The seminar focused on recent developments in Afghanistan and the following issues were addressed: the regrouping of the Taliban; the internationalisation of the situation in Afghanistan; Pakistan- Afghanistan relations, as well as Afghanistan's relations with Central Asia; and implications for India.

C Raja Mohan

We need to look at our neighbours as entities by themselves within a paradigm of their own, setting aside our prejudices and assumptions. And, it is for a researcher to question the existing policies for analytical purposes and not endorse them blindly. Therefore, our challenge now is to avoid the trap of our own prejudices. In the conference attended by me in Kabul during May I had an opportunity to discuss the situation in Afghanistan with a number of people. I also met the Head of the UN Mission in Afghanistan, Deputy Chief of the NATO military command and other foreign dignitaries.

What I propose to do is to look at a set of current issues and question existing assumptions on the same and secondly, to make a proposition of my own. Some of the recent developments and trends that have taken place in Afghanistan were reinforced. Recently, the demonstration in Afghanistan a week before against a US truck which ran down members of the local population. The ousting of Taliban in 2001 was fundamentally in our own interest. But, to run down a friend who helps is a perverse phenomenon in India. The proposition ignores completely the change in Afghanistan. Introduction of politics was a new change in Afghanistan which brought together with it the bargaining, negotiations and also compromises that has to be made. A new Assembly came into being and also each cabinet member had to lobby with the Assembly to join the cabinet. That was the beginning of a whole new process in Afghanistan.

The second is the rise of Taliban. It is still an open question. Is the regrouping of Taliban a strategic trend or a tactical gain? If the Taliban is grouping together, it makes itself vulnerable to the US forces. Does the regrouping of the Taliban really represent the end of the Karzai regime? A lot of Pakistanis will pray that US is presence in Afghanistan is temporary and not a long term strategic commitment. And the recent visit of Condoleezza Rice to Afghanistan and Pakistan was to get the message across and reinforce that the US commitment is an enduring one and the message to Musharraf was that the US is not about to quit and Pakistan cannot strengthen and play the Taliban card. It can be a reasonable compromise that the US would let Musharraf stay on in power for his cooperation in Afghanistan. For the foreseeable future, it is certainly in India's interest that US should stay.

The internationalisation of the situation in Afghanistan is the third important point. The large contingent of NATO troops in Afghanistan with a long-term commitment indicates that NATO is there to stay for sometime. NATO faces its own challenges and there are domestic considerations in the NATO. Is this just a liberal force and not a fighting army? Can the NATO really fight or is it just a parade ground army which is being projected?

The next is Pakistan-Afghanistan relations. The tension is quite palpable. There is a profound distrust of Pakistan in Afghanistan. The Afghan Defence minister said that they don't believe Pakistan has moved in troops near the border to fight the Taliban. There is a strong tension between the two countries. The US is finding ways to bring together a whole lot of institution like the Joint Military Commission and joint exercises and consultative mechanisms. The first such exercises have taken place. And India should monitor this move and keep a watch.

There is the relation between Central Asia and Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) though the agenda of the SCO does not correspond to that of Karzai. The SCO want US troops to withdraw from Central Asia, which also includes Afghanistan. But Karzai certainly doesn't want that to happen. He does make the same proposition. China's role in Afghanistan is growing. The aid and the projects that China has undertaken in Afghanistan have increased over the years. As part of the cooperation between the three countries there can be a triangular way of Pakistan-Afghanistan-China cooperation. India should watch over them.

Given Indo-Pakistan rivalry, there is deep fear and suspicion in Pakistan of India's role in Afghanistan. India's activity and profile is a matter of concern to Pakistan. Just as in Nepal, no body can succeed by working against India, it is not possible to devise a strategy that fundamentally contradicts Pakistan interest's in Afghanistan. Geography cannot be disregarded as there is 2500 km of open border. A strategic judgement of reassuring Pakistan is the best strategy available to India.

Afghanistan strategically is the story about the Durand Line. The Durand line remains a central issue while talking about Pakistan and Afghanistan. That is a strategic challenge that has to be managed. It is an inheritance from the British, and it is not a shocking behaviour of Pakistan but a logical inheritance of British legacy which should be recognized by India.

Much of the problem in Waziristan and tribal regions in Pakistan is again part of the British legacy. The regions were never governed. That was built into the arrangements and the same methodology of not inheriting beyond the inner line but claiming it as territory remains Pakistan's policy. The vacuum of sovereignty has become a haven for the al-Qaeda and a whole range of activists. Therefore, the challenge is to ensure sovereignty in terms of governance and development that brings modernity to the region.

