Into the breach

India should take the lead on post-US Afghanistan

With the world's attention riveted on Syria, this might be a good time for India to start crafting a viable strategy towards Afghanistan in readiness for the US withdrawal in a little over a year. In general, when it comes to the Af-Pak region, India rarely holds a strong suit. For differing reasons, the US and China remain allies of Pakistan, the key player in Afghanistan's post-US future. It is a situation that allows the latter's establishment to, with impunity, promote the forces of destabilisation in the region - including bankrolling the Taliban.

That balance of relationships may, however, change radically after 2014. For one, Pakistan will not be able to count on the vast no-questions-asked sums of money and materiel that the US heaped on it in the past. Nor will Pakistan's other allies and neighbours continue to take kindly to its blatant sponsorship of the Taliban and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. Russia and China can be relied on to take a grim view of any recrudescence of radical Islam on, respectively, their southern and western borders. And given Afghanistan's multi-ethnic composition - Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmen and Balochis form significant minorities - the Central Asian republics are unlikely to appreciate any Afghan administration in which Pashtuns, the most dominant grouping, control the levers of power as they do in the Taliban. All of these countries also have compelling stakes in a peaceful post-US Afghanistan for the economic opportunities involved - as with Myanmar, there are infrastructure projects and mineral resources to be exploited.

This is where India holds some strong suits. Although India's presence in Afghanistan is small - there are just 3,600 Indian nationals there - the country enjoys a great reputation there, beyond just Bollywood. The hospitals, schools, roads, telecoms networks and wells that India has developed have enhanced good relations. Its president, Hamid Karzai, who was educated in India, is unabashedly in love with the country. Last month's overtures to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif can be seen as an exercise in realpolitik rather than personal conviction. Critically, Mr Karzai, however imperfect and corrupt his government, has taken care to broadbase the ethnic basis of his rule. This melds neatly with India's sustained sponsorship of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. Still, it is well known that his rule does not extend much beyond Kabul; and India has, in the period after 9/11, been careful to develop ties with some Pashtun tribes - by no means a united lot - in the provinces. India, thus, is in a strong position to take the initiative to form a coalition of the willing with Russia, China and the US to generate the pressure for a peaceful Afghanistan. There are scant signs yet of a post-US Afghan strategy but given the complexities involved in such negotiations, the time to start is now.