Besides, India is ready to resume development activities. It could begin by restarting the unfinished projects and maintaining and upgrading the executed projects. At the Afghan request, India recently sent a technical team to inspect the Hari Rud Friendship dam in Herat.
India has restarted scholarships and technical training activities remotely. Of the 1,000 scholarships offered to Afghan students for online courses in Indian universities, 30 per cent have gone to girls. If possible, this could go up to 50 per cent. The Taliban is seeking a more liberal grant of Indian visas for Afghans. There has been an incremental increase in medical and business visas. These need boosting to keep up active people-to-people exchanges.
When Indian visa officials in the past tried to dissuade Afghan medical visa seekers from going to Delhi and proceed to Peshawar instead to save cost, the invariable response was that they had no aitbar (trust) in Pakistan. India must liberalise its visa regime to refresh the Afghan trust in India.