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Indo-Afghan strategic pact
New high in Indian diplomacy
by T.V. Rajeswar
India
and Afghanistan signed a historic strategic pact in New Delhi on October 4. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh put their signatures to the pact, thereby taking the diplomatic initiative of both countries to a new high in international relations.For Afghanistan, it was the first time that it entered into any such strategic pact with any country. It is 10 years since the Americans returned to Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks by Al-Qaida on the World Trade Centre in New York. While Osama bin Laden was eliminated by the US forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the Taliban menace within Afghanistan has continued. The Taliban factions, including the Haqqani network, are Islamist militias with a long history of fighting foreign occupations of Afghanistan. These elements were the primary instrument which the Americans made full use of while fighting the Russians who had invaded Afghanistan in the late 1970s. The Taliban factions are not only against the American and other NATO forces in Afghanistan, but also against the Karzai administration. In mid-September the Haqqani network launched an attack on the American Embassy and other targets in Kabul. A few days later, the Taliban sent a suicide bomber and assassinated Burhanuddin Rabbani, former President of Afghanistan and designated by President Hamid Karzai as the leader to negotiate peace with the Taliban. All these brought Pakistan directly into the range of being as guilty as the Taliban led by Haqqani. Gen. Mike Mullen, Chairman of America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that the Haqqani network was a veritable arm of Pakistan’s ISI. His comments raised a storm of protest in Islamabad. Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar declared that America stood the danger of losing its ally in the fight against terrorism. Pakistan’s agenda in Afghanistan is obviously aimed at bringing the Taliban to power thereby ensuring strategic depth which Pakistan, particularly its politicised army, has always looked for. President Hamid Karzai delivered an address in New Delhi under the auspices of a leading think-tank, the Observer Research Foundation, on October 5, where he spoke in highly appreciative terms about India’s strategic partnership and its continuous help to Afghanistan. He said India had been continuously helping Afghanistan in respect of its requirements in various fields like infrastructure, education and defence. He asked for strategic roads to be constructed, bridging India and Afghanistan as well as other neighbours. He wanted a large number of scholarships for his students and got as many as 2400 from the Government of India. A large number of Afghan students would now be trained to become engineers, doctors, teachers, etc. Dr Karzai characterised this as the real strategic partnership and not merely an agreement to train and equip the security forces. Most importantly, India extended economic help to the tune of $ 2 billion to Afghanistan, which will be spent on various infrastructure facilities. The strategic pact between India and Afghanistan, not unexpectedly, raised hackles in Pakistan. A Pakistani spokesman said that it was Islamabad’s expectation that everyone, especially those in the position of authority in Afghanistan, would demonstrate requisite maturity and responsibility and that this was not the time for scoring points, playing politics or grand-standing. A Pakistan Army officer commented that the Indians were throwing money at their favourites in Afghanistan; the Russians and the Iranians were also doing the same. He went on to say that Pakistan also must necessarily play the game. Since Pakistan had no money, it could only use the ‘crazies’, meaning the Taliban. Pakistan believed that it had no choice except to make common cause with the Taliban against the Afghanistan Army, which was equipped by the Americans and would now be helped by the Indians, leading to a dangerous possibility of a two-front war against Pakistan, sandwiched between India and Afghanistan. October 7 marked the 10th anniversary of America’s war in Afghanistan, the longest in the US history. The total cost for the Americans in terms of casualties is 1777. Between 10,000 and 20,000 Talibans fighters were killed by July 2011. There were also Afghanistan civilian deaths which were estimated between 12,500 and 14,700. The Americans expect that they would have spent about $ 557 billion by the end of 2012. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed on October 9 a strong constructive relationship among India, China and the US to handle the pressing issues of the 21st century. Hillary added that India’s leadership would help shape positive developments in the future not only in South and Central Asia, but also in the Asia-Pacific. She urged New Delhi not just to look east, but also to engage the east. She went on to explain that the US was committed to a strong constructive relationship among India, the US and China. Appreciating India’s engagement with other countries, Hillary said it could serve as a model for the entire region. She specifically referred to India providing $ 2 billion as part of the strategic pact with Afghanistan whose security forces India would now train and equip. She also pointed out that the US and India were now making progress on a broad range of issues, including regional security, development and renewable energy. She referred to the forthcoming talks between India and the US on a range of exchange programmes and that all these would strengthen their shared campaign against terrorism. Viewed in the context of Hillary Clinton’s observations, the historic strategic partnership pact between India and Afghanistan marks a quantum jump for Indian diplomacy. President Obama said a few days back that Pakistan’s military and intelligence services’ links with extremists were troubling and that Pakistan should learn to live in peace with India and not to treat that country as its enemy. A peaceful approach towards India would be in everybody’s interest, he added. Viewing dispassionately, all these exhortations and hopes expressed by President Obama, closely followed by Hillary Clinton, are not likely to please Pakistan at all. A country like Pakistan cannot be expected to change overnight in its hostility towards India. If nothing else, the recent developments may provoke Pakistan to take a swipe at India through its notorious proxies like the Lashkar-e-Toiba. This may happen in J&K and elsewhere and India should be prepared for all such
eventualities. The writer, a former Governor of UP and West Bengal, is a retired chief of
Intelligence Bureau.
