Harsh V. Pant - Indias Afghan Muddle

INDIAS
AFGHAN
MUDDLE

A Lost Opportunity

HARSH V. PANT

HarperCollins Publishers India

For
Vaidehi

Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, I told you so.
Lord Byron

CONTENTS

The past is never dead. Its not even past.

William Faulkner

THE RISE OF NARENDRA MODI to the office of Indian prime minister represents a decisive break from the politics of the past. As the new government took office under his prime ministership, one of the first decisions it took was of inviting the member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) for his swearing-in ceremony. The decision was a surprise but was widely viewed as a great move, underscoring the resolve of the new government to embed India firmly within the South Asian regional matrix. It also underlined that even though Modis priorities would be largely domestic, foreign policy would continue to receive due attention. Modi also immediately set for himself a frenetic pace of international travel for the remainder of 2014, covering countries as diverse as Bhutan, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Nepal and those in South-East Asia.

A focus on South Asia emerged as a central strand of the new governments foreign policy priorities. Modi visited Bhutan in June 2014 in what was his first trip abroad after being sworn in as the prime ministernot only because he wanted to develop strong economic linkages among Indias neighbours but also to check Thimphus gravitation towards Beijing. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj visited Dhaka the same month, choosing Bangladesh for her first stand-alone foreign visit since assuming office. She hosted Sri Lankan foreign minister and followed it up with a visit to Nepal a month later. The fact that all of Indias neighbours in South Asia and the wider Asian region reached out to Modi was a good start for the new government.

There were numerous challenges on the foreign policy front before the new governmentranging from managing the power transition in the Indo-Pacific region with the rapid rise of China to re-imagining the contours of a robust strategic partnership with the US. But one of the most immediate challenges arose from the decision of US President Barack Obama to completely withdraw his forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, starting 2014. It was hardly surprising then that in their first briefing for the new government in June 2014, Indian intelligence agencies highlighted the withdrawal of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces from Afghanistan as one of the biggest challenges confronting Indian counter-terror strategy in the coming years, arguing that it would increase terrorism and extremists infiltration attempts along the Pakistani border.

Days before Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs visit to attend Modis oath-taking ceremony on 26 May, the Indian consulate in Herat, western Afghanistan, was attacked by militants belonging to the Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT). This was the eighth attack on Indian missions and mission personnel in Afghanistan, all of them executed by the Haqqani Network or the LeT in league with Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

There are clear dangers of the regional security situation unravelling as Western forces depart from South Asia. Afghanistan aside, even Pakistans future is at stake, with violence now rampant in Pakistani cities in tandem with the growing strength of the Taliban insurgency. By striking a Faustian bargain with the Taliban, Pakistani military and intelligence services have created a force that is now attacking their own citizens. New Delhi will have to assert its role in ensuring regional stability.

Even as Indian security challenges intensify with the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan, the Modi government will have an opportunity to reshape the contours of Indias Afghan policy at a time when Afghanistan is also undergoing political transition, providing new opportunities to both states. The year 2014 is likely to be Afghanistans biggest watershed since 2001, the year the war on terror began. On the face of it, the stage is set for Indiaa regional power with global aspirationsto rise to the occasion and assert its role in the new regional dynamic. But presented with a golden opportunity, India has been found wanting in chalking out a coherent, assertive and proactive foreign policy vis--vis Afghanistan. The time has come for India to fight its own battles instead of leaning primarily on the US and continuing to impotently blame Pakistan. A state that wants to be respected as a global power cannot shirk its responsibilities in its own vicinity, no matter how challenging they may be at times. If India is not willing to do that, it will be best served by restraining its global ambitions.

India will have to demonstrate real leadership in Afghanistan if it wants to protect its vital interests and lay claim to the role of a regional security provider. But, for this, it will have to first understand how exactly it ended up in a position where its much-vaunted soft power in Afghanistan has failed to yield any substantive foreign policy dividends. The following pages reveal an all-too-familiar tale of strategic diffidence and policy myopia. There is a need to learn from past experience and chart out a new trajectory for India in Afghanistan if an India-led South Asia is to take shape.

Harsh V. Pant
London
July 2014

Balance of power in the South Asian region has shifted long back. India has advanced economically as well as militarily far more than Pakistan. But I dont understand why India is still in the early 1980s mentality ... Dont make concessions to Pakistan. Enough of Gandhigiri now! You [Indians] are seriously accepting being slapped again and again in the face.

Haroun M. Mir, an aide to the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistans former defence minister, at a South Asian conference in New Delhi in March 2012

FINALLY, IT WAS LEFT TO Afghanistan to decide that enough was enough, and it did make clear in no uncertain terms what it wanted from India. What it wanted and badly needed was a robust security partnership with India that included supply of weapons and defence hardware. The pretence that Indias soft power engagement in Afghanistan was enough had to go, and Kabul took the bull by the horns.

Ahead of the visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to India in May 2013, Afghan ambassador to India Shaida M. Abdali made a very important intervention in a debate that had become sterile in New Delhi. It is critically important that the two countries ... talk about more substantive issues than training and other soft issues, Abdali suggested. He went on to underline that India and Afghanistan are required to sit down and discuss the contours of our security and defence cooperation to ensure predictability, to ensure protection of common cause, which is self defence against any perceived threats to our two nations.

This was an important intervention because it was a reminder to the Indian foreign policy establishment that the debate about Afghanistan was not merely a debate between various schools of thought in India. It was a matter of life and death for ordinary Afghans, and they too had an important voice in deciding how India reorganized its Afghan policy in light of the impending departure of Western forces from Afghanistan starting in 2014 and the resulting security vacuum that was likely to ensue.