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Subject: Bilateral Relations

1. Major World Events
2. India’s Interests in neighbourhood
3. Effects of our Policies

  • The Abraham Accords as India’s West Asia bridge

    Context

    The recent visit by the Indian Air Force chief, to Israel offers a window to study how India is taking advantage of the Abraham Accords deal signed between Israel and a consortium of Arab States led by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2020.

    Increasing defence cooperation between India and West Asia region

    • India’s trajectory towards an increased strategic footprint in West Asia has been in development for some time now.
    • Starting from the relatively low-key staging visit to Saudi Arabia conducted by the IAF in 2015.
    • India hosted visiting Iranian naval warships in 2018.
    • India takes an active part in the defence of the critical waterways in and around the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and the extended Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
    • An Indian contingent of the Indian Air Force (IAF) will visit Israel in October to take part in multilateral military exercises.
    • India also conducted the ‘Zayed Talwar’ naval exercises with the UAE off the coast of Abu Dhabi, further deepening the fast-developing strategic cooperation between the two countries.
    • In December 2020, Indian Army chief visited the UAE and Saudi Arabia, becoming the first chief of the Indian Army to do so.
    • In 2017, India signed a deal with Oman, the home to Duqm Port  for access to the facility, including dry dock use by the Indian Navy.

    How Abraham Accords accelerated India’s engagement with West Asia region?

    • No need for balancing act: The signing of the Accords has removed a significant strategic obstacle for India — delicate balancing act India has had to play out between the Arab Gulf and Israel over the decades.
    • India had welcomed the Accords, highlighting its support for mechanisms that offer peace and stability in the region.
    • From the UAE’s perspective, Accords were to make sure the emirate along with its international centres of trade such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi do not become targets between Jerusalem and Tehran.
    • However, not all Arab States have been on board with the geopolitical shifts the Accords have pushed through.
    • Saudi Arabia has maintained a distance from this arrangement.

    India’s West Asia construct and relations with Iran

    • Iran, as part of India’s ‘West Asia’ construct, will also play a significant part in India’s outreach in the months to come as the crisis in Afghanistan deepens.
    • Connectivity projects such as Chabahar Port and Chabahar-Zahedan rail project (project discussions are still on) amongst others remain critical.
    • Recently,  strategic cooperation revitalised despite multiple obstacles in the bilateral relations, led by U.S. sanctions against Tehran and the general tensions between Israel, the Gulf and Iran via proxy battles in theatres such as Yemen, Syria and beyond.

    Conclusion

    India’s strategic play in West Asia will be reflective of its economic growth, and by association, an increasingly important place in the global order.

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  • Understanding the strategic flux and humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan

    Context

    The Afghan government and its defence forces have completely collapsed. The world over, television screens are full of images of the extraordinary takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban.

    Background of the US intervention in Afghanistan

    • The original trigger for the US military intervention in Afghanistan was the 9/11 attacks.
    • The objective then was to eliminate the al Qaeda sanctuaries hosted by the Taliban.
    • That goal was quickly attained, as was another one — the elimination of Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011.
    • The US was thereafter stuck into a vortex in which its mission oscillated between counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency. 
    • The military presence in Afghanistan has been questioned by the US political firmament for a decade.

    Factors driving the US exit

    • China factor: The US now regards China as its principal strategic competitor.
    • China’s muscle-flexing in the East and South China Seas calls for a renewed effort by the US to protect its stakes.
    • The rise of China is the main geo-strategic threat for the US.
    • In 2001, the US had taken its eye off the ball in diverting its attention to the global war on terror.
    • Beginning with Afghanistan, it meandered through Iraq, Libya and Syria, with mixed results.
    • Taiwan: China’s recent ratcheting up of pressure on Taiwan has also sounded the alarm.

    Implications of Taliban’s return for region

    • The new regime in Kabul is likely to open the door to economic investments from China.
    • At the geopolitical level, the BRI may well receive a boost, given China’s interests in connectivity that could straddle the region, from Pakistan to Iran.
    • Pakistan has shown alacrity in welcoming the change of guard in Kabul.
    • The change in Afghanistan has security implications for India and the region at large.
    • A spill-over of any chaos and instability in Afghanistan beyond its borders could give terrorism a shot in the arm.
    • It could also singe Pakistan if it does not review its malevolent practices, which favour terror as an instrument of state policy.

