Making A Difference

Kabuliwala's Bag Of Goodies

The Indo-Pak match is on a new pitch now: Afghanistan

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Kabuliwala's Bag Of Goodies
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IMAGE AND SUBTEXT: An Afghan hawker's load shows off Bombay stars

There was a lot of Taliban phobia towards July-end. Whether Islamabad likes it or not, recent history and its complicity with the previous regime translates this phobia into anti-Pakistan sentiment.On the last Sunday of July, residents in the border town of Spin Boldak, where 24 alleged Taliban fighters were killed in an isaf operation, woke up to posters put up by Taliban supporters. These carried a list of supposed informers who were threatened with death at an appropriate time.

Within hours, six Afghan policemen were killed in an ambush in the southern province of Helmund. The provincial security commander blamed it on the Taliban. Then, from Zabol province a statement was issued by its deputy governor, Mullah Mohammed Omar (a namesake of the Taliban supremo). He said hundreds of Taliban fighters, strutting around his province, had even set up a parallel administration.

Afghanistan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah denied claims of the Taliban regrouping in a big way but admitted that incidents of violence attributed to them were not coming down in a significant manner. "Pakistan needs to do more to control the Taliban," he told me.

Karzai, meanwhile, refuses to be drawn into any anti-Pakistan rhetoric. Much to the chagrin of the Indians, the charismatic president walks the tightrope between Delhi and Islamabad quite adroitly. But on the question of support to the Taliban, even he is not fully convinced. One has to read between the lines to judge that! Karzai said: "Both of us, Pakistan and Afghanistan, need to work together on the issue of extremism. It's like a scorpion, like a tiger—today it may kill us, tomorrow or the day after it may be your turn. It's in everybody's interest that the challenge is effectively tackled."

The Pakistan ambassador to Kabul, Rustam Shah Mohmand, is an old hand at Afghanistan affairs. I met him the day their embassy reopened in Kabul. In a conversation, which quite naturally centred on the attack on the Pakistan embassy, he talked about the difficulty of completely securing the 2,200-km Pakistan-Afghanistan border and how Islamabad is trying its best. He also talked about how important friendship with Kabul was for Islamabad. Through the nearly one-hour conversation, he did not even once mention India in the context of Afghanistan.

But the innuendos were all there. The ambassador said, "Why have they still not taken any action against those responsible for the attack? Crowds just don't collect like that. It was a well-planned and executed operation. Who could be behind it? The security forces on duty did nothing to stop the vandalism—in fact they chose to look the other way!"

Off the record, some Pakistan officials are more forthright. They blame the Indians for the attack on their embassy. Even for the slackness of the securitymen at the embassy, they put the onus on India saying defence minister Mohammed Qasim Fahim and the national intelligence chief were both Panjshiris and close to the Indians. Pakistan is also worried about India opening up consulates in cities across the country—Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif, Jalalabad, Herat. A senior Pakistan official actually went on record saying India was behind the blast that killed about 60 people in Quetta a few weeks ago.

Delhi's increasing clout in Kabul makes Islamabad feel insecure and threatened. Despite the setback in Afghanistan post-Taliban, Kabul remains central to Islamabad's strategy in the region as the country could provide them strategic depth if such a need ever arose. They would feel encircled and trapped if Delhi's influence were to increase in Kabul and would do everything to counter it.

Ditto for Delhi, which sees Kabul as a vital cog in its strategic plan. According to a senior pmo official in Delhi, Afghanistan is becoming a major bottleneck in India-Pakistan relations. "Why do you think Pakistan is not so keen on restoring overflights. They don't want to give India a direct access to Kabul.It's the same reason why border trade through road may not be really opened in a big way by Islamabad. They fear Indian goods will swamp Afghanistan and that will bring a permanent end to the monopoly of Pakistani products in the bazaars of Kabul and other Afghan cities," he said.

But India need not worry too much about Islamabad when it maps out its strategic roadmap for Kabul. There's a lot of goodwill for India and Indians. Some of it goes back to old ties, some to the help being provided by Delhi in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. But a part of it can also surely be explained by the anti-Pakistan sentiment among many Afghans. Then, of course, there are Indian films and music that have a countrywide appeal.

So, what can really throw a spanner in India's gameplan? Only Indians. And they are showing early signs of doing just that.

Indians are seen as supporting the Panjshiris, Tajiks and Uzbeks—all minority communities in Afghanistan. These groups have cornered some of the most powerful positions in the government and the majority Pashtoon community does not like it one bit. So, gradually, but quite surely, resentment is building up against India. Delhi finds itself in a bind on this issue as most of the leaders it's supporting now were part of the Northern Alliance, or the anti-Taliban force. So they are old, trusted hands.

But the situation has changed dramatically since and continued support to old friends is seen as interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs by Pashtoons, many of whom are getting increasingly disenchanted with India. Pakistan's support to the Taliban discredited them in Afghanistan. Will history repeat itself so soon on the issue of Delhi's perceived support to former Northern Alliance warlords?

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(The author is the BBC's India correspondent who was in Kabul recently for 10 days on a reporting assignment.)

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