View from the fringes

There is an adage that those who control Kabul rule Afghanistan. It is not entirely correct. Whether it was the occupation by the Soviet Union or that of the Taliban, the writ of Kabul has seldom run throughout the country. Afghanistan is a conglomeration of tribes and warlords, who arrive at a truce for the time being. Large swathes of land remain ungoverned.

The return of Burhanuddin Rabbani to Kabul does not mean that the Northern Alliance, which he heads, rules over Afghanistan. Nor does he make that claim. In fact, he says ‘‘We have not come to Kabul to extend our government. We are preparing the ground to invite peace groups and all Afghan intellectuals abroad who are working for peace.’’

The problem is with Washington and Islamabad, and more with the latter. Pakistan wants a configuration that includes the ‘moderate Taliban’. This is where New Delhi should have put its foot down. But after meeting US President Bush, Prime Minister Vajpayee has changed his tune and has begun talking about the ‘liberal Taliban’. Who are they? Where are they? Could any liberal have survived in the fundamentalist environs the Taliban built?

The UN’s supremacy is acceptable. But Washington will commit a grievous mistake if it tries to minimise the role or the sacrifice of the Northern Alliance, the only force which kept fighting against the Taliban when even the US had begun to cultivate them through Islamabad. The Alliance knows its limitations and does not want to rule Afghanistan by itself. But demands like the demilitarisation of Kabul or imposing an outside Muslim force to keep the vigil are too humiliating for the Kazakhs or the Tajiks, who make up the Alliance, to accept. US Secretary of State Powell is wrong in declaring Kabul an open city.

It is apparent that Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh is disappointed after his visit to Washington. Else he would not have said ‘‘if America chooses to help us, very good. If not, India’s fight against terrorism will continue regardless’’. I do not know how New Delhi came to believe that Washington would help us. It has never done so. In the last 12 years, India has been bleeding at the hands of terrorists aided from across the border. The US has never appreciated our point of view. That is why Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had the better of Prime Minister Vajpayee at Washington. US’ interests — and intent — are different from India’s. Washington is not against us but it is not with us either.

Had New Delhi made common cause with some countries before it committed its full support to the US within hours of the carnage at New York and Washington, it would not have been as helpless as it is today. The membership of the 21 countries club is poor consolation for a country which should have been part of the core group and which has supported the Rabbani government through thick and thin.

True, the non-aligned movement has fallen on bad days. But if India has thought of reactivating it after the rebuff at Washington, why couldn’t it have initiated the exercise after the US declared war against the Taliban in Afghanistan? Small powers cannot be heard; New Delhi can lend them a voice. The change of government at Kabul should spur our efforts to get small powers and the Afro-Asian nations together. Washington needs to be reminded that the original purpose of war was to eliminate terrorism.

Our worry should also be about the war of attrition that may expose the Afghans to further hardships. The danger of Pakistan’s ISI keeping the pot boiling is clear and present. The Afghanistan envoy in Delhi, Masood Khalili, has warned that fresh forces from Pakistan could come and take over Kabul. Even if this doesn’t happen, Islamabad’s dislike of the Northern Alliance, friendly to India, may only exacerbate the situation.

That Pakistan, being a neighbour, wants to have a say in the government in Afghanistan, is understandable. But in the process it may revive the demand for a separate state for the Pashtuns, who form 40 per cent of the Afghan population. The demand has been a nightmare for Pakistan.

While writing my book, Report on Afghanistan, 20 years ago, I stumbled on a secret pact. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then Pakistan Prime Minister, had visited Kabul in the beginning of the seventies to meet Mohammed Daoud Khan, then Afghanistan’s head, and had decided to bury the issue of a Pashtu-speaking state. Under the pact, Pakistan had agreed to hold a plebiscite in its Pashtu-speaking areas.

But it was to be rigged so as to return a ‘no’ verdict to Pashtoonistan. Daoud had assured Bhutto that he would accept the ‘verdict’ on behalf of the Afghan government. On his return visit to Pakistan in March 1978, Daoud said at Lahore that the Pakistanis were his ‘brothers’. Subsequently, the Afghan press, radio and TV stopped all propaganda against Pashtunistan. Neither Daoud nor Bhutto lived to work their agreement through.

Islamabad should be happy that even after propping up the Taliban, Pakistan has been able to get credibility in the eyes of the West. The suppression of fundamentalist forces is what has mainly gone in Musharraf’s favour. He has unwittingly helped liberal elements in Pakistan who now feel more confident. We should welcome the development. But Islamabad cannot dictate the terms. Washington should also realise this.

What ultimately counts is our own strength. India’s importance will be proportionate to its economic, political and military power. Why does democratic India have so little say while Communist China counts everywhere? The simple reason is that Beijing has an annual growth rate of more than 10 per cent and ours is around five per cent. Every child in China gets education and health care while most of our children loiter in the streets.

We are not only a soft state but also a state which has no determination to go ahead. We have no pride. We are not hurt when some foreigner tells us that India has remained a story of having the potential but not developing it. We have got used to backwardness. The level of corruption in China is no lower than ours but its national interest remains supreme. A decision once taken is not changed because someone at the top has been bribed. And one cannot imagine a scenario where tainted ministers are back in the government while charges against them are still pending.

The problem is how to create a climate which again brings out the spirit of sacrifice in people which the generations fighting for our independence showed. That requires a consensus. At one time, it looked as if Vajpayee might provide such a consensus. But the Advanis and the Joshis have come to prevail. The prime minister says he is a swayam sewak, he looks too weak, too resigned. His spurts of liberalism are less frequent. Vajpayee is only a shade better than the other leaders in the saffron camp.

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