    Way forward for India

    • India should prioritise the welfare of the Afghan people, whenever the opportunity presents itself.
    • Currently, about 2,500 Afghan students are enrolled in educational and vocational institutions across India.
    • They will no doubt wish to extend their scholarships.
    • As a close neighbour, India has keen stakes in ensuring a stable, secure and developed Afghanistan.
    • As the rotational President of the UN Security Council for August, India has an opportunity to engage important stakeholders on the way forward.
    • Beyond that too, India’s presence in the UN Security Council till the end of 2022 will provide a platform to explore options with greater flexibility.

    Conclusion

    The global community needs to underscore the continued participation of women in governance in Afghanistan and keep an eye on violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

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  • India’s fate is tied to the rest of the world

    Context

    Ever since Independence, India’s fate has been closely tied to the rest of the world.

    How global interactions and how it shaped India

    • A large, newly independent, impoverished, and diverse country required active engagement with a variety of partners for its survival, security, and development.
    • But a constantly evolving international environment presented India not just with opportunities but numerous challenges.
    • Poorly demarketed borders: Its frontiers were initially poorly demarcated and poorly integrated.
    • Nuclear-armed neighbours: India came to have two nuclear-armed neighbors with which it competed for territory.
    • Relations with the US and Russia: India’s first leaders opted for flexible and friendly relations with both the U.S. and the Soviet Union and their respective allies.
    • The Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation and the Bangladesh war altered India’s relations with both superpowers and shifted the dynamics of the rivalry with Pakistan.
    • Role in global politics: India also played an activist role in the decolonizing world, extending diplomatic and (in some cases) security assistance to independence movements in Asia and Africa and sending military missions to Korea and the Congo.
    • Economic progress: There were also important economic strides made, including the Green Revolution, undertaken with considerable foreign technical and financial assistance.
    • Independent policy: India often found itself at odds with the great powers when it felt its greater interests were threatened, as on intervention in Bangladesh, nuclear non-proliferation, or trade.

    India after the Cold War

    • The 1991 Gulf war resulted in a balance of payments crisis and the liberalization of the economy.
    • India then adopted a range of reforms to liberalize the economy, but it faced more than just economic turmoil.
    • Yet, the period that followed witnessed some important developments under the prime ministership of P.V. Narasimha Rao:
    • The period saw the advent of the Look East Policy and relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
    • It also saw the establishment of diplomatic ties with Israel.
    • The signing of a border peace and tranquility agreement with China took place in the same period
    • The period also witnessed initial military contracts with the U.S., and preparations for nuclear tests.
    • The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government built further upon these developments, conducting a series of tests in 1998, negotiating a return to normal relations with most major powers within two years.
    • Economic development: These years also witnessed a rapid growth of the Indian economy, fuelled by a boom in information and communication technology companies, the services sector, and a rising consumer market.
    • After 2004, the Manmohan Singh government worked extensively to resolve the outstanding question of India’s nuclear status.
    • By eliminating barriers to ‘dual use’ technologies and equipment, as well as a host of associated export controls, India had the opportunity to establish robust defense relations with the U.S. and its allies.
    • Coupled with an economic deceleration after 2011, India’s relations with the U.S. and Europe grew more contentious over the next three years.

    Relationship with China

    • The global financial crisis in 2008-09 presaged a slight change in approach, whereby India sought to partner with China and other rising powers on institutional reform, financial lending, climate change, and sovereignty.
    • Beginning in 2013,  China began to test India on the border and undermine Indian interests in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region.
    • With further stand-offs at Doklam and Ladakh between 2017 and 2021, India opted to boycott China’s Belt and Road Initiative, raise barriers to Chinese investment.
    • In response, India began consulting more closely with other balancing powers in the Indo-Pacific.
    • Security relations and understandings with the U.S. and its allies (Japan, France, Australia) accelerated after 2014.
    • A greater emphasis on neighborhood connectivity was adopted.

    Way forward

    • As India enters its 75th year of independence, there are plenty of reasons for cautious optimism about its place in the world.
    • COVID-19 and growing international competition also underscore the difficulties that India will likely face as it attempts to transform into a prosperous middle-income country.
    • What is certain is that India will not have the luxury to turn inwards.

    Conclusion

    India’s objectives have been broadly consistent: development, regional security, a balance of power, and the shaping of international consensus to be more amenable to Indian interests. At the same time, India’s means and the international landscape have changed, as have domestic political factors.

