The recent Strategic Partnership Agreement signed, in New Delhi, by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with President Hamid Karzai, of land locked Afghanistan, goes beyond India’s involvement in diverse development projects in Afghan infrastructure, education and agriculture since September 2001. Eventually, as a result of the Strategic Partnership Agreement, Sikh soldiers, hailing from the Sikh Homeland of Indian occupied Punjab, employed in the Indian Army, will be facing the brunt of a dangerous duty in Afghanistan as ‘Indian cannon fodder’!
According to the agreement India is to assist “as mutually determined, in the training, equipping and capacity building programs for the Afghan National Security Forces,” which currently are dominated by soldiers of minority Tajik, Hazara and Uzbeck communities of Afghanistan with hardly any participation by the majority – the fierce, warlike Pakhtun community, the historical rulers of Afghanistan. The Pakhtuns have long memories and always seek revenge no matter how long it takes. In addition, the two countries are to hold a regular strategic dialogue “with the aim of intensifying mutual efforts towards strengthening regional peace and security.” Significantly, two MoUs were also signed for the development of minerals and natural gas in Afghanistan. If all this is a reflection of friendly ties between India and Afghanistan, it comes with the discomforting knowledge of the fraught nature of geopolitics in the region. Pakistan, and the angry Pakhtun majority in Afghanistan, are bound to view the Indo/Afghan agreement with unease and anger. The Pakistani security establishment has also been suspicious even of India’s development assistance to Afghanistan, its western neighbour, and is not likely to facilitate the transit of minerals and natural gas by India through Pakistani territory to India or military supplies from Delhi to Kabul.
Afghanistan is a landlocked mountainous nation located in Central Asia – area 251, 827 Sq. miles bordering Pakistan, China, Tajikistan, Uzbeckistan, Turkmenistan and Iran. Afghanistan’s population is about thirty million: Tajiks form 27% of the population; Hazaras 9%; Uzbecks 9%; Turkmens 2%; & Pushtuns are about 53% who are currently disenfranchised since September 2001. Afghanistan is strategically located at the crossroads of major north-south and east-west trade routes, and has attracted a succession of invaders including Alexander the Great, in the fourth century BC, Changaiz Khan in early 13th century AD, the British Colonials in the nineteenth & twentieth centuries and the Soviet Union from December 1979 to April 1988. Currently, the United States and Nato have chosen to continue their global war on terrorism from occupied Afghanistan since September 11, 2001. The country is mountainous, much of it over 4,000 feet above sea level. The infamous Hindu-Kush mountains tower 16, 000 feet above Kabul and reach a height of 25, 288 feet tin the East in Pakistan’s Trich Mir mountain peak. The Hindu Kush mountains, running northeast to southwest across the country, divide it into three major regions: 1) the Central Highlands, which form part of the Himalayas and account for roughly two thirds of the country’s area; 2) the Southwestern Plateau, which accounts for one-fourth of the land; and 3) the smaller Northern Plains area, which contains the country’s most fertile soil. Afghanistan also boasts 16 miles of railroad. By signing the Strategic Partnership Agreement Delhi has essentially aligned itself with the current Tajik-dominated thuggish government in Kabul. This is very dangerous for India in terms of geographic presence and diplomacy as the warlike Pakhtuns – the majority in Afghanistan – now see India as a direct threat to their ascendancy. By signing the agreement India has just militarized its presence and must therefore be ready to face the consequences. Once the Pakhtuns fully grasp the truth and depth of Delhi’s desire to replace Western occupying powers – they will react in strength. The fact of the matter is that India has just painted a target on its ‘naval’ and this new status will not be profitable for Indian economic growth. It is obvious ‘India (read Hindu-stan) has not divided its ambitions by its limitations’, in land locked Afghanistan a country which boasts the ‘Hindu-Kush’ mountain range which runs Northeast to Southwest across Afghanistan, dividing it into three major regions: 1) the Central Highlands, which form part of the Himalayas and account for roughly two thirds of the country’s area; 2) the Southwestern Plateau, which accounts for one-fourth of the land; and 3) the smaller Northern Plains area, which contains the country’s most fertile soil. As it prepares for a withdrawal of its combat forces in Afghanistan, the United States has been particularly vocal about a larger Indian role in that country. The Strategic Partnership Agreement between India and Afghanistan is a confirmation that New Delhi is willing to take on such a role. India, with a commitment of $1.2 billion through 2013, is already the sixth largest donor to Afghanistan. Obviously India has not decided to divide its ambitions by its limitations. What if an angry Pakistan were to ban over flights by Indian and Afghan planes over its territory a la the Indian ban on over flights by Pakistani planes during its 1971 civil war, during the birth of Bangladesh, when Pakistan had to fly its planes from Karachi via Colombo in Sri Lanka to Dacca in East Pakistan a detour of thousands of miles?
The Indian rulers must remember a seventeenth century line from Don Quixote (1605) before they lose their ‘pants’ in Afghanistan, and sacrifice Sikh soldiers of the Indian Army as ‘cannon fodder’ in vain, which reads:- “To withdraw is not to run away, and to say is no wise action, when there is more reason to fear than to hope.” With the election of Pakistan to the UN Security Council, with China’s support, despite India’s best effort to derail Pakistan’s candidacy, has changed the geopolitical situation on the ground in Afghanistan. India should fear the revenge of the warlike Afghan Pukhtuns who have dispatched many an Imperial power to their doom.
News Source: The Nation
