The dilemma with Afghanistan is that it has grown weak, to the extent that countries in the region that could play a role in its stability are contributing to its instability owing to their perpetual mutual rivalries.
When the context is Afghanistan, an interesting point related to Pakistan and India is that both are keen to train the Afghan security forces, especially the army. Similarly, both are keen to provide Afghanistan with light weaponry. Both countries might be supposing some financial advantage in return but the actual expected yield is different from that: both want to secure their future relations with Afghanistan in comparison to each other. The question is this: what special something lies in Afghanistan that both countries wrangle for? There are five dimensions to this issue.
First, while India lays claim to its civilisational and historical links with Afghanistan, Pakistan considers itself to be inherently attached to Afghanistan through its ethnic Pashtun population, which has practically refused to accept the Durand Line dividing them into two halves, as they keep moving freely across the line. Pakistan seems to not be in any position to restrict this movement and, consequently, annoy its Pashtun population, the representatives of which enjoy key positions in the socio-political system of Pakistan.
Second, while India aspires to assert its regional supremacy, expressed through its necessary role in Afghanistan, Pakistan sees this endeavor as an attempt to encircle it. Pakistan has refused to accept any role inferior to India in the region. Pakistan thinks that India’s hegemonic posture may be threatening for other smaller countries in South Asia such as Nepal and Bhutan but it cannot be intimidating for Pakistan that enjoys nuclear parity with India regionally.
Third, while India seeks to contact the bigger market of Central Asian Republics (CARs) to sell its goods, Pakistan seems to scuttle any such Indian effort unless India solves the Kashmir issue, a bone of contention between both of them since 1947. Many people in Pakistan believe that both direct (the Kargil war of 1999) and indirect (the Mumbai attacks of 2008) confrontations with India have failed to convince India of the importance of an earlier solution to the Kashmir issue. In this regard, India has shown substantial patience by absorbing both types of conflicts but it has still kept the Kashmir issue low on the priority agenda.
Fourth, while India has seen an opening in the post-9/11 attack on Afghanistan (by the US-NATO allies) to regain the influence it lost in 1996 — when the Taliban replaced the Northern Alliance that had remained allied to India economically and militarily — with the advent of the Taliban rule that lasted till 2001, Pakistan is indisposed to forego its claim on the future of Afghanistan, the land that remained pro-actively visited by Pakistan’s military and jihadi volunteers for one decade (1979-1989).
Fifth, while India has been trying to develop its bilateral relations with Afghanistan since 2001 by investing millions of dollars in the humanitarian (health and education), infrastructure (rail and road networks) and development (industry and mining) sectors of Afghanistan, Pakistan has been unable to find any answer to India’s economic investment in Afghanistan. This is where Pakistan feels it has been outclassed. In the reconstruction of Afghanistan, India is enjoying an economic edge over Pakistan.
The dilemma with Afghanistan is that it has grown weak, to the extent that countries (such as Pakistan and India) in the region that could play a role in its stability are contributing to its instability owing to their perpetual mutual rivalries. This may be one of reasons for the US deciding to extend its stay in Afghanistan till at least 2024 through signing a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the nascent government of Afghanistan. It is apparent that the US has been allowing both Pakistan and India to do work that could contribute to the stability of Afghanistan and not otherwise. In this way, through its presence, the US is doing two things: first, it is correcting the course of history that went wrong after 1989 when the former Soviet Union withdrew its army and left Afghanistan in a shambles at the mercy of a civil war amongst Afghan war lords. Secondly, it is protecting Afghanistan from both Pakistan and India.
Historically, Afghanistan, besides the countries comprising today’s CARs, has aspired to reach the warm waters of the Arabian Sea. However, the post-1991 era (at the end of the Cold War) witnessed a reverse situation. Regional countries such as India, Iran and Pakistan were found jostling each other pass through Afghanistan to access the CARs. One of the reasons was that the CARs were keen to sell their extra energy at low rates to earn money to run their economies. Another reason might be that the CARs (embracing the capitalist system) carried the buying potential for South Asian goods. Nevertheless, in the post-9/11 era, a third country has entered this race and that is China.
China has made two major entries into the Afghan theatre. First, in 2008, when two Chinese state-owned companies, the China Metallurgical Group Corporation and Jiangxi Copper Company Ltd (as a mining consortium) secured a 30-year lease on the copper deposits at Mes Aynak for three billion dollars in Logar province. China is interested to keep on mining the copper deposit (considered one of the world’s largest), having the evaluated potential of $ 100 billion. Second, in September 2012, when its security chief, Zhou Yongkang, visited Afghanistan and signed a security deal to train and equip the Afghan police.
In November 2005, India opposed the up-gradation of the status of China (proposed by Pakistan) from an observer to a member in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). In April 2007, India facilitated the entry of Afghanistan into SAARC. In September 2014, China has backed both Pakistan and India (also Iran) to upgrade their statuses from observers to full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which is related to the CARs. Expectedly, now India will also reciprocate China’s entry into SAARC. In this way, China holds the potential of becoming the second player in Afghanistan handling both Pakistan and India regionally.
The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com