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  • Understanding the anxieties behind Chinese aggression towards India

    Context

    Chinese President Xi Jinping made a surprise visit to Tibet on July 21, signalling the seriousness with which China continues to take its Himalayan border dispute with India.

    Understanding China’s strategic challenges and intensions

    • Demonstration of political confidence through aggression: More than a year after the clash at Galwan Valley, efforts to resolve the border crisis continue to move slowly.
    • The Chinese side has previously failed to complete troop withdrawals and revert to the status quo that the Indian side believed China agreed to.
    • China’s behaviour has been calculated to demonstrate political confidence.
    • Worsening strategic environment for China: Seen from Beijing, the strategic environment for China is beginning to worsen in South and Central Asia.
    • As the US withdraws and the Taliban advances in Afghanistan, China fears the prospect of instability and an emerging haven for terrorism directed against its policies in Xinjiang.
    • Even as China seeks to scale back the debt-laden BRI, such instability may also result in Beijing increasing its already overstretched external commitments — particularly in the security domain.
    • Re-emergence of Quad: China is deeply worried by the re-emergence and strengthening of multilateral opposition to China, and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or “Quad”) between the US, Japan, Australia and India.
    • For China, this represents a persistent threat not only economically and in foreign policy, but also militarily along its maritime periphery in the South and East China Seas, as well as the Taiwan Strait.
    • As US multilateral cooperation with its partners has increased, Beijing has come to increasingly see itself as beset by threats on all sides.

    China’s 2 possible responses to strategic challenges and its implications for India

    • 1) Wolf warrier diplomacy: So far, the response from China’s new class of “wolf warrior” diplomats to this emerging strategic challenge has been to only grow more assertive in rhetoric and behaviour.
    • China’s domestic politics: Response of wolf warrior diplomats may seem perplexing, given that it has served only to alienate other countries and isolate China further.
    •  China’s domestic politics in the lead up to the 20th Congress will mean that its leaders, diplomats and generals will be displaying maximum nationalistic fervour.
    • Implications for India: This may well mean China taking political and policy decisions, which in a normal season they would not because doing so could compromise Beijing’s longstanding diplomatic and strategic goals, including in dealings with India.
    • 2) Moderate approach to improve strategic position: But if instead of aggressive posture, China decided that it was better domestic politics to improve China’s strategic position in Asia amid its competition with Washington, Beijing’s diplomats may yet adopt a more moderate approach, including with India.
    • Implications for India: If stability can be restored to the China-India strategic relationship, this could provide a window for Asia’s two mega-economies to reopen their markets to each other.

    Conclusion

    Indeed, the choice China makes between these two alternatives will have implications for India and the rest of the world in their dealing with China.

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  • Visualizing the Himalaya with other coordinates

    A conceptual audit of questions related to geopolitics and security concerns while talking or thinking about the Himalaya is perhaps long overdue.

    About the Himalayas

    • The Himalayas are a mountain range in South and East Asia separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau.
    • The range has many of Earth’s highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest, at the border between Nepal and China.
    • Lifted by the subduction of the Indian tectonic plate under the Eurasian Plate, the Himalayan Mountain range runs west-northwest to east-southeast in an arc 2,400 km.
    • It consists of parallel mountain ranges: the Sivalik Hills on the south; the Lower Himalayan Range; the Great Himalayas, which is the highest and central range; and the Tibetan Himalayas on the north.
    • The Karakoram are generally considered separate from the Himalayas.

    Identity of Himalayas: Only as a frontier

    • We have been examining the Himalaya mainly through the coordinates of geopolitics and security while relegating others as either irrelevant or incompatible.
    • In a certain sense, our intellectual concerns over the Himalaya have been largely shaped by the assumption of fear, suspicion, rivalry, invasion, encroachment and pugnacity.
    • If during colonial times it was Russophobia, then now it is Sinophobia or Pakistan phobia that in fact determines our concerns over the Himalayas.
    • Ironically it is the Delhi-Beijing-Islamabad triad, and not the mountain per se, that defines our concerns about the Himalayas.

    A national Himalaya

    • Border issues has given birth to the political compulsion of territorializing the Himalaya on a par with the imperatives of nationalism.
    • Thus the attempt to create a national Himalaya by each of the five nations (Nepal, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, and Tibet/China) fall within this transnational landmass called the Himalaya.

