30 April 2015
The incumbent Afghan President may be more pro-Pakistan than his predecessor, but even India acknowledges that there can be no peace in Afghanistan without Pakistani support. Also, where India cannot help militarily, it should make up with economic and political support
In the run-up to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s maiden trip to this country, which concluded on April 29, the big question was: Has India lost Afghanistan? President Ghani was coming to India a full six months after he had taken office, during which time he had already visited the US, China, Iran and, importantly, made not one but two trips to Pakistan. Also, unlike his predecessor Hamid Karzai or, for that matter, even his Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah, Mr Ghani neither has close personal ties with India nor had he previously expressed any special interest in or support for India’s role in Afghanistan.
As such, a revision in Kabul’s foreign policy priorities was expected, and this was not just with regard to India. For example, the Ghani-Abdullah administration is nowhere close to being as anti-America, as Mr Karzai had been, particularly in the later years of his presidency. However, what came as somewhat of an unpleasant surprise for India was the extent to which Mr Ghani was tilting towards Pakistan.
Not only did he visit Pakistan twice, he broke protocol during his first trip to meet with Pakistani Army chief Raheel Sharif in Rawalpindi, and later dispatched his own Army chief to attend the graduation ceremony at the Pakistani military academy in Kabul. He also sent a handful of Afghan cadets to train in Pakistan for train and handed over a Pakistani Taliban leader to Islamabad. These were largely symbolic gestures but what caused real concern in India’s strategic circles was Mr Ghani’s effective cancellation of all of his predecessor’s military aid requests from India.
During the Karzai years, Afghanistan had repeatedly requested India for weapons, but India, not wanting to upset Pakistan, had turned down those requests. This flawed policy has now changed, thankfully, but even then, delivery from the Indian side has been excruciatingly slow. For example, the three helicopters given to Afghanistan, days before Mr Ghani’s visit, were promised almost a year ago.
Also, there have been reports that during his India visit, President Ghani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed a refurbished military aid pact. Although no official papers have been signed in this regard, this is welcome news, nonetheless.
It is important to understand that Mr Ghani’s outreach to Pakistan is driven by practical considerations. One of his biggest priorities at the moment is ensuring Afghan security and, simply put, this will not be possible without Pakistani cooperation. In its perennial quest for that elusive ‘strategic depth’ against India, Pakistan continues to foment trouble and terror in Afghanistan and, unless it changes this policy, it will be enormously difficult to secure a durable peace in Afghanistan. There’s little that India can do in this regard, given that it does not even share a land border with Afghanistan.
Specifically, Mr Ghani is looking to Pakistan for help with bringing the Afghan Taliban, officially led by Mullah Omar’s Quetta shura, to the negotiating table. Even after 13 years of war, the Afghan Taliban are very much a force to reckon with — and since it has not been defeated militarily, it will have to be integrated politically (although, in reality, a lasting solution will include a both elements).
Unfortunately, neither Mr Ghani nor Mr Karzai before him has had much success. Several factors have impeded the peace process. One, Pakistan has routinely put a spanner in the works; two, the Taliban see no reason to compromise and is just waiting out the withdrawal of foreign troops; three, the Taliban are not a homogenous group but an umbrella organisation that covers different outfits with similar ideologies and these outfits do not always agree with each other on how best to negotiate with Government forces. None of these factors will change overnight — in fact, the situation will become even more rigid after the few thousand US forces, currently in Afghanistan, leave by 2017, as US President Barack Obama has promised.
There is, however, a small window of opportunity between now and 2017. If the Afghan Army, with the help of US forces, can break the military stalemate (currently both parties are strong enough to hold on to their turfs but can’t take territory from the other) and change the power equation on the ground, then President Ghani can force the Taliban to the negotiating table. But, there are no indications yet of such a shift in position.
There is a new player in the mix: China, which has recently offered to facilitate talks with the Taliban. Though China has traditionally stayed away from such diplomacy, this time, it has stepped in because of the growing unrest in it Xinjiang Province, which has a large Muslim Uyghur population. Militants from Pakistan are stirring the pot in Xinjiang and China, understandably, would like to nip the problem in the bud. However, it is unclear how much direct access China has to the Taliban. If it hopes to pressure Pakistan into bringing the Taliban on board, even then it is a weak plan, because Pakistan’s influence on the Taliban is not full and complete either.
So, where does India fit into all this?
Since India does not have deep or wide-ranging ties with the Taliban, any peace process will require Pakistan’s blessings. India can help the Afghan forces militarily — and this is where we should hope to see more cooperation. Up until now, military help has been mostly about training Afghan soldiers and some intelligence sharing. These are important but not enough. There is now talk of more weapons support, although having Indian boots on the ground is out of the picture.
Still, there is reason to hope that under the Modi Government, there will be a more forceful and determined Indian policy in Afghanistan, not just with regard to military aid but also on the economic front. India is Afghanistan’s largest regional donor and has made significant investment in its infrastructure and capacity-building sectors. These connections need to be furthered, also through the Chabahar port project in Iran, which will give us unfettered access to Afghanistan.
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