It is no secret that India and Pakistan share different objectives in Afghanistan, including disparate nature of engagement and role it plays. Pakistan’s goals for Afghanistan are two-fold. First, it is India-centric and focuses primarily on undermining India’s influence in Afghanistan. A weak and subservient Kabul government dominated by supportive Taliban can help Pakistan maintain “strategic depth” against India[i]. The second is US centric. Pakistan looks at Afghanistan through the prism of US. The US-Pakistan relations for the past few decades is both hostage to and derivative of Afghanistan. An economically poor, politically instable marred by Islamic insurgencies, technologically dependent military facing border disputes places crucial barriers to its design to grow without the support of a superpower like the US. As Munir Akram, former Pakistan Ambassador to the UN writes, “the US could take action against the TTP and BLA; help in monitoring and fencing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border; provide counterterrorism equipment; release blocked CSF moneys; and promote Afghan refugee repatriation[ii]. It needs the US as much as the US needs Pakistan in Afghanistan.

The Process for Peace

Ghani’s initial overwhelming vision for macro-regional integration, including with Pakistan, completely missed the existing fault lines between Afghanistan’s objective and Pakistan’s interests. It also side-lined India and concerns of other countries fully knowing well that the process cannot succeed without involving multiple centres of influence. As former British Ambassador to the US, Peter Jay, has put it very mildly in a different context, ‘good regionalism is good geopolitics, and bad regionalism is a bad politics[iii].’ Ghani soon learnt his lesson that any hope of regional cooperation in South Asia cannot succeed by alienating India and compromising its core interests with Pakistan simultaneously. The short-term bonhomie between Ghani and Pakistan soon ended, and Afghanistan was back to looking for international support to combat terrorism. The Amritsar Declaration at the 6th Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia on December 04, 2016 was the testimony to the changing dynamics.  Since then the Afghan strategy for peace and stability in Afghanistan has witnessed structural changes including participation of wider level of stakeholders.

The intermediate period between 2014 to 2020 saw Pakistan wearing different masks. On one hand it kept on reiterating its stand for regional solution to conflict in Afghanistan, on the other hand it kept backing the insurgent groups targeting Afghanistan, including its veritable arm Haqqani Network.

On 29 February 2020, the Taliban, and the US signed a peace agreement at Doha in Qatar, after nearly 18 months of talks, aimed at enabling US Force withdrawal. The domestic factors in the US and the worsening security situation in Afghanistan were the key driving factors for the US to realize that talks are the most efficacious way to achieve peace. The US lead by special representative, Zalmay Khalilzad, knew the importance of Pakistan in cajoling the Taliban to sign an agreement with the US. The logic of action of the United States behind the peace process was to maximise scope for convergence between the local stakeholders in Afghanistan i.e. state and non-state actors like the Taliban, and old rivalries between Pakistan and Afghanistan being substituted for increased cooperation for regional peace.

India Factor

The peace agreement between the Taliban and the US has spawned new problems for India. While India is keenly watching the developments in Afghanistan, it is equally aware that the region will face new realities and it would need to readjust its policies once the US forces withdraw from Afghanistan. The real negotiation will start now, as Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has stated, “we have to see that many of the assumptions that we had—how cohesive are various players, what do they do, what are their demands, and finally do the Taliban join a democratic set up or does a democratic set up adjust to the Taliban. I think those are all issues for which right now there are no clear answers^[iv].” India would like to see a stable and democratic government in Afghanistan. A fragmented government in near future, with influence from Pakistan through the Taliban will try to erode India’s credibility in the region. The only way out for India is to consolidate the gains it has achieved after diversifying it engagement with stakeholders. It no more can rely upon now nearly defunct Northern Alliance.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister in a press conference on his return from Doha, said that Pakistan expected Afghanistan would not allow any country “such as India or any other, use their soil against Pakistan”^[v]. The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has appreciated Pakistan’s support for a political solution to the conflict and reaching the historic agreement. Pakistan has for decades facilitated and encouraged use of its territory by the Taliban and its affiliates. Post the U.S. withdrawal, Pakistan will likely become more open in its backing. Indian resources, which have been continuously targeted by the elements of Taliban at the behest of the ISI including attacks on Indian embassy and consulates, could witness a spike post US withdrawal.

