The Great Indian Hindu Kush Challenge

Diplomatic cunning could bring India more of the Afghan booty.

- Rushda Siddiqui

In more ways than one, the Pathankot debacle showed the inability of the Indian government to understand the dynamics of relations within South Asia, especially on its western front. Infact, Pakistani daily Dawn even released a list of responses by politicians and media houses in India, indicating the myopic vision of policymakers.

If we look at the developments in just the past one-and-a-half years since Narendra Modi became PM, the government comes across as unable to think out-of-the-box regarding the Afghanistan-Pakistan challenge. Trying to assert its ideological strength, the BJP began by stalling all dialogue and negotiations that had made some progress under the previous government.

Make no mistake, for the BJP, ideology is the biggest variable in determining foreign policy, and since the sabrerattling with Pakistan is intrinsic to it, breakdown of communications was inevitable. The breakdown was followed by talks with Pakistani diplomats in other parts of the world, with the stopover by the PM being touted as the beginning of a new era in India’s Af-Pak policy.

However, it is not just the policy of the current government that needs scrutiny, but the fact that government after government have failed to grasp the dynamics of developments in Afghanistan and, by extension, West Asia. The strategic importance of Afghanistan can never be understated. It’s a landlocked country in the intersection of South Asia, Central Asia and parts of West Asia. Pakistan is to the south and the east; Iran towards the west; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north; and China in the far northeast.