    India and the Himalayas

    • India’s understanding of the Himalayas is informed by a certain kind of realism, as it continues to remain as space largely defined in terms of sovereign territoriality.
    • It may be perceived that such an alternative conceptualization of Himalayas is not only possible but also necessary.

    Various initiatives

    • National Mission on Himalayan Studies: It is a classic case in point that provides funds for research and technological innovations, but creating policies only for the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR).

    A historical logjam of territorialization

    • The Himalayas territorialization bears a colonial legacy which also sets up its post-colonial destiny as played out within the dynamics of nation-states.
    • The arbitration of relationships between and among the five nation-states falling within the Himalayan landmass has failed to transcend.
    • The lines of peoplehood and the national border never coincided; thus, it was bound to give birth to tensions while working out projects predicated upon national sovereignty.
    • Given this historical logjam, what we can only expect is the escalation of territorial disputes as the immediate fallout.

    Borders and their differences

    • It needs to be recognized that political borders and cultural borders are not the same things.
    • Political borders are to be considered as space-making strategies of modern nation-states that do not necessarily coincide with cultural borders.
    • It needs to be realized that the domain of non-traditional security (cases of ecological devastation, climate change) is equally important.

    Conclusion

    • The Himalaya is a naturally evolved phenomenon should be understood through frameworks that have grown from within the Himalaya.
    • Viewing the Himalayas as a space of political power is a violent choice, which actually enriched ultra-sensitivity towards territorial claims and border management.

  • Needed, a more unified Asian voice for Afghanistan

    Context

    As the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) end their presence in Afghanistan and set off a churn in the neighbourhood, Central Asia is emerging as a key player.

    Challenges India faces in playing a leading role in Afghanistan

    • Events of the past few years, and the decisions of Russia, the US and China have kept India out of a leading role in Afghanistan.
    • India’s original hesitation in opening talks with the Taliban has cut India out of the current reconciliation process.
    • India’s efforts to build on trade with Afghanistan, shore up development projects and increase educational and training opportunities for Afghan youth have been appreciated, but these cannot grow bigger due to a number of factors.
    • The end of any formal dialogue between India and Pakistan since 2016 and trade since 2019, have resulted in Pakistan blocking India’s over-land access to Afghanistan.
    • India’s alternative route through Chabahar, though operational, cannot be viable or cost-effective also long as U.S. sanctions on Iran are in place.
    • India’s boycott of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2017, and now tensions at the Line of Actual Control make another route to Afghanistan off-limits.
    • The U.S. has announced a formation of a “Quad” on regional connectivity — U.S.-Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan that does not include India.

    Why Central Asian countries are interested in Afghanistan?

    • The hope is that the Central Asian window, with the “Stans” (five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) will open new possibilities for India.
    • Calculations of Central Asian neighbours are three-fold:
    • The first is that prosperity for these land-locked countries can only flow from access through Afghanistan to the closest ocean, i.e. the Indian Ocean.
    • Second, that all transit through Afghanistan depends on guarantees of safe passage from the Taliban, backed by the group’s mentors in Pakistan.
    • Third, each of the “Stans” are now a part of China’s BRI, and tying their connectivity initiatives with Beijing’s will bring the double promise of investment and some modicum of control over Pakistan.

    Way forward for India

    • Given the odds, India’s room for manoeuvre with these five countries on Afghanistan appears limited but not without hope.
    • Work on common concerns: To begin with, India and the Central Asian States share common concerns about an Afghanistan overrun by the Taliban.
    • Their common concerns are the worries of battles at their borders, safe havens for jihadist terror groups inside Afghanistan and the spill-over of radicalism into their own countries.
    • Support financially: It is necessary for India to work with them, and other neighbours to shore up finances for the government in Kabul, particularly to ensure that the government structure does not collapse.
    • Cooperation on anti-terrorism: As part of the SCO’s Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), India must also step up its engagement with the Central Asian countries on fighting terror.
    • India can support the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) in terms of airpower.
    • Better ties between neighbours: South Asia must learn from Central Asia’s recent example in knitting together this region more tightly, a task that can only be completed with better ties between India and Pakistan.
    • India’s furtive discussions with the Taliban leadership in Doha make little sense unless a less tactical and more strategic engagement with Pakistan is also envisaged.

    Conclusion

    Countries of Central Asia and South Asia need to find a more unified voice, as they have in recent weeks. Afghanistan’s future will affect both regions much more than it will the distant global powers that currently dominate the debate.