The last set of issues historically is the British India pushing the frontiers westwards but there is a fundamentally new situation where the international forces are pushing in against Pakistan. This leaves the options open for India. Pakistan is vulnerable to fighting on both sides. Until transformation of the region takes place the region will not be secure. . Afghanistan and Pakistan has to arrive at a final compromise where Afghanistan should recognize the Durand Line for other guarantors from Pakistan.

Comments:

1.FATA was never administered and it was left by the British. In the foreseeable future, Pakistan will not be able to exercise any control over it. The warlords exercise their control over these tribal areas and this will continue to grow. How far will the international forces succeed trying to push the Durand Line? If the military solution would not succeed, will a civilian initiative be able to tame the violence and make the tribes give up the culture of the gun?

2.The image of Gen, Musharraf as an enlightened moderator has been dented but the partnership of convenience the US had with Musharraf has let him stay on in power. Can you elaborate on the issue of Afghanistan? In what ways would India's help be required?

3.Afghanistan is being treated as a strategic outpost and it has nothing to offer. The idea of creating Special Economic Zones (SEZ) is delightful. How can the development of Afghanistan be ensured? What kind of development would work in the tribal areas of Pakistan? Every hamlet seems an entity by itself. The people in the region had a very good knowledge of how to conduct business and make money. But how can development succeed in an area where each entity promotes its own ends of strengthening itself? Can education shape their thinking? Can India go for a new thematic approach?

4.Is there a rise of China in Central Asia? Is the strategic relationship between China and Pakistan growing? Pakistan has made the US pay for the domestic deficit of democracy and accommodated the US to play up its angle of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

5.NATO is operating among two distrustful allies. What are NATO's chances of success? Will the NATO enlarge its activity in Afghanistan? What happened to the old warlords in Afghanistan?

6.I do not agree with your Nepal analogy to the relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. No regime in Nepal would dare to threaten India openly and survive. It is wrong to say that the areas near the Durand Line were never controlled. History starts much earlier before the British. Khushanas had their empire next to FATA. Both FATA and Balochistan were inalienable parts of the Mogul Empire. Mogul empire went right up to Kabul and Kandahar. The British couldn't control the area because they could not assimilate with the local population.

7.If the US would like to increase its presence in Afghanistan, why is the option only between the Taliban and the warlords? Is not there a third option? Can you please explain the Iranian dimension in Afghanistan? Given, the deficit of trust between Pakistan and India, how can India help Afghanistan?

8.Is there a difference between the Taliban and al-Qaeda? Pakistan can be linked with the Taliban but not with the al-Qaeda. Taliban is using Jihad for religious purposes and al-Qaeda for political purposes. Is the fencing of the Durand Line a possible option?

9.Talking in terms of the stability in Afghanistan, Pakistan never had positive relations with Kabul. Secondly, talking about open borders, the tribes have the tradition of ignoring political impositions and the Durand Line assumes a smaller dimension. What is that we can hope for in the future? Ethnic divisions in Afghanistan have not led to the demise of the concept of Afghanistan. What is the future dimension given the realities of the present?

C Raja Mohan

Khalkis who were Pashtuns went over to the Taliban in late 1990's and worked for them because ethnic identities pulled them there and Tajiks worked for the Northern Alliance and there was fragmentation. Ultimately, the tribal loyalties became too strong. The tribes are the key to structuring Afghanistan. The key is in playing the tribal card. The geopolitics has again become similar as the experience of the British. Reconnecting ourselves to the grand strategy of the past is the key to dealing with Afghanistan.

The leaders of the Northern Alliance in 1997 said that partition cannot be an option for Afghanistan. There is an Afghan identity beyond tribal loyalties. But the transborder question doesn't disappear. If the British had stopped at Indus the story would have been different. The grand strategy would be to modify the basic concept. The Durand Line can't be redrawn to please the Afghans and displease Pakistan. Just as in Kashmir, PM Manmohan has said that it is not about territory but changing the nature of the frontiers. An open border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is an advantage provided other conditions fall into place and work to the advantage of everyone. As Manmohan said in Amritsar the old Silk Road between Kabul and Amritsar can be revived if the Radcliff line and the Durand Line is opened up. India has a Forward Policy in Central Asia. But the capacity of India to intervene in the region is constrained without borders. What is needed is a fundamentally different strategy of converting Pakistan into a buffer state. Pakistan's role in Afghanistan is an instinct of the British legacy. It is always in one's own interest to control the frontiers. But to modify the grand concept India needs to imagine a different structure. Our strategy should be to work with the international community to persuade Pakistan to opt for a different outcome. Any policy which doesn't give Pakistan a stake will not succeed. India has to transform the nature of its policy with Pakistan. India should structure a set of incentives for Pakistan and the peace process becomes important. The nature of our relationship with Pakistan has to be transformed for a long term policy in Afghanistan to succeed. The nature of the Radcliff line is to be changed. The external environment is supportive as never before and the US can be leveraged to push Pakistan in a different direction. This opportunity needs to be taken advantage of by India.

