AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN The Treaty of Rawalpindi in August 1919, ending the Third Afghan War and restoring Afghanistan's control of its foreign relations, opened a new chapter in relations between Afghanistan and India. To the government of India, Afghanistan was a pathway for a Soviet advance and subversion, or a source of instability from internal unrest or actions by Kabul or tribal or religious leaders who could exploit the cross-border sympathies of the Pathan population. To Indian nationalists, Afghanistan provided an attractive destination, whether Deobandi-educated Muslim clergy, Communists enroute to Moscow, or deserting soldiers. Indian and Afghan nationalism developed many links. Extensive ties of culture and commerce between Afghanistan and India included the Hindu and Sikh minorities in Afghanistan, while Afghan traders were long established throughout India.

The accession to the Afghan throne of the anti-British modernizing nationalist Amanullah Shah in 1919 ended Afghanistan's buffer state relationship. But after the Soviets, establishing power on the northern border, concluded their 1921 treaty with Afghanistan, Amanullah became more receptive to cooperation with Delhi. He signed the 1921 Treaty of Kabul. Under its provisions a British envoy—the first since 1879—arrived in Kabul in 1922. A trade agreement followed in 1923. However, Amanullah's modernization of Afghanistan had dissolved into civil war by 1929.

After the war, the weakened Kabul government of Nadir Shah needed support from Delhi, a policy continued by his brother and successor Hashim Khan, and by Zahir Shah (acceded 1933) throughout the 1930 and 1940s. Delhi supported the government in Kabul as a counterweight to the actions of Afghan religious figures and tribes and as a barrier against the Soviets. During the 1940s, agreements were made to equip and train Afghan troops from India.

With independence and partition, relations between India and Afghanistan became inescapably shaped by Pakistan. Afghanistan had first supported independence for a united India, and then called for extension of referendum options to the North-West Frontier and Baluchistan provinces rather than compelling accession to Pakistan. Afghanistan claimed that any border agreements signed with British authorities did not apply to successor states. In September 1947, Afghanistan was the only country to oppose the admission of Pakistan to the United Nations, citing this issue.

The conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, starting with Maharaja Hari Singh's indecision over the issue of accession, escalated in October 1947. A traditional lashkar (army) of Pathans—raised on both sides of the Durand Line with Pakistani military leadership—was sent into Kashmir, only to be defeated by Indian armed forces. This established the importance, for India, of the need to separate Afghanistan from Pakistani control.

India used diplomatic and commercial relations to deflect Pakistani rhetoric, placate India's Muslim population, support Afghanistan's Hindu and Sikh minorities, and continue contact with Pathan nationalist leaders, some of whom, such as Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the "frontier Gandhi," had been close to Jawaharlal Nehru and the leadership of the Indian National Congress before 1947. A treaty of friendship, signed in New Delhi in 1950, was followed by repeated Afghan prime ministerial visits.

India's inability to provide substantial aid to Afghanistan, as the British had done, encouraged the emergence of the Soviet role as an aid donor in Afghanistan. India joined with the Soviets in urging Afghanistan to continue to press the Pushtunistan issue and avoid security relations with the United States and the West.

Pakistan saw India-Afghanistan relations as hostile, aimed at encirclement. However, Afghanistan's neutrality in the 1965 India-Pakistan war led to an abatement of Pakistani hostility and Pushtunistan tensions. India provided aid during Afghanistan's 1970–1971 drought. Afghanistan was again neutral in the 1971 war. The 1973 seizure of power in Afghanistan by Prince Mohammed Daoud was accepted; his pro-Soviet stance was consistent with India's growing security relationship with Moscow. India was now an aid donor to Afghanistan, primarily developmental but including military training.

India's 1971 victory led Pakistan to plan on Afghanistan as a source of "strategic depth," capable of providing potential bases and also acting as a source of pan-nationalist Islamist fervor and ideology, as well as guerrillas who could be used—with plausible deniability—against India as well as against Daoud. In 1978, Daoud looked to India (along with Iran) for aid and support, distancing himself from the Soviet Union. This helped motivate the violent 1978 putsch by Communist military officers. India, following the Soviet lead, recognized the new Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. This regime's brutal policies led to widespread resistance, motivating increasing Soviet military involvement, culminating in the invasion of December 1979.

The 1980 decision of Indira Gandhi's government not to openly oppose the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan reflected the importance of the security relationship with the Soviet Union. Abstaining in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly and Non-Aligned Movement votes was unpopular domestically (especially with Indian Muslims) and internationally. It undercut Indian claims to a leadership role in the developing world and strained relations with the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and China. It was resented by most (except the pro-Soviet minority) Afghans.

From 1980 to 1986, India became increasingly concerned about the apparently permanent Soviet occupation. Acquiescence to invasion undercut policies stressing noninterference in the region and peaceful coexistence. India used its relationship with the Soviet Union to privately push for a peaceful settlement, earning little gratitude in Moscow. India was also concerned at the acquisition of modern weapons by Pakistan—threatened by Soviets along the Durand Line—and the Pakistan-based Afghan resistance. The war caused many of Afghanistan's estimated 20,000 Hindus and 10,000 Sikhs to become refugees or to emigrate; the communities in Kabul and Jalalabad, though diminished, remained. India received over 100,000 Afghan refugees of all backgrounds.

By 1986–1987, changes under the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and negotiations in Geneva led India to believe the Soviet military would withdraw. India wanted the Soviets to leave a pro-Moscow government in Kabul, strong enough to prevent the rise to power of the Pakistan-based resistance parties. India recognized the new Republic of Afghanistan (with the former secret police chief, Najibullah, as head of state) formed in 1986. It received some Indian medical and financial aid plus a small military assistance mission, but remained illegitimate in the eyes of most Afghans as well as in the international community.

