Strategy, Diplomacy and Neighborhood: Af-Pak Region

Strategy, Diplomacy and Neighborhood: Af-Pak Region Dr. Manish Kumar Assistant Professor Dept. Of Defence and Strategic Studies Post Graduate Government College, Sector-11 Chandigarh Abstract: The modern foreign policies based upon multiple kinds of diplomatic efforts to obtain the desired results. As per this major understanding India is also trying to safeguard her interest in neighbourhood particularly Af-Pak region. This paper discusses the diplomatic manoeuvre of three neighbouring countries India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, in Af-Pak region. In historical and current geo-political context attempts has made to review the stakes and strategy of India to maintain its strategic interest in the region. Af-Pak region has always remained the focus of India s regional and security policy. Strategic factors have played an important part from the very beginning. Both India and Afghanistan border Pakistan whose relationship with each of these neighbours has had constant ups and downs. Keywords: Strategic, Diplomacy, neighbourhood, Af-Pak, expansion, ethnicity Stability of any country is an outcome of the relations it shares with its neighbourhood. India too has a mixed set of relations with its neighbouring countries.. India shares a rich historical and cultural legacy but, during the last seven decades the armed conflict and terror attacks have been a low point. According to Kautiliya s philosophy, neighbours are regarded as enemies and an enemy s immediate neighbour as a friend. The central concern of India s relationship with Afghanistan is to counter the nefarious design of Pakistan, along with having access to, gas and oil rich central Asia. India has historical and civilizational linkages withafghanistan. They can be traced to the Harappan civilization, one of the earliest urban civilizations of the world. A number of ceramic items discovered in Afghanistan show similarity with those found in Harappa. It is also established that Harappan towns received copper ore and azurites from Afghanistan. It is obvious that Afghanistan has had very old links with India. Both the countries share a great deal of history; Alexander the Great conquered Afghanistan in (329 327 B.C.) on his way to India. In the pre-christain era, Indian kings also stretched their empires to Afghanistan. After Alexander s retreat, in 323 BC Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Mauryan Dynasty, turned his attention to North-western India. The Kushans in the first century crossed the Hindu Kush and brought Kabul and Kandahar under their control. 38

Babar seized Kabul in 1504 and in 1526 capture Delhi, setting up the Mughal Empire.By 1830, the strategic importance of Afghanistan had increased vis-à-vis India, i.e. the time when both Russia and British India developed their interest in the country. The Russian Empire s expansion upto Central Asia threatened the British Empire in India. The British feared that Afghanistan would become a staging post for a Russian invasion of India. Sensing the attacking mode of Russia and seeing the strategic importance of the region, in 1839, British troops captured Kandahar and installed Shuja as the king. But Afghans successfully resisted their control and maintained their independence. Secretary for foreign affairs of the British India, Henry Durand, arrived in Kabul to talk to AbdurRahman Khan, on account of the superior position of Britishers. On 1893, AbdurRahman Khan had agreed to a new frontier, Durand line. Any threat to India s borders from anywhere, Britain tried to meet halfway, unlike the Indian rulers of Delhi who fought their major battles at Panipat, far in the interior of India 1 Afghanistan has always remained the focus of India s regional and security policy. India has enjoyed cordial relations with Afghanistan since 1947. India had strong relations with Afghan King Zahir Shah s regime. In 1950, India and Afghanistan signed a Friendship Treaty. When Pakistan joined the military pacts, SEATO and CENTO, in 1954 and 1955, the Afghan Prime Minister, SardarDaud, described the U.S. military aid to Pakistan as a grave danger to the security and peace in Afghanistan. The King's fears were justified by events as Pakistan always regarded Afghanistan as its strategic backyard and interfered in its internal affairs. He never stopped meeting Indian leaders even during his 29-year exile in Italy. Former external affairs minister K Natwar Singh's meeting with him in 1987 was important enough to irk the then Pakistani ruler, ZiaulHaq. After Zahir Khan s regime, India managed to maintain close relations with the subsequent communist regimes. The dynamics of cold war has seen the world being divided into two distinct and polar opposite blocs. The US led NATO and the erstwhile communist USSR lead Warsaw pact. Despite this ideology division many countries chose to try a middle path. During the Cold War as members of the Non-Aligned movement (NAM), both Afghanistan and India attempted to maintain neutrality. Afghanistan played an important role in the NAM from the latter s emergence till the advent of the Communist regime in April 1978. The Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 and the succeeding civil war devastated Afghanistan and bred extremist ideology that left no room for the kind of cooperation that India had been promoting. In September 1996 when the Taliban swept onto the Afghan political scene contacts were disrupted.the Taliban was born in the Islamic schools that had sprung up in the Afghan refugee camps inside Pakistan.The Taliban s presence in Afghanistan and the Pakistani control over it and the way the country was used for not only training Kashmiri and other terrorist outfits against India but the Kandahar hijacking incident only confirmed India s worse fears. 39

