India reaches out to
Afghanistan By Siddharth
Srivastava
NEW DELHI - It is the first
visit of an Indian head of government to
Afghanistan in 29 years. Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh made a historic touch down at Kabul on
Sunday for a two-day official visit. The last
visit to Kabul by an Indian prime minister was in
1976 when Indira Gandhi visited the country.
Manmohan's visit is a reminder of the concern that
India has about the situation in Afghanistan,
which includes curtailing the influence of
Pakistan, ensuring the country does not return to
fundamentalist control and hoping democracy takes
firm root in the country.
The Manmohan
visit comes despite Indian apprehension about his
personal security. The initial suggestion was to
keep the visit to one day with no overnight stay,
which Manmohan overruled thus making him the first
foreign head of state/government to visit the
country for more than a day since the Taliban
regime was ousted in 2001. An added interest has
been Rahul Gandhi, the son of
Congress leader Sonia
Gandhi and grandson of Indira, who accompanied
Manmohan. The move is being seen as another step
by Sonia in the grooming of her son as a future
leader of the country.
On Sunday, the two
countries signed three accords covering education,
healthcare and agricultural research in the
presence of Manmohan and Afghanistan President
Hamid Karzai. The two leaders called for a
regional effort to fight terrorism, saying
militancy can only be defeated with the help of
Pakistan. Manmohan handed over a famous school in
Kabul, rebuilt by India, and announced 1,000
Indian scholarships for Afghan students.
Addressing a joint news conference Karzai
said, "We welcome what India has done for
Afghanistan's reconstruction." Manmohan said,
"This is a special visit - India and Afghanistan
have centuries-old ties and I hope to make them
better."
Manmohan's visit also extends
India's support to parliamentary elections
scheduled for September 18 in Afghanistan. A
US-led coalition force of 23,000 troops is
currently in Afghanistan to help with security,
along with a separate North Atlantic Treaty
Organization-led force, which has been boosted to
more than 10,000 for the elections. Voting will
take place in an estimated 30,000 polling stations
in 5,000 locations throughout Afghanistan.
Karzai, who led the interim government
that replaced the Taliban, won the country's first
direct presidential election in October, with 8
million of Afghanistan's 11 million registered
voters taking part.
India-Afghanistan
since 2001 Economic and diplomatic
assistance from India figures high on Karzai's
agenda. The president is committed to the economic
recovery of Afghanistan. One indicator is the
value of the local currency, which is 42 afghanis
to a US dollar compared to 40,000 during the
Taliban rule five years back. Karzai has paid
three official visits to India, including one in
February, since he took over following the Bonn
Agreement of December, 2001. He has accepted one
more invitation extended by Manmohan.
The
president has repeatedly referred to the economic
opportunities that are opening up for India in
Central Asia, with Afghanistan acting as the "land
bridge" to the region. He has promised to help
India (and the rest of South Asia) by turning
Afghanistan into a transit point to Central Asia.
This is also reflected in the Manmohan visit, with
Afghanistan conveying its interest in seeking
closer links with the South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation. India for the first time
acknowledged this initiative in the joint
statement issued after the Karzai-Manmohan
meeting. In this context, India also officially
expressed an interest in the
Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas line,
which would be in addition to the
Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, necessary given the
enormous demand for energy.
India also
sees Afghanistan as a test case of its assertion
of itself as a donor nation willing to hand out
aid to countries in need and thus stamping its
presence as an economic powerhouse in the region.
India has extended a US$500-million package of
assistance to Afghanistan following the
transformation of the country's political
structure post-2001. Manmohan committed $50
million more during his visit. India has also
offered to construct the Pul-e-Kumri-Kabul section
of a power transmission line, which would be of
great help to Kabul, which is short of power. This
contribution is apart from humanitarian efforts
such as building hospitals and schools.
Afghanistan is a co-sponsor of the G-4
resolution, introduced by India, Brazil, Germany
and Japan, to increase the size of the UN Security
Council. The resolution has been shot down by
China, Russia and the US.
India-Afghanistan-Pakistan In
geostrategic terms, India has considerable
interest in Afghanistan's future. India wants to
keep tabs on as well as minimize the role of
Pakistan in the affairs of the nation to ensure
that a fundamentalist regime such as the erstwhile
Taliban controlled by Osama bin Laden and Mullah
Omar does not again take root. Remnants of the
Taliban are re-grouping with renewed attacks on US
troops stationed in the country.
India can
never forget or forgive the dubious role played by
the Taliban when Indian Airlines flight IC 814
with more than 180 on board was hijacked December
24, 1999 from Kathmandu in Nepal and routed to
Kandahar in Afghanistan. India had to literally go
down on its knees to meet the demands of the
hijackers, releasing the incarcerated Masood Azar,
the spiritual leader of the terrorist organization
Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Omar Sheikh, who later
killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
The Taliban allowed the hijackers and the released
terrorists to escape. It is strongly believed that
the hijackers could have been intercepted once
they left the aircraft. Recently, India announced
a new and tough hijack policy keeping in mind the
IC 814 experience.
Indeed, India believes
that any breeding area of radical Islam under the
aegis of Pakistan has a direct impact on the
security of India, including a rise in
infiltration of terrorists as well as attacks.
India is never comfortable with Pakistan's
influence or its relations with countries that can
be inimical to its own interests.
India
has every cause to worry. In the latest
revelations about clandestine nuclear transfers to
North Korea, Pakistan President General Pervez
Musharraf has for the first time said that
disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan provided
North Korea with centrifuges and their designs.
India has long held that Pakistan's military
program, including missiles capable of nuclear
delivery, has been secretly built and supported by
China and North Korea. In such a scenario the last
thing India would want is Afghanistan falling
apart again, then being propped up by Pakistan,
which has played the Pashtuns, the dominant
community, against the non-Pashtuns.
There
are also reports that suggest India is keen to
provide training to military officers and supply
military equipment to Afghanistan, but the US is
reluctant to allow India any leeway in this matter
as Pakistan may take umbrage to any such move.
Pakistan leads the US "war on terror" in its
western frontiers with Afghanistan where several
al-Qaeda cadres, including perhaps bin Laden, are
believed holed up.
It is, however, true
that India could do even more for Afghanistan's
reconstruction if Indian exports could be directly
routed to the country rather than the circuitous
journey via Iran.
Pakistan allows the
transit of Afghan goods to India over its
territory, but not vice versa, in its efforts to
check Indian influence in Afghanistan. Ahead of
Manmohan's Afghanistan visit, Pakistan Prime
Minister Shaukat Aziz said Islamabad would only
open the door for transit trade if progress is
made on the "core issue" of disputed Jammu and
Kashmir, which everyone knows will take plenty of
time to resolve. India thus hopes that the
construction of the Dilaram-Zaranj road will
provide direct access to the Iranian port of
Chabahar and a shorter route for Indian goods to
reach Afghanistan.
It is clear that India
will want to have a say in the future of
Afghanistan, despite Pakistan.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist.
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2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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