Opinion Two sides of the Durand Line

Underlying this agreement is Kayani’s relentless outreach to Afghan President Hamid Karzai after the Obama administration announced plans in December 2009 to draw down US forces in Afghanistan from July 2011 and end their combat role in 2014.

Meanwhile,Karzai,looking to his political future after the US withdrawal,has sought Rawalpindi’s help to find a modus vivendi with the Taliban. While many contradictions remain between Karzai and Kayani,each has solid tactical reasons to befriend the other.

Should India,then,be concerned about a potential rapprochement between Pakistan and Afghanistan? The answer should be a definitive “no”. India should instead wish its two neighbours well in resolving their many longstanding differences. This is also a good moment for India to dispel the widespread impression that it is locked in geopolitical rivalry with Pakistan in Afghanistan.

One look at the map of the northwestern subcontinent would make it clear that Delhi cannot,even if it wants to,compete with Rawalpindi in Afghanistan. The Durand Line that divides Pakistan and Afghanistan is nearly 2,500-km-long and is an open border. A large Pashtun population straddles the Durand Line. India has no free geographic access to Afghanistan.

Delhi can certainly complicate things for the Pakistan army by raising the temperature on the Indo-Pak international border and the Line of Control in Kashmir. That India has done nothing of the sort is reflected in the fact that the Pakistan army has been able to shift thousands of troops from its eastern frontier to the west in recent years. Nor does India rain drones on Pakistan’s western borderlands. Yet,Pakistani propaganda has succeeded in selling the myth that India is the main threat to it in Afghanistan.

It is precisely for this reason that India must welcome the direct and intense talks between Kabul and Rawalpindi. After all,Afghanistan and Pakistan have many unresolved issues between themselves that have nothing to do with India.

Take,for example,the legitimacy of the Durand Line. It is Afghanistan,and not India,that questions the legitimacy of the Durand Line. The line drawn by the British Raj between undivided India and Afghanistan was inherited in 1947 by Pakistan as its western boundary. While the Afghans were willing to live with an arbitrary line drawn by the powerful Raj,they were not willing to accept it as the border with a partitioned rump. Rejecting the Durand Line,Afghanistan was the only country that voted against the entry of Pakistan into the United Nations in 1947. Landlocked Afghanistan has long quarrelled with Pakistan on issues relating to trade and transit.

Again,on Pashtunistan,India has never supported the idea. Many Afghan leaders in the past openly called for the creation of a Pashtunistan in Pakistan by combining all its lands west of the Indus.

As Karzai and Kayani negotiate on the accommodation of the Taliban in a future political set-up,the opposition will come less from India than from the non-Pashtun minorities in Afghanistan. The return of the Taliban to Kabul will pose a greater threat to Iran and Central Asia than to India.

Ensuring a stable ethnic balance within Afghanistan and in the region is not India’s preoccupation alone; it will indeed concern all the major powers and the international community.

How then should India respond to the rapidly evolving situation in Afghanistan? Five propositions present themselves. One,India should welcome the new and integrated thinking about the ethnic and territorial problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan. After all,the conflict in the two countries can no longer be segmented.

Two,India should strongly support the unity and territorial integrity of both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Providing legitimate and internationally endorsed boundaries to Pakistan on its western and eastern frontiers should address the genuine security anxieties of its ruling elite.

Three,as current disputed lines are converted into legitimate borders,India should demand greater respect for the political aspirations of different ethnic groups for autonomy within the current state system and greater institutional cooperation with their brethren across the frontiers.

Deepening internal devolution and cross-border consultative mechanisms are exactly the benchmarks that India used in negotiating a settlement with Pakistan’s General Musharraf over Jammu and Kashmir in 2005-07. Those principles — devolution at home and mechanisms for cross-border cooperation — should serve well in satisfying all dissatisfied ethnic communities,including the Pashtuns,between the Indus and the Hindu Kush.

Four,as Kabul and Rawalpindi negotiate on how best to accommodate the Taliban,and Turkey offers it international legitimacy by allowing its offices to open in Istanbul,India should open a direct engagement with the Taliban.

Five,India must offer a plan for regional economic integration that would allow Afghanistan and Pakistan to develop a sustainable economic strategy based on their geopolitical location as the bridge between the subcontinent,Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.

Taken together,these five propositions provide a constructive basis for India to engage Kabul,Rawalpindi and the international community and contribute to the emergence of a stable order in the north-western subcontinent.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research,Delhi,express@expressindia.com