Friendly ties with Afghanistan have been constant in Indian foreign policy and an equally consistent source of anxiety for Pakistan. During the five years of Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, India maintained close relations with the Northern Alliance. India saw the fall of the Afghan Taliban government in 2001 as a major strategic gain. India participated in the 2001 Bonn conference, which determined the basic outlines of the political and constitutional structure for Afghanistan. India also played a key role in ensuring Afganistan s inclusion in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in November 2005. Afghanistan is strategically located between the Middle East and Central Asia. Because of its geo-strategic location,the country has remained in the focus of Super power s power politics. The country's geo-strategic importance has multiplied manifold for India. As a major regional powerindia is also looking beyond Afghanistan s borders, working to revive Afghanistan s role as a land bridge connecting South Asia with Central Asia and providing access to the strategic energy resources. The events of September 11, 2001, presented opportunities for India, which had been largely shut out of Afghanistan throughout the Taliban period. Since the ouster of the Taliban, India has worked to become Afghanistan s most important partner for reconstruction in recognition of the country s strategic importance for India within and beyond the South Asian region. 2 Afghanistan holds strategic importance for India as a potential counterweight in its relationship with Pakistan. The ethnically Pashtun and Baluch belts straddling the Durand Line,is a bone of contention between Pakistan and Afghanistan. So Pakistan has always wanted to control the Afghanistan s political regime.it is not in India s strategic and economic interests to see Afghanistan being ruled by a pro-pakistani regime. Strategic factors have played an important part from the very beginning. Both India and Afghanistan border Pakistan whose relationship with each of these neighbours has had constant ups and downs. Pakistan has seen India s growing economic presence and influence in Afghanistan as a strategic loss. Afghan President Hamid Karzai's four-day state visit to India from April 9-12, 2006 was a follow-up to the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's landmark visit to Kabul on August 28-29, 2005, which was in consonance with the growing significance of Afghanistan in India's strategic calculus. 3 Indian strategic and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan. Increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate tensions with Pakistan. India s strategic presence in Afghanistan is being seenas moving toward great power status. While India s presence in Afghanistan has Pakistan-specific utility, India s interests in Afghanistan can be seen as merely one element within India s desire to be able to protect its interests well beyond South Asia. 40

India's engagement with Afghanistan is vital for its ongoing battle against terrorism and curtailing the influence of terror outfits in Jammu and Kashmir - Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Harkatul-Jihad-i-Islami, which derive moral and material support from the trans-border Taliban-Al Qaeda nexus. 4 In a historic ceremony on April 3, 2007 Afghanistan became the eighth member of SAARC. Afghanistan's isolation must never be repeated, said President Hamid Karzai at the ceremony. As a member of SAARC, Afghanistan is becoming a trade, Transportation and energy hub linking together the countries of the region from Central to South Asia. After the fall of the Taliban regime, at the diplomatic level,india reopened its embassy in Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad. It established two new consulates in Herat and Mazar-e- Sharif. Pakistan sees India's growing influence in Afghanistan as a threat. Pakistan believed that these consulates provide cover for Indian intelligence agencies to run covert operations against Pakistan, as well as foment separatism in Pakistan's Balochistan province. The Indian consulates and embassy in Kabul have been targeted in a number of attacks by Pakistani-linked militant groups. With General Kayani in charge in Pakistan, the Army s traditional policies of bleeding India and seeking strategic depth in Afghanistan will continue. US troops are likely to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014, after US withdrawal from Afghanistan India faces huge strategic challenges. India is likely to come under increasing pressure to do more to protect its interests in Afghanistan. The October 8 attack on the Indian embassy in Afghanistan, a grim reminder of the July 7, 2008 strike, has yet again highlighted the challenges of India s involvement in that country. While the Haqqani network aided by Pakistan s Inter-Services Intelligence was blamed for the July attack, this time the Taliban claimed responsibility, posting a statement on a website (shahamat.org). The site is now dysfunctional. 5 India s motivation in Afghanistan is very clear, Musharraf has said, [it is] nothing further than upsetting Pakistan. Why should they [India] have consulates in Jalalabad and Khandahar? What is their interest? There is no interest other than disturbing Pakistan, doing something about Pakistan. Musharraf also has claimed that Islamabad is 1,000 percent certain that India s diplomatic posts in Afghanistan are really bases for Indian intelligence to collect data about Pakistan and to provide paramilitary support for dissidents in Pakistan s Baluchistan Province. 6 Pakistan blames Indian intelligence agencies RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) for the growing militancy in Waziristan and other tribal areas. Being a large country and having a large network of intelligence agencies with close connections with agencies Israeli Mossad, the Indian agencies also operate from Afghanistan with the active support of the incumbent Afghan Government. India s policy in Afghanistan is a Maintaining peace and stability in Afghanistan. Stability in Afghanistan is India s strategic interests because it is a gateway to gas and oil rich 41