The idea of creating Special Economic Zones (SEZ) is going in for a different approach. The military approach should be combined with the economic and strategic approach. Tribal areas governed by no State require a strategy. The US and NATO are working on a transborder SEZ operating in Pakistan, Afghanistan and with better tariff concessions. The NGOs working in Afghanistan must reach out to the people. Can we entice, co-opt and corrupt the tribes to dealing with this challenge? The challenge is clearly about extending sovereignty. India faces similar problems in the North-East. In spite of all this there is a competing reality of Pakistan -Afghanistan trade increasing five hundred fold over the past two years. Historically, trade flourished in the Indo-Gangetic plains.

Colonialism brought with it certain enduring features. The civil service in India is one of the examples. Till the advent of the British the modern territorial system did not exist but empires existed. But, the British brought with them the idea of European notion of territorial state. The concept of territoriality did not exist before. In fact, the Moguls who came from Central Asia also had problems controlling territory. In the beginning of the 20th century the British Army at the zenith of its power could not control the rebellion of the Mullahs in 1921 when they rose against them.

Iran has a bigger dimension and the Americans had done Iran two big favours; one was to remove Saddam Hussein and the other is the removal of the Taliban. Iran is the biggest beneficiary of the removal of Taliban. The Iran issue has not begun to complicate Afghanistan yet. The Iranians feel the issue in Balochistan is being directed against them. But the principle focus remains the Durand Line and is the dominant paradigm that is to be addressed.

The question is to integrate the warlords in a power-sharing system. A warlord derives his identity from ethnicity. As for the Taliban it is the principal force whose objective is a Pan-Islamic state. Warlords are a lesser evil than Taliban. Hence the US supporting the warlords is to bring stability and security to Afghanistan. If the interest is to prevent the Taliban from gaining power, the interest must be to support the warlords. The objective should be one clearly in mind and that should be the development and transformation of Afghanistan.

It is for Pakistan to differentiate between the Taliban and al-Qaeda and India's objective is to probe the differences and defeat the enemy. Pakistan's support for the Taliban was being tolerated by the US before September 11. Hence Pakistan cannot profess this openly any longer.

The world has moved from closed borders to open borders. And the situation in South Asia cannot be abandoned. Given the legacy of open borders the question is how to regulate them while combating the negative force. If open borders existed, the policy should be leveraged to turn them into trade areas which would benefit people on both sides of the border.

Extreme interdependence produces love-hate relationship. Afghanistan is dependent for all its trade and transit arrangements on Pakistan. The only exit to the sea from Afghanistan is through Pakistan. There is a shared ethnic community across the borders. Their hatred of each other does not in any way reduce their interdependence. India's policy has been a narrow one of taking peripheral advantages of the Pak-Afghan hostility. To assert its power, India should have a grand strategy which will blend the current difficulties into an advantage where India will be able to reach Afghanistan over land. And that needs a rediscovering of the essence of India's forward strategy and finding reconciliation through Pakistan.

PR Chari

We have had a rich discussion about two countries which are extremely important to us. That deepens our own knowledge about the neighbourhood. I would also like to add another fact of history. During the period of the Moguls, the capital of the Muslim Kingdom alternated between Agra and Delhi. Romilla Thapar, one of the finest historians of India explained the reason for this as the confidence the dynasty had in its control over Afghanistan. When the control over Afghanistan weakened, there was a fear of invasion from Central Asia or from Afghanistan and the capital was shifted south towards Agra and while more confident over its control it was moved to Delhi. Historically, this link existed before the British came.

Maj Gen Baneerjee

Dynamic changes are taking place in the region immediately to our west and its parameters need to be noted. These are; the steady evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in to a regional security body, Musharraf's recent statement offering Pakistan as an energy hub for the whole of western Asia and particularly to China, and NATO's expanding presence in Afghanistan, all have implications going far beyond the immediate region. The consequences of these for the US, Pakistan and India will be major. The only minor current in some ways is that South Block is indeed moving faster than public opinion and attempting to make its presence felt in the region in a quiet but substantive manner. Our purpose at the institute is to keep abreast of these developments and hence today's discussions are of great importance.