Afghanistan Post-2014: The Pashtun Factor

Prabhat P Shukla, 

Distinguished Fellow, VIF

There is an effort among some western commentaries – taken up and amplified by the Pakistanis - to try and project the situation in Afghanistan as a proxy war between India and Pakistan. The drumbeat of this thesis grows as the draw-down of western forces from Afghanistan draws near. Such a view sounds strange to Indian ears, for we were labouring under the belief this last decade that it was a straight, though covert, fight between the US and Pakistan.

And that is how, moreover, people like Negroponte and Mullen projected it too – and you would expect them to know. However, it is important to understand the reality of what is happening in Afghanistan, and for that, the narrative must begin some decades back.

To anticipate the conclusions of this essay: one, the fight is not between India and Pakistan. Ever since 1947, India has kept out of Afghan-Pakistan affairs, and Afghanistan has kept out of Indo-Pakistan affairs.

Two, the fight is between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has its own logic, going back to the dispute over the Pashtun issue, with Baluchistan also steadily in focus. It has acquired an additional facet in recent years, since Afghanistan has no interest in becoming any other country’s “strategic depth” – indeed, deeply resents the idea, and rejects the Pakistani military push behind the concept.

Three, Afghanistan has become a battleground indeed, between Pakistan [aided occasionally by outside powers] on the one hand, and the USSR, the US, and Afghan nationalism by turns.

And four, and most important, there is a coded message behind this analysis. The message is that Pakistan is going to continue to meddle in Afghan affairs, and seek once more to inject the Taliban, in their newest iteration, into Afghanistan, and no one should oppose this. India is simply shorthand for the fact that all the neighbours of Afghanistan – Iran, the Central Asians, and countries like India and Russia – are concerned at the ceaseless sponsorship of terror and extreme groups by Pakistan. If they oppose Pakistan, that becomes a proxy war.

The Afghans themselves want none of this Pakistani interference, but that is also conveniently skipped over. The truth is, if Pakistan does not promote the extremist Islamic groups, there will be no push-back from the Afghans or anybody else; it is entirely emblematic that in all this lofty talk about avoiding a proxy war, the Pakistanis refrain from mentioning anything about their solemn, repeated – and repeatedly broken – promises of non-interference.

The history of the face-off is well-known: Afghanistan never accepted the Durand Line which divided Pashtun from Pashtun, and this was made clear to the British authorities from the 1920’s onwards. By 1944, when it was clear that the British were to withdraw from India, the Kabul authorities asked the British Government in London to allow the Pashtuns in British India to choose to accede to Afghanistan or opt for independence as well; instead, they were only given the choice to accede to India or Pakistan. The number of registered voters was a fraction of the total population, and even among them, the support for accession to Pakistan was barely above 50 percent. The hill tribes, who are in the centre of the fighting today, were not allowed to vote because they were not considered part of the administered territories.

Pakistan showed its militant colours within a few months of its independence – it sent “raiders” in September 1947 to the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir [violating the stand-still agreement it had signed earlier with the state] from the Pashtun areas. Already, as early as 1947, Pakistan was seeking to portray this operation as an Islamic campaign, a jihad. Afghanistan was opposed to the use of the Pashtun tribes for this purpose, and the Afghan ulema responded with a fatwa denying that there was any need for a jihad against the Indians and denying any religious sanction for the campaign. This was done in the context of preventing Pakistan from exercising influence over the mountain tribes in the North-West Frontier Province, which was not Pakistani territory in their eyes.

The subsequent two decades saw frequent tensions over the Pashtun question between the two countries, and even saw a limited skirmish in 1963. As a result of this last, King Zahir Shah dismissed his Prime Minister and cousin, Mohammed Daoud Khan. In turn, Daoud overthrew the King a decade later in 1973, and thus began a new era in South Asian history – not only because it ended the Durrani monarchy, but also because it saw the first formal launch of jihad in the subcontinent.

This happened in the summer of 1973 itself, and it was declared by Jalaluddin Haqqani – of the now-famous Haqqani network - against the government of Daoud, which had taken a high-profile position on the Pashtun question. The call to jihad was given practical shape by a Pakistani, Naseerullah Babar, himself a Pashtun, who was then serving as the Inspector-General of the Frontier Corps. It was he who advised Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that the solution to the Pashtun problem lay in overwhelming Afghan irredentism by using the Islamic card. He sprang some of the important Islamic leaders from Kabul, whose names read like a who’s who of the anti-Soviet war of the 1980’s: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Ahmed Shah Massoud, Noor Mohammed Mohammedi, and others. At this stage, the Islamists were not all Pashtuns – the heavy reliance particularly on Ghilzai Pashtuns was to come later, under Gen Zia-ul-Haq. But the idea of using Islam as a weapon to blunt the Pashtun nationalist issue both internally and vis-à-vis Afghanistan was born at this time. In part, this was based on Pakistan’s use of the Islamic card to motivate the tribes in the north-west; in part, it was based on the experience of 1971 in the former East Pakistan, when the Islamists had remained loyal to Pakistan, while the Bengali nationalists were motivated by their regional identity.