Central Asia. Following burning questions on India-Pakistan competitive role in Afghanistan, Indians have openly supported stability and development in Afghanistan which will help stabilizing the region. Analysts believe that, based on the long running rivalry between the two South Asian nations, Islamabad suspiciously watches new developments in Afghanistan- India relations. 7 India made a strategic mistake when it took a back seat to Pakistan in the post communist era of Afghanistan. India seems to have understood the need to involve the Afghan state in reconstruction. Indian aid is directed primarily through the Afghan Government and includes community participation, capacity building and long-term development projects. India also has been involved in major developments projects in Afghanistan. [The 220- km (135-mile) road in the southwest Afghan province of Nimroz is the centrepiece of a $1.1 billion Indian reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. It has drawn sniping from Pakistan, worried about its rival's growing influence there. India, denied access through Pakistan, hopes to be able to deliver goods to Afghanistan through the Iranian port of Chahbahar, and this has triggered fears in Pakistan it is being encircled."this project symbolises India's strong commitment towards development of Afghanistan," said Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee. 8 At the diplomatic level, India and Afghanistan have generally had cordial relations. President Karzai who was educated in Simla, in India gets along well with Prime Minister Singh. The visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Kabul on 11-12 May 2011 further reiterates India s commitment to building a long term partnership with Afghanistan.In the joint declaration made on 12 May, Singh announced the implementation of a Strategic Partnership between India and Afghanistan to discuss and cooperate on issues of mutual concern and to closely coordinate at the UN and other international and regional summits Prime Minister Manmohan Singh s visit to Kabul is meant to reassure President Karzai of India s sustained support. However, the underlying message of the visit is to convey to Pakistan, the US and the others that India has strategic interests in Afghanistan. 9 Withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, instable government in Afghanistan, internal political instability in Pakistan and ISI Taliban nexus have huge strategic implications for India. After the US withdrawal, India must play a major power role in Afghanistan as it directly affects India s strategic and economic interests in South and Central Asia. This will increase India s hegemony at the regional and global level which gives India to counter against Pakistan China military alliance. CONCLUSION: Afghanistan as a country has seen great upheaval. Its history is replete with instances of foreign aggression and conquest. It is the resilient nature of the Afghanistan s spirit which has emboldened its destiny. On the cusp of a new emerging geo-political world order and 42

Afghanistan s own internal political set up; the whole world looks up to a strong Afghanistan. The Indian position too is to establish a close boundary with Afghanistan and to people, to counter thwart the nefarious terrorist acts being perpetuated from the semiporous border of Af-Pak region. Any revivalism of Taliban in Afghanistan would be very unsettling for India. India must weigh in its options judiciously while planning its strategy in Af-Pak region. Any turmoil or armed recreation of Islamist fundamentalism group can lead to a volatile and explosive situation. References: 1. K.M.Pannikar, Problems of Indian Defence, Bombay, 1960, p.23. 2. http://tcf.org/publications/2010/9/india-in-afghanistan-and-beyond-opportunities-andconstraints/pdf BY C. CHRISTINE FAIR 3. http://www.idsa.in/idsastrategiccomments/importofafghanpresidentsvisittoindia_vc handra_260406 4. http://www.idsa.in/idsastrategiccomments/indiasroleinafghanistan_smdsouza_040 506 5. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article37329.ece 6. http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews%5btt_news%5d=5118&t x_ttnews%5bbackpid%5d=246&no_cache=1 7. http://outlookafghanistan.net/editorialdetail.php?post_id=755 8. http://in.reuters.com/article/2009/01/22/afghan-india-idinisl34770520090122 9. http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/indiamuststayrelevantinafghanistan_agupta_12051 1 43