Opinion A case of exploding mangoes
There is much about American policy in South Asia that is mysterious and mystifying but Hillary Clintons offer to help Pakistan sell its mangoes is about as mysterious as it gets....
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There is much about American policy in South Asia that is mysterious and mystifying but Hillary Clintons offer to help Pakistan sell its mangoes is about as mysterious as it gets. Is mangoes a code word for something we should know more about? Some dark and devious new plot that exports atom bombs in cases of mangoes? If not why is Pakistan having any difficulty selling mangoes? If there were absurd aspects to the Secretary of States visit to Pakistan last week there were some serious ones that we in India need to pay close attention to.
Water is one of them. Many years ago I read a story by Saadat Hasan Manto about a village in newly made Pakistan whose residents were worried that India would steal the water from the rivers. The residents of the village were illiterate and easily misled so they believed the people who came and told them that India was so angry about Partition that it would ensure that the rivers ran dry. I have thought of the story often in the past few months during which Pakistans civilian and military spokesmen have brought up the subject of water so often that the world has begun to share the concerns of Mantos villagers. The International Herald Tribune had a huge story last Wednesday that talked about the Kishenganga Dam as if it were some new weapon against Pakistan. There has been much fuss in the Pakistani press about the issue of water and only a handful of commentators have pointed out that Pakistans water problems are the result of mismanagement. What everyone seems to have forgotten is that water was raised by Pakistan as an issue only because 26/11 became too serious for Pakistani Generals to pretend that their foreign policy did not use jihadi groups as a strategic asset.
Now that our National Security Advisor,a man known for his restraint,confirms that the ISI was involved in 26/11 I had hoped that someone in the American state department would notice the implications of this. It changes everything but all we got from the spokesman of the State Department,Philip Crawley,was a polite request for Pakistan to do more to catch those responsible for 26/11.
How can Pakistan do this? Will it arrest General Ashraf Kayani? Will it arrest the General who was head of the ISI? Of course not but the Americans appear to be so desperate to get out of Afghanistan that they humour Pakistan as if it were some spoilt child. Even when they make silly charges about Indias so-called involvement in Afghanistan Mrs. Clinton smiles politely. What involvement?
India wants Afghanistan to be a peaceful country and not Jihad Central as it was under the Taliban. We do not like women being stoned to death or locked up,illiterate and helpless,in their homes. Our involvement in Afghanistan has been mostly in the form of building hospitals,schools and roads. But,because Pakistan is paranoid and thinks of Afghanistan as its backyard it shrieks about Indian involvement and the American State Department listens.
Ironically,what India is doing in Afghanistan is what the Americans should have been doing from the day Barack Obama became President. Instead of sending more young men to die in an unwinnable war it should be flooding Afghanistan with civilian aid. The only way to prevent the Taliban from coming back is to build schools and hospitals,roads and power stations so that ordinary Afghans realize that there are benefits in modernity. It is when they see that modernity brings them nothing but war that they began to hanker after the Islamic idyll that Jihadi groups like the Taliban promise them.
Perhaps,the Prophet Mohammed lived in a time when Arabia was a haven of peace and prosperity but that this haven can no longer be created should be evident to even ordinary,illiterate Afghans. All they need to do is peek across the border to see what has become of the country that came into being in the name of Islam.
Even if it is hard for ordinary,illiterate Afghans to see that religion is not the solution to their countrys problems it should be evident to those who make American foreign policy. It should be evident at least that Pakistans problems with water and jihadi terrorism are of its own making. It should be evident that religion is not a good enough reason for a country to be created and that is the crux of Pakistans problems. But,Mrs Clinton sails into Islamabad and agrees to every silly demand. Perhaps,she should concentrate on helping Pakistani farmers sell their mangoes. It might be easier than helping sort out the mess that Afghanistan has become as a result of American intervention in our neighbourhood.
Follow Tavleen Singh on Twitter @ tavleen_singh
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