Indo-Afghan ties and Pakistan’s anxiety
A meeting between India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and Afghanistan’s foreign minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai, in January, is being scanned by Pakistan’s foreign policy experts to find out what exactly it means for their country and the rest of the region. One can read signs of worries in their writings and articulations. For them, it is a reversal of fortunes for all the investment Pakistan had done in its western neighbor. This is becoming more worrisome for them as there has been a dramatic and drastic drift in Islamabad-Kabul relations after August 2021.
Indeed these are testing times for Pakistan’s foreign policy; Afghanistan is of deep strategic interest to Pakistan. Afghanistan always sat as an area of strategic depth in its geopolitics. Pakistan also believes that it has done many favours to Afghanistan in the Cold War era, especially after the Soviet troops walked in. It had acted as a nerve center for sending “mujahedeen”, mobilized from various countries, including Saudi Arabia, to get Afghanistan “liberated from the Soviet Union”. It was indeed successful in doing so with the liberal military and financial aid from the United States of America.
The Soviet Union was a federation of republics established in 1922 and lasted till 1991. It had Russia and 14 other countries on its map and it collapsed in 1991, leading to the establishment in the Baltic and Central Asia. Its collapse was caused by the crushing defeat and retreat by the Russian troops from Afghanistan and Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms - perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness).
And second time, soon after the Cold War ended, it played a big but dubious role in Afghanistan after world’s biggest terror attack on the American soil on September 11, 2001. It sided with America’s war on terror, while kept funnelling American funds to the terrorists. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had written in London-based newspaper The Times that Gen. Musharraf had been diverting the American funds to terrorists in Afghanistan. Later that was substantiated by Donald Trump in his first term as President of the United States.
In his first tweet on January 1, 2018, President Trump had stated: “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies and deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools,” and he went on to add: They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”
Much has changed since. Americans were forced out of Afghanistan in most chaotic fashion by Taliban with active help of Pakistani army. This was the biggest stigma that former Joe Biden carried till the last day of his presidency.
A day after Taliban took control of Kabul, and then Pakistan PM Imran Khan had accused Americans of enslaving Afghans. “When you adopt someone’s culture you believe it to be superior and you end up becoming a slave to it. It is more difficult to free your mind from mental slavery. Afghans have broken shackles of slavery,” Imran had said in a tweet.
In the changed times today, Pakistan is accusing Afghan Taliban of patronizing and sheltering Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan ( TTP), which has been held responsible for a series of attacks on civilians and soldiers on Pakistani soil. It has accused Kabul of launching cross-border terror attacks on Pakistan through its proxy TTP. Afghan rulers have rebutted these charges, but the tensions have escalated. Pakistan army launched aerial strikes in Afghanistan in which Taliban claimed women and children were among the killed.
Amid all these troubles between Kabul and Islamabad, the meeting between Indian foreign Secretary and Afghanistan’s foreign minister has triggered a panic button in Pakistan as it is trying to decipher the political, and diplomatic meaning and consequences of the meet, though the Indian side had stated it very clearly on the day of meeting -January 8- itself that it was in the context of the bilateral relations. India had committed to the continuation of the humanitarian aid and development projects. India had also voiced its security concerns to which the Afghan side is reported to have stated that Kabul is sensitive to India’s security concerns.
According to MEA, the focus was on the humanitarian aid and restarting of the development activities it stated that, “in response to the needs of the Afghan people, India decided to extend humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan. India has so far dispatched several shipments consisting of 50,000 MTs of wheat, 300 tons of medicines, 27 tons of earthquake relief aid, 40,000 litres of pesticides, 100 million polio doses, 1.5 million doses of COVID Vaccine, 11,000 units of hygiene kits for the drug de-addiction programme, 500 units of winter clothing and 1.2 tons of stationery kits, etc.”
“In response to the request from the Afghan side, India will provide further material support in the first instance to the health sector and for the rehabilitation of refugees. The two sides also discussed strengthening of sports (cricket) cooperation, which is highly valued by the young generation of Afghanistan. It was also agreed to promote the use of Chabahar port for supporting trade and commercial activities, including for the purpose of humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan.”
India and Afghanistan have historical ties dating back to centuries. Pakistan, after it came into being tried to sow seeds of suspicion between Delhi and Kabul. This strategy worked to some extent when Afghanistan was under the Russian spell. India and Russia were considered as strategic partners, though India was not officially in the Soviet Bloc.
At one point in time, Afghanistan soil had become quite hostile. There is recorded evidence that some of the hardcore militants of various groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir were trained in Afghanistan, and some of the Afghans too were traversing mountains to fight in Kashmir. And, in December 1999, Afghan soil was used to exchange hostages of IC 814 for the trio of Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Zargar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. The trio was released was from Indian jails, two of them from J&K. Indian assets and personnel were targeted in Afghanistan during Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani rule.
Today, when Pakistan is engaged in an anti-Afghanistan rhetoric, Imran Khan’s August 16, 2021 statement brings out an ironical truth that Afghans have broken their shackles of slavery in reality. They have come out of the slavery of Pakistan’s establishment and are negotiating with foreign countries on their own, including China.
The dynamics of Afghan diplomacy have changed. They are not hostage to Pakistan for guiding their foreign policy. And now they have realised that who is the true friend of the Afghan people and who led them astray for more than four decades.