In the late 1980s, responding to Indian accusations of involvement in the insurgency in the Punjab, and following the 1987 Brass Tacks exercise crisis (when Indian forces deploying to the border area were seen as a possible preparation for invasion), Pakistan used Afghanistan to internationalize the conflict in Kashmir. The goal of some in the Pakistani security services was that Afghanistan would be replicated in Kashmir, using weapons supplied for Afghans. Kashmiris, Afghans, and Islamic foreigners alike were trained in camps (run by Pakistani intelligence or foreign organizations) on Afghan territory.

India supported many abortive approaches for peace—by the United Nations and others—in 1989–1992, but Pakistan aimed to exclude Indian participation. The Republic of Afghanistan, militarily strong enough to endure beyond the Soviet withdrawal in February 1989, collapsed only with the end of the Soviet Union. Kabul fell to the resistance in April 1992.

India recognized the Islamic State of Afghanistan (ISA), which replaced the Republic of Afghanistan, in 1993. (Najibullah had tried, unsuccessfully, to flee to India.) The importance of the relationship with India to the ISA was shown by the selection, as ambassador, of Massoud Khalili, one of the most skilled political officers of the Afghan resistance and a close associate of internal resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. India desired good relations with Kabul and opposed the Pakistan-backed Islamic radical and fundamentalist Afghan groups that waged a proxy war against it, the Hezb-i-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, from 1993 to 1996 and, after 1994, the Taliban.

India sought to use Afghanistan to help build ties (aimed at energy sources and economic growth) to former Soviet Central Asia and to combat radical Islamic support for Kashmiri insurgents and destabilization in Central Asia. India's policy on Afghanistan remained consistent with that of Moscow. India also sought to work with Iran in limiting Pakistani ambitions in Afghanistan, agreeing with Iran to develop a north-south corridor, the ultimate goal being expansion of the Iranian port of Chahbahar, connecting it by rail to Afghanistan at Zaranj.

Pakistan saw this as a continuation of Indian encir-clement. An Indian airlift of a limited amount of military aid (helicopter parts) in 1995, plans to reopen consulates, and provision of developmental aid were all seen as threats. Pakistan defined a friendly government in Kabul as one that excluded Indian influence, and achieved considerable success in barring India from the UN "six-plustwo" process and from most international forums dealing with Afghanistan, except for a few meetings under UN auspices and others organized by Iran and Kazakhstan.

The Indian mission in Kabul was forced to close by the civil war in 1994. Kabul fell to the Taliban in 1996. Pakistan continued to support the Taliban against the ISA, which moved its capital north. India did not recognize the Taliban regime, keeping the ISA embassy in New Delhi open and providing them with support. Unlike Iran, India did not provide identifiable military supplies. The type and volume of Indian support for the ISA from 1996 to 2001, while not publicly revealed, was obviously considerably less than Pakistan's exstensive support to the Taliban.

The Taliban, influenced by al-Qaeda and terrorist organizations, allowed the use of training camps to support violence in Kashmir, Central Asia, and elsewhere. These groups also persuaded the Taliban to repress the remaining Hindu and Sikh minorities in Afghanistan. The hijacking of an Indian airliner to Britain in 1999 by Afghans demanding the release of prisoners strengthened India's opposition to the Taliban. Al-Qaeda's assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud on 9 September 2001 also badly wounded Ambassador Massoud Khalili, in Afghanistan for consultation. In the ensuing fighting in 2001–2002, India supported the ISA forces that, with U.S. and allied military participation, defeated the Taliban and al-Qaeda. India provided monetary rather than overt military aid, reestablishing its mission in Kabul soon after the Taliban's defeat.

The Indian special envoy to Afghanistan, S. K. Lambah, played a facilitating role in the post-conflict Bonn conference. India pledged a U.S.$100 million developmental aid package in the January 2002 Tokyo conference. Medicine, transportation, and communications were among the areas of Indian aid. The new Afghan government responded with ministerial visits and, in February 2002, Hamid Karzai—educated in India—made his first trip as acting president. This visit elicited the announcement of a further $10 million in aid, cooperation in antiterrorist measures, and long-term programs, including Indian training for Afghan security and governmental personnel. Massoud Khalili, recovering from his wounds, returned to India as Afghan ambassador.

High-profile terrorist attacks from groups with links to Afghanistan in 2001–2002 and the continuing Kashmir conflict kept the end of the civil war in Afghanistan from benefiting other Indian relations. Despite Pakistan's opposition to Indian participation in multilateral forums on Afghanistan—such as the 2002 Kabul Declaration on regional security—India remained committed to supporting the government in Kabul. Following 2003 bilateral and transit trade agreements with Afghanistan, India in 2004 asked for U.S. support to secure access through Pakistan. India has supported Afghanistan's membership in SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation).

India's policy goals toward Afghanistan, consistent since 1919, have focused on good relations with the government in Kabul, irrespective of its nature. Only in 1996–2001, under the radical pro-terrorist Taliban, was India willing to support the opposition, when it constituted the internationally recognized ISA government. In the future, Kabul is likely to continue to value relations with India. This is likely to align India with Moscow, as before, but now also with the United States and Europe, though tensions with Pakistan over relations with Afghanistan remain. India remains concerned that Pakistani economic and Pathan ethnic links could exert control over Kabul's policies. Indian relations with Afghanistan have value as a model for Muslims, domestic and international. Afghan resentment over Indian policies from 1979 to 1992 and unhappiness over Kashmir have not affected relations. Delhi's 1919 objectives—to support an independent and cohesive Afghanistan and to defend it against nonstate threats—are likely to remain consistent in the future.

David C. Isby

See alsoAnglo-Afghan Wars ; Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier ; Islam's Impact on India

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