BOOK REVIEW: India and Afghanistan by Khaled Ahmed
Afghanistan: The Challenge:
Edited By K Warikoo; Manas
Pentagon Press 2007
Pp377; Price Rs Indian 995
Available in bookstores in Pakistan
Pakistan is in the process of coming to grips with the new reality but is struggling with two minds, one scared of what it has been doing in the past two decades and the other thinking of solving the current crisis by doing more of what it has done. The people of Pakistan are staying out of the moment of judgement
The book is an attempt by Indian scholars to analyse Pakistans pursuit of strategic depth in Afghanistan and predictably examines the spinoff Pakistan has got in the shape of training guerrilla mujahideen militias for operations in Kashmir. The conflict that informed relations between the two states forced Pakistan to use Islamist proxies to fight the Indian aggression in Kashmir. Those groups have now come back to haunt Pakistan and also become a menace for the region as a whole.
The Indians got their chance after 9/11 when the Taliban were ousted from Afghanistan together with Pakistan and its strategic depth. The book details the economic penetration that India has effected in Afghanistan clearly with a view to not letting Pakistan repeat what it did after 1989.
Of course there is historical precedent of trade between India and Afghanistan. Celebrated text of Brhatsamhita by Varahamihira (6th century AD) refers to a group of people named Avagana (read Afghans) who sent raisin wines down to India. And Panini the grammarian who made Sanskrit into what it is today was an Afghan! President Karzai was the latter-day Panini who presided over the Indian penetration as it took place after the Taliban had been routed and Pakistans General Musharraf, who had announced his allegiance with the Pushtuns in 2000, nicely tamed in 2001.
In March 2003, a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) was signed between India and Afghanistan in New Delhi with India granting 50 to 100 percent tariff concession on 30 items and receiving the same on black tar pharmaceutical products, refined sugar and cement, etc. In 2002, India expanded its diplomatic presence in Afghanistan to a historic level by opening Consulates in southern, south-eastern, western and northern regions of the Afghanistan. Over the last five years, India exports to Afghanistan have shown a growth rate of 153 percent. When the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh visited Kabul in 2005, it was the first top level visit after 1976.
India has committed $650 million of aid to Kabul, mostly going into the infrastructure, more effectively than the money committed by Pakistan that complains of Kabul giving better treatment to India, which should be natural given the fact that Kabul is rattled by the Taliban Shura of Quetta which Islamabad denies. India was to complete by 2007 the Zaranj-Dalaram road which will connect Afghanistan to Irans Chabahar port and save 1000 km of roundabout road to the sea and thus cut Pakistan out as Afghanistans outlet to the Indian Ocean. It is investing in Iran too but has got out of the Iranian pipeline deal in view if its residual suspicion of Pakistan.
Indias 400 buses are everywhere in Afghanistan. India has gifted three airbus aircraft, along with essential parts, to the Ariana Afghan Airlines whose staff is training in India.
Pakistan is in the process of coming to grips with the new reality but is struggling with two minds, one scared of what it has been doing in the past two decades and the other thinking of solving the current crisis by doing more of what it has done. The people of Pakistan are staying out of the moment of judgement. This tends to put a cap on the process of self-correction begun under Musharraf. That is a matter of concern. *
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