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OPED
— WOMEN |
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Violence has no borders
Violence is more internalised now — targeted towards its own people, against women and children. There are no traces of the memories of violence from the past — of the partition of 1947 and the subsequent wars. Pakistan never stops surprising a visitor.
Urvashi Butalia
Mukhtar Mai, with a police constable appointed for her safety, at her home in Multan |
Imagine
a large hall in a major city in Punjab, on the other side of the border. It’s packed with people, mostly women—from Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. On the stage are two men; one a long-haired bearded, hairy-chested sardar, the other a clean shaven smooth-chested younger man. They are engaged in a languorous, erotic, sometimes passionate, sometimes tender, rendering of the story of Heer Ranjha. In the background Madan Gopal’s wonderfully resonant voice sings the story. Tragedy hangs in the air, for most of the people in the hall are familiar with this beautiful story of star-crossed lovers, and after the initial hesitation at seeing two men, they now ‘believe’ that the bearded Navtej Johar is actually Heer, and the supple Anil is Ranjha. Such is the power of their dance.
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Shades of violence:
Addressing issues of the state and civil society response on violence against women in South Asia, at Islamabad, Mukhtar Mai said, “To end violence against women there is a dire need to educate all men in the society.” She had reasons to say so. Mukhtar was ordered to be gang- raped by
jirga, (a kind of khap panchayat) to avenge alleged love affair of her 12- year- old brother
Shaqoor, with a woman of the powerful Mastoi tribe. Shaqoor, it was alleged later, was sodomised by the men of Mastoi tribe. Instead of committing suicide, as is the custom in Multan region,
Mukhtaran, then 32, dared to seek justice. Reminiscent of another victim of violence, Bhanwari Bai of Bhateri village in
Rajasthan, she was taught a lesson for her daring, systematically through her ten-year- long struggle. In April this year Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted five of the six accused of gang raping her. Mukhtar was given police protection due to the threats from the powerful men of Mastoi tribe. She married the already married police constable appointed to protect her in 2009, who threatened to commit suicide if she refused. Under different shades of violence, Mukhtar continues to run a women’s organisation and girls’ schools against all threats, in
Multan.
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We’re in Islamabad, attending a dance performance that marks the end of a day of conferencing (Reclaiming Space — from Victimhood to Agency: State and Civil Society Response on Violence Against Women in South Asia), and of an award ceremony in the memory of a young woman, Meeto Bhasin Malik, whose untimely death remains one of the great losses of the women’s movement in India. There is not a dry eye in the house — the story of Meeto, and the story of Heer and Ranjha have ensured that. There’s joy too, for the Meeto award this year, given for outstanding contribution to the cause of women by young women, is given to the only woman mayor in Afghanistan, a young, petite woman called Azra Jafri. And there’s tension — the organisers are on edge, a crowded event, a dance performance, an Indian team, it’s a recipe for disaster in a town — and a country — that is no stranger to violence. But things pass off peacefully, the dance ends, the music dies away, and the entire hall erupts in applause and appreciation. The last time I was in this city wasn’t so long ago. Then, my Pakistani friends and I had eaten and shopped in the very same market where, a week later, the politician Salman Taseer would be shot in broad daylight for speaking out in defence of a Christian woman accused of blasphemy. Things have, if anything, become worse. Yet, as in all such places, life goes on and I see my Pakistani friends joke and laugh about the problems they face every day — some of them life-threatening — as they come out of discussions on violence against women. It’s an odd thing about meetings that involve Indians and Pakistanis. No matter who else is there, somehow the discussion inevitably becomes one where Pakistanis and Indians talk to each other, often breaking into Urdu, or Punjabi, forgetting that others need also to be in the know. Those watching might shake their heads in resignation, thinking, there they go again. Our discussions for the past two days have focused on violence against women. Between our two countries there is no competition here — rape, molestation, ‘honour’ killings, domestic violence, we have them all, and we’d be hard put to it, to say who is the better entity here. Both have shameful records — another thing we have in common. But here at least, we’re listening to each other. As speaker after speaker details the ways in which they deal with cases of violence, the mismatch between law and forensics, the impunity of offenders and state collusion, women from across South Asia listen and nod and learn from each other. Nationalist rhetoric is remarkable by its absence here. The organisers, an NGO called Zeest Rozan, are happy, their large brood of male and female volunteers are excited, they’re learning so much, they’re meeting people from different countries but especially from across the border. A staff member who has been chasing our police clearances smiles as he hands them over to us — ‘it’s my dream to come to India one day,’ he says, ‘in meeting you I have at least begun the process of fulfilling that dream.’ As the conference ends I make my way to Lahore. I travel by bus, a unique Pakistani inter-city system known — like our Volvo buses — by the make of the buses rather than the routes on which they ply — as Daewoo. On the way I watch as the landscape of hills and hillocks gives way to flat terrain, as dusk sets in the dust begins to rise as the cows come home, the moment we call godhuli( dusk). I could be in India, there’s nothing that marks this flat terrain, these abundant crops, these heavy oxen, as different. We stop for a fifteen minute break. I’ve been told by all my friends to be very quick here — the bus doesn’t wait for anyone they say, that’s what makes it so efficient in keeping its timings. One loud report of the horn and it’s off. Fearful of missing it, and being stranded in the middle of nowhere, I stay on the bus. But a young couple sitting across from me comes up and encourages me to get off. There’s still two hours to go, they tell me, why don’t you come down and have a cup of tea. I’m not a tea drinker, but I don’t have it in me to say no, so I go with them. On the way, we decide to make a visit to the toilet, and the young woman and I have an idle discussion about the current fashion for women’s clothes in Pakistan. Something I say alerts her that I may not be local, and she exclaims: you’re from India? The gaggle of laughing, chattering women in the bathroom suddenly falls silent, they’re filled with curiosity — they look at me, at my clothes, my hair, my face, to see if I am any different, and they confess — or some of them do — that they dearly want to visit India, they’ve heard to much about it, and they watch serials on Star Plus! The young woman’s partner returns, she tells him excitedly what she’s discovered about me, and he demands special tea from the chai wallah. I offer to pay — they’re both much younger than me, but they’ll have none of it. And the chai wallah, who’s heard our discussion, in the end doesn’t take anything from them, insisting that he wants to offer at least a cup of tea to the mehmaan in their midst. I’m overwhelmed by this, but it’s nothing new. It’s not my first visit to Pakistan nor my first encounter with stray Pakistanis. And yet, apart from the odd occasion on which I have met hostility, people have been unfailingly polite, often very kind, and hospitable to a fault. I wonder, not for the first time, what the fuss and tension is about between our two countries. I’m not naïve about this — I know of course that there are real issues there that keep the hostility alive, that keep us apart. But there’s also the inescapable reality that there is a deep curiosity, and a deep desire for people to meet and talk and learn that the ‘other’ is not the monster they believe him or her to be. Perhaps, I think, we should play many more cricket matches! There’s another thing that happens — from Delhl, we’ve gone in a group: all women, one man who calls himself a trans-gender person (a TG in common parlance). From the moment we land in Lahore and begin the process of clearing immigration, he’s surrounded by people, mostly men, who have a deep curiosity about him and who don’t hesitate to show it. One of them even asks him if he feels more female than male — this a bare few moments after he sees him. At Lahore airport, as we wait to pick up our flight to Islamabad, a mother and daughter duo sitting across from us, watch him carefully, without seeming obvious. At some point, he walks across to them and the mother engages him in conversation and then makes him a gift of a lipstick. I’m not sure what to make of this, but I’m struck by the frank expression of curiosity and the unabashed expression of it. Back in Delhi, when I go to my yoga class, my friends in the class want to know where had I been? I tell them about my visit to Pakistan. Isn’t it dangerous, one of them asks me, did you feel safe there? The odd thing is, it is dangerous– the Pakistanis themselves will tell you this, they’ll advise you not to go to certain places, to always take care. But the only time I felt any danger, it was from the rampant dengue mosquito that has laid siege to the city of Lahore, where it has taken over 500 lives. Six decades. It’s more than enough time. Time for us to make good our promises of normalising relations, of opening up the borders, of making it possible for people to travel, to visit their old homes, to reconnect with their friends, to indulge in the simple pleasures of shopping, eating, visiting, and more importantly, seeking our joint histories, perhaps working on joint research projects, uncovering our hidden histories. Will this happen in the near future? It’s difficult to say. But this I do know, the day I am able to make a visit to Mohenjodaro and Taxila without having to seek a hundred permissions, without worrying about reporting to the police, the day my friends are able to cross over and visit Ajanta and Ellora, Indore and Orchha, I’ll know things have begun to normalise, and that’s when we can really begin to celebrate. It’s not such a difficult thing to imagine for two countries, can it really be so impossible to realise? The author is director of Zubaan Books, an imprint of Kali For Women.
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