India must maintain strong ties with Kabul

India has kept faith with Afghanistan, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the country to inaugurate the Salma Dam in Herat showed last Saturday. And this has a particular meaning for the regional security dimension for India. What underlines the spring in the air is the conferment of Afghanistan’s highest civilian honour, the Amir Amanullah Khan Award, on the Indian leader in recognition of India’s sterling role in the last decade and a half in rendering any variety of aid that Kabul sought, and which was within India’s means, even at the cost of making a revanchist Pakistan deeply unhappy and the United States — ever mindful of Pakistani concerns — strategically worried. With President Hamid Karzai, India had achieved a stable equilibrium in ties whose vigour was demonstrated during the terms of two Prime Ministers — Atal Behari Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh, spanning 15 years — an example of national consensus on maintaining strong ties with Kabul. Doubts on the quality of relationship cropped up with Dr Ashraf Ghani becoming President in the latter part of 2015, and the Ghani administration appearing to want to lean on Pakistan in a different reading of its national interest than his predecessor’s, and treat India different from before.

But the Modi government did not turn its back on Afghanistan even then. It soon became clear that Islamabad’s profession of friendship to President Ghani’s Kabul were deceptive. Taliban attacks orchestrated by those in Pakistan were intensified and the so- called peace process placed in cold storage. If President Ghani has realised the inaccuracy of his earlier assessment, India- Afghanistan ties can prosper to mutual advantage. This can even help to refashion regional politics in a way that helps sustain Afghanistan’s sovereign autonomy. The PM made two important points in Afghanistan — that India’s friendship with his host country was “timeless” and had no “sunset clause”; and two, praising Afghanistan for denouncing terrorism, he urged that any division ( among political forces) within the country would benefit those who seek to “dominate” Afghanistan. The latter point, especially, is the supplying of a strong political input in bilateral relations through which domestic players are cautioned to stay united. Never before has India made such a direct appeal to Afghanistan’s domestic politics before. The resolve to cement ties demonstrated by both sides coincides with the recent signing of the Chabahar agreement drawing India, Iran and Afghanistan together, as well as the PM’s visit to Qatar — where a common understanding on terrorism and security were sought to be underlined by Mr Modi and his hosts — right after his important engagement in Afghanistan. Qatar has accorded the Taliban special status and permitted it to open a political office in Doha. India can now aim to meaningfully engage the Gulf monarchy in helping Afghanistan settle down as a sovereign state.

If President Ghani has realised the inaccuracy of his earlier assessment, India-Afghanistan ties can prosper to mutual advantage