  • The convergence and lag in Indo-US partnership

    Context

    As the Indian leadership reviews US ties this week with the visiting Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, a paradox stands out.

    Deepening Indo-US ties

    • India and the US have come a long way since the 1990s.
    • There is growing political and security cooperation, expanding economic engagement, widening interface between the two societies, and the intensifying footprint of the Indian diaspora in the US.
    • Convergence of interests: That ambition, in turn, is based on the unprecedented convergence of Indian and American national interests.
    • Agenda for cooperation: The two countries have already agreed on an ambitious agenda for bilateral, regional and global cooperation.

    Debate in India over Indo-US relation: A paradox

    • The discourse within India’s strategic community continues to be anxious.
    • Some of the questions that animate the media and political classes have not changed since the 1990s.
    • Issues in the debate: Debate focuses on US’s stand on the Kashmir issue, democracy and human rights and its impact on India-US relations.
    • Contradictory fears: There are also contradictory fears such as whether the US extend full support in coping with China.
    • While we expect the US to give guarantees on supporting us, we insist that India will never enter into an alliance with the US.
    • Small state syndrome in India: As India’s relative weight in the international system continues to grow, it creates much room for give and take between India and the US.
    • Yet, a small state syndrome continues to grip the foreign policy elite.
    • The situation is similar on the economic front.
    • Although India is now the sixth-largest economy in the world, there is unending concern about the US imposing globalisation on India.
    • Even as India’s salience for solutions to climate change has increased, India’s debate remains deeply defensive.

    Factors responsible paradox

    • Missing the big picture: The narrow focus on the bilateral precludes an assessment of the larger forces shaping American domestic and international politics.
    • That, in turn, limits the appreciation of new possibilities for the bilateral relationship.
    • Underinvestment in American studies: The problem is reinforced by India’s under-investment in public understanding of American society.
    • Russia and China have put large resources in American studies at their universities and think tanks.
    • The Indian government and private sector will hopefully address this gap in the not-too-distant future.

    Policy shifts unfolding in the US

    • Domestic economic policies: If the economic policy drift in the last four decades was to the right, Biden is moving left on the relationship between the state and the market — on raising taxes, increasing public spending and addressing the problem of sharp economic inequality.
    • Economic policy and globalisation: Biden has also joined Trump in questioning America’s uncritical economic globalisation of the past.
    • If Trump talked of putting America First, Biden wants to make sure that America’s foreign and economic policies serve the US middle class.
    • Foreign policy: Biden has concluded that four decades of America’s uncritical engagement with China must be reconstituted into a policy that faces up to the many challenges that Beijing presents to the US.
    •  Biden is also focused on renewing the traditional US alliances to present a united front against China.
    • He is also seeking to overcome Washington’s hostility to Russia by resetting ties with Moscow.

    Question of democracy and human rights

    • Democracy is very much part of America’s founding ideology.
    • But living up to that ideal at home and abroad has not been easy for the United States over the last two centuries.
    • Delhi and Washington will also have much to discuss on the challenges that new surveillance technologies and big tech monopolies pose to democratic governance.
    • The exclusive American focus on democracy promotion has been rare, costly and unsuccessful.
    • India’s own experience at spreading democracy in its neighbourhood is quite similar.
    • But that discussion is only one part of the expansive new agenda — from Afghanistan to Indo-Pacific, reforming global economic institutions to addressing climate change, and vaccine diplomacy to governing new technologies that beckon India and the United States.

    Conclusion

    As they intensify the bilateral cooperation, the two sides will hopefully turn the Indo-US partnership from a perennial curiosity to a quotidian affair.

  • SAARC

    Context

    Despite the framework SAARC provides for cooperation amongst South Asian nations, it has remained sidelined and dormant since its 18th summit of 2014 in Kathmandu. No alternative capable of bringing together South Asian countries for mutually beneficial diplomacy has emerged.

    Common challenges facing South Asia

    • The region is beset with unsettled territorial disputes, as well as trans-border criminal and subversive activities and cross-border terrorism.
    • The region also remains a theatre for ethnic, cultural, and religious tensions and rivalries besides a current rise in ultra-nationalism
    • Nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan are at loggerheads.
    • US military withdrawal from Afghanistan has fuelled fears of intensification of these trends.