India’s stance towards Taliban has witnessed considerable softening since 2011, so has been Taliban’s stand towards India. Last year, Taliban had objected to Pakistan’s linking its tensions over Kashmir with India to the situation in Afghanistan^[vi]. The Pakistani Ambassador to Afghanistan later had to clarify that the rift over Kashmir would not affect the peace drive in Afghanistan. Despite the fact that Taliban have evolved and has shown signs of  being a legitimate actor in the Afghan polity, India cannot rule out sections of spoilers within the group, which can be exploited by Pakistan to act against Indian interests in Afghanistan. It also knows the Pakistan might use the Kashmir card to pressurize the US government for some kind of pro-Pakistan solution to India-Pakistan tension. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly asked for the US President’s intervention in the Kashmir dispute for greater peace and stability in the region. The abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir is seen in some quarters as a response to the hasty push by the Trump administration to cut a deal with the Taliban. According to Brahma Chellaney, India has pre-emptively sought to safeguard its security through the J&K action before the United States hands Afghanistan back to the same terrorist militia it removed from power in 2001^[vii].

Finally, Ghani government would have to review its policy of regional integration as the future scenarios requires re-regionalization of the Afghan problem. It cannot alienate one country for the other, which will make peace, stability, and prosperity of Afghanistan a remote possibility. A fine balancing of India-Pakistan rivalry will be the litmus test for post-US Afghanistan. India has since long sought to bring together regional players for peace and stability in the region. The combination of an inimical regional environment, Pakistan’s political involvement, China’s growing influence can be tackled through regional mechanism like Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation, and platforms like India-Central Asia Dialogue.

Conclusion

As stated, India’s policy response should be at multiple levels. First, it should consolidate the gains, it has achieved by diversifying its engagement with different factions of political players, including civil society. India’s aid to Afghanistan are humanitarian in nature, and the principal focus of India’s development assistance has been to build capacities and capabilities of Afghan nationals and its institutions, develop socio-economic infrastructure, secure lives, and promote livelihood. Pakistan will try to cut India’s growing influence among the civilians, which is crucial for the democratic setup. India needs to continue with its efforts to engage Afghan govt in activities which are pro-civilians. It should sustain its humanitarian projects despite the challenges it might face. Finally, through the multilateral channels and platforms it should try to highlight Pakistan’s misadventure in the region and above all it should closely work with the Kabul administration to protect its interests.

Endnotes

[i] Larry Hanauer, Peter Chalk, “India’s and Pakistan’s Strategies in Afghanistan: Implications for the United States and the Region.” Rand Corporation, 2012.

[ii] Akram, Munir. “The Afghan Prism in Pakistan – US Relations.” ANN, July 19, 2019.https://asianews.network/2019/07/21/the-afghan-prism-in-pakistan-us-relations/

[iii] Jay, Peter. “Regionalism as Geopolitics.” Foreign Affairs, January 28, 2009. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1980-02-01/regionalism-geopolitics.

[iv]Nayar, Mandira. “’Real Negotiations Will Start Now’: MEA Jaishankar on US-Taliban Deal.”  The Week, March 1, 2020. h https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/03/02/real-negotiations-will-start-now-mea-jaishankar-on-us-taliban-deal.html

[v]“’Spoilers’ May Try to Sabotage Peace Process in Afghanistan: Pakistan Foreign Minister.” The Hindu. The Hindu, March 1, 2020. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/spoilers-may-try-to-sabotage-peace-process-in-afghanistan-pakistan-foreign-minister/article30957839.ece

[vi] “Kashmir Is Not Afghanistan: Taliban Rebukes Pakistan, Calls for Peace in Region.” India Today, August 9, 2019. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/kashmir-taliban-afghanistan-pakistan-peace-1578995-2019-08-09

[vii]“Centre for Policy Research.” Article 370: The Road Ahead | Centre for Policy Research, September 11, 2019. https://www.cprindia.org/news/article-370-road-ahead

Gaurav Kumar is Editorial and Research Assistant at USI of India

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the organisation that he belongs to or of the USI of India.