    Significance of SAARC

    • As the largest regional cooperation organisation, SAARC’s importance in stabilising and effectively transforming the region is becoming increasingly self-evident.
    • SAARC is needed as institutional scaffolding to allow for the diplomacy and coordination that is needed between member-states in order to adequately address the numerous threats and challenges the region faces.
    • Though SAARC’s charter prohibits bilateral issues at formal forums, SAARC summits provide a unique, informal window — the retreat — for leaders to meet without aides and chart future courses of action.
    • The coming together of leaders, even at the height of tensions, in a region laden with congenital suspicions, misunderstandings, and hostility is a significant strength of SAARC that cannot be overlooked.
    • In March last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi seized the Covid-19 crisis and utilised SAARC’s seal to convene a video conference of SAARC leaders.
    • Such capacity to bring member-states together shows the potential power of SAARC.

    What role SAARC can play in Afghanistan

    • Commitment to get rid of terrorism: The third SAARC summit in 1987 adopted a Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism and updated it in 2004 with the signing of an additional protocol.
    • These instruments demonstrate the collective commitment to rid the region of terror and promote regional peace, stability, and prosperity.
    • Using the network of institutions: In 36 years of existence, SAARC has developed a dense network of institutions, linkages, and mechanisms.
    • SAARC members are among the top troop-contributing countries to UN peacekeeping missions.
    • Joint peacekeeping force: With the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, a joint peacekeeping force from the SAARC region under the UN aegis could be explored to fill the power vacuum that would otherwise be filled by terrorist and extremist forces.

    Consider the question “What role SAARC can play in stabilising the region after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan? Is SAARC still relevant for the region?”

    Conclusion

    Allowing SAARC to become dysfunctional and irrelevant greatly distorts our ability to address the realities and mounting challenges facing SAARC nations.

    Back2Basics: About SAARC

    •  In 1985, at the height of the Cold War, leaders of South Asian nations — namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka — created a regional forum.
    • The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was established with the goal of contributing “to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another’s problems.”
    • Afghanistan was admitted as a member in 2007.

  • ‘Open talks’ with the Taliban is India’s strategic necessity

    Context

    With over a third of Afghanistan’s more than 400 districts under Taliban control, the talk-to-the-Taliban option is indeed the best of the many less than perfect options available to India.

    India need a reset in its Afghanistan policy

    • India has ‘temporarily’ closed its consulate in Kandahar.
    • This follows the decision to suspend operations in the Indian consulates in Jalalabad and Herat.
    • India’s decision to partially “withdraw” from Afghanistan shows that betting only on the government in Kabul was a big mistake,
    • It also shows that India realises the threat the Taliban poses to Indian assets and presence in Afghanistan.
    • To safeguard its civilian assets there as well as to stay relevant in the unfolding ‘great game’ in and around Afghanistan, India must fundamentally reset its Afghanistan policy.
    • India must, in its own national interest, begin ‘open talks’ with the Taliban before it is too late.
    • Open dialogue with the Taliban should no longer be a taboo; it is a strategic necessity.

    Reason for avoiding open talks with Taliban

    • There are at least five possible reasons why India appears to want to keep the Taliban engagement slow and behind closed doors.
    • First, if India chooses to engage the Taliban directly, it could make Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, to look towards China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) for national security and personal political survival.
    • Second, India is also faced with the dilemma of who to talk to within the Taliban given that it is hardly a monolith.
    • Third, given the global opprobrium that Taliban faced in its earlier avatar and the lack of evidence about whether the outfit is a changed lot today, New Delhi might not want to court the Taliban so soon.
    • Fourth, there is little clarity about what the Taliban’s real intentions are going forward and what they would do after ascending to power in Kabul.
    • Fifth, it would not be totally unreasonable to consider the possibility of Pakistan acting out against India in Kashmir if India were to establish deeper links with the Taliban.

    Reasons India should engage with the Taliban openly

    • Wide international recognition: Whether we like it or not, the Taliban, is going to be part of the political scheme of things in Afghanistan, and unlike in 1996, a large number of players in the international community are going to recognise/negotiate/do business with the Taliban.
    • Countering Pakistan: The Taliban today is looking for regional and global partners for recognition and legitimacy especially in the neighbourhood.
    • So the less proactive the Indian engagement with the Taliban, the stronger Pakistan-Taliban relations would become.
    • A worldly-wise and internationally-exposed Taliban 2.0 would develop its own agency and sovereign claims including perhaps calling into question the legitimacy of the Durand Line separating Pakistan and Afghanistan, something Pakistan was always concerned about. T
    • The Taliban would want to hedge their bets on how far to listen to Pakistan.
    • That is precisely when New Delhi should engage the Taliban.
    • Security of civilian assets: India needs to court all parties in Afghanistan, including the Taliban if it wants to ensure its security of its civilian assets there.
    • It makes neither strategic nor economic sense to withdraw from Afghanistan after spending over $3 billion, something the Government seems to be prepared to do
    • Being a part of Afghanistan’s future course: If India is not proactive in Afghanistan at least now, late as it is, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and China will emerge as the shapers of Afghanistan’s political and geopolitical destiny, which for sure will be detrimental to Indian interests there.
    • Continental grand strategy:  Backchannel talks with Pakistan and a consequent ceasefire on the Line of Control, political dialogue with the mainstream Kashmiri leadership, secret parleys with Taliban all indicate that India is opening up its congested north-western frontier.
    •  Except for the strategic foray into the Indo-Pacific, India today is strategically boxed in the region and it must break out of it. Afghanistan could provide, if not immediately, India with such a way out.

    Consider the question ” India’s Afghan policy is at a major crossroads; to safeguard its civilian assets there as well as to stay relevant in the unfolding ‘great game’ in and around Afghanistan, New Delhi must fundamentally reset its Afghanistan policy. Comment.” 

    Conclusion

    In the end, India’s engagement with the Taliban may or may not achieve much, but non-engagement will definitely hurt Indian interests.

    Back2Basics: Durand Line

    • Durand Line, boundary established in the Hindu Kush in 1893 running through the tribal lands between Afghanistan and British India, marking their respective spheres of influence.
    • In modern times it has marked the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
    • The acceptance of this line—which was named for Sir Mortimer Durand, who induced ʿAbdor Raḥmān Khān, amir of Afghanistan, to agree to a boundary—may be said to have settled the Indo-Afghan frontier problem for the rest of the British period.

  • China’s role in stabilising Afghanistan

    Context

    Amid the gloom that has enveloped Afghanistan, one hope for many countries has been China’s potential role in stabilising it.

    Factors that call for China to play role in Afghanistan

    • Scope for India-China cooperation: In the past, even India thought that Afghanistan would be a natural area for India and China to work together.
    • But little came out of the understanding after the Wuhan summit in 2018.
    • Northern neighbours: Afghanistan’s northern neighbours, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan all have expanding political and economic ties with China but have traditionally relied on Russia for their security.
    • They might support a larger role for Beijing in Afghanistan in partnership with Russia.
    • Iran, Kabul’s western neighbour, also has deepening ties with China.
    • Bilateral cooperation with the U.S.: Washington, now locked in an escalating confrontation with Beijing, sees Afghanistan as a potential area of bilateral cooperation. 
    • Role of Pakistan: Beijing is indeed critical in Pakistan’s plans for Afghanistan.
    • Afghan leaders have also been eager to draw China’s BRI into their plans for economic modernisation.
    • China was also important for Kabul’s political calculus in limiting Pakistan’s quest for dominance.

    Two challenges in China playing role in stabilising Afghanistan

    1) Caution in Chinese policy

    • The first relates to the deep sources of caution in Chinese policy.
    • Neither the prospect of mining Afghanistan’s natural resources nor the vanity of being the newest superpower will compel China to rush into the Afghan vacuum.
    • China has deep concerns about Taliban’s ideology and its potential role in fomenting instability in its restive Muslim-majority province, Xinjiang. 
    • Beijing cannot depend on its special relationship with the Pakistan army to ensure the security of China’s frontiers as well as its investments in Afghanistan.
    •  The growing attacks on CPEC projects in Pakistan, underline the difficulty of pursuing economic development amid endemic violence.

    2) Priorities of Taliban

    • The second set of problems relate to the priorities of Taliban.
    • It remains to be seen whether the economic development of Afghanistan is a top priority for the Taliban or not.
    • Also, is it open to let in foreign capital and all the baggage that comes with it?
    • More fundamentally, there is no clarity on the role of economic modernisation in Taliban’s fierce insistence on the creation of an Islamic emirate in Afghanistan.

    Conclusion

    It is against this backdrop that the chances of China playing a major role in stabilising Afghanistan remain slim.