This group launched an uprising against Daoud centred in Panjsher in 1975, though it covered other parts of the country too. Daoud was shaken by the event, and gradually began to re-think his strategy towards Pakistan, including on the Durand Line. In his interaction with the Americans, he indicated a willingness to seek an accommodation with Pakistan. The Shah of Iran, flush with petrodollars and as suspicious of the Soviet Union as Bhutto and the Americans, also helped by offering economic assistance to both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The only fly in the ointment was Daoud’s fear that the USSR would seek to destabilise him if he tried to change course. In a long and serious conversation with Secretary of State Kissinger in Kabul in August 1976, he informed the latter that he and Bhutto were close to a settlement of the Pashtun and Baluch questions. The only guarantee he asked for – and was assured of by Kissinger – was support against internal subversion by the supporters of the Soviet Union, especially the Soviet-trained officers in the Armed Forces. A quick exchange of visits took place between Bhutto and Daoud in 1976, and there was indeed every prospect of a settlement.

Before a deal could be settled, Bhutto called for elections in 1977 and, in the turmoil that followed the rigged elections, the Pakistan Army stepped in once again, in July 1977, and Gen Zia became the military ruler. Although he seemed to be inclined to pick up the threads where they had been left off by Bhutto, he did not have the time to do anything substantive: Daoud himself was overthrown in April 1978, and the US guarantees proved unavailing.

The People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan [PDPA], which came to power, was indeed propelled into power by Soviet-trained officers from the Armed Forces, and once again raised the Pashtun issue as a high priority. And once again, Pakistan responded by unleashing the Islamic forces – this time with a heavy reliance on the Pashtuns, and the Ghilzai Pashtuns in particular. The USSR responded to the worsening situation in Afghanistan by sending in its own troops into the country in December 1979, and a new Afghan war began, pitting the Soviet forces against pretty much all the regional and global powers.

Through the 1980’s, the Pakistanis controlled and guided the anti-Soviet campaign. It was one of the conditions that they imposed on the Americans that the ISI would control the funds, arms and training of the insurgents. This is worth analysing in substantive terms, because it showed that the Pakistanis were clear that the ultimate winners would have to be beholden to them and to no one else, not even the Americans. Further, because they had suffered bad relations with the Durrani Pashtuns – Zahir Shah and Daoud were both Durranis, as were the earlier Kings since Abdur Rehman signed the first agreement on the Durand Line – they were determined to do their utmost to block the emergence of any Durrani to power in Kabul.

An interesting incident illustrates this Pakistani attitude of mind: in March 1979, before the Soviet invasion, a group led by Gul Mohammed, a Barakzai [a Durrani] had made significant progress against the PDPA forces in Herat. The Soviets and the Afghan Army hit back with ferocity against the fall of Herat, and the rebels turned to Pakistan for help, but were rebuffed. Pakistan was building up the Ghilzai to oppose the Soviets, and almost the entire top leadership of the Seven Party Alliance belonged to this branch of the Pashtuns.

Shortly before he died in August 1988 in a plane crash, Gen Zia stated that Pakistan had earned the right to have a friendly government in Kabul. “We won’t permit it to be like it was before, with Indian and Soviet influence there and claims to our territory." This was said as the Geneva accords were being worked out, and reflected one of the most important motivations behind the Pakistani strategies towards Afghanistan. No longer would Pakistan permit, to the extent possible, any claims on its Pashtun lands by the rulers in Kabul.

This approach survived Zia; in fact, it reflects the current national consensus, public demurrals notwithstanding. Naturally, therefore, as early as 1989, Pakistan made its bid to capture power and pushed Hikmatyar into a pitched battle in Jalalabad. The widely-held expectation, and not just in Pakistan, was that the Najibullah government would crumble, but it fought off the Hizb forces of Hikmatyar. In retrospect, this was not surprising, because Hikmatyar’s record during the 1980’s was quite patchy, whereas the PDPA forces were well-trained and -equipped. The Soviet Union had also continued to provide financial aid amounting to $3 billion annually to Najibullah even after 1989, and it was only after the collapse of the USSR and the rise of Yeltsin as Russian President that the financial aid was stopped. Within three months of this, Najibullah was gone.

Even then, the replacement was not the kind of government that Pakistan would be satisfied with, for the two pillars of the new regime were Massoud and Dostum. Both had stayed away from Pakistan during the war against the Soviets, so neither was beholden to Pakistan in any way. Moreover, neither was a Pashtun, and this too was unacceptable to the Pakistani leaders, especially to the security establishment.

The story of the rise of the Taliban from 1994 onwards is well-known, and the only point worth emphasizing is the role of the self-same Naseerullah Babar, now the Interior Minister under Benazir Bhutto. It was he who put together the Taliban force in 1994, with the intention of capturing the western parts of Afghanistan. The aim at this stage was to have a swathe of territory under their control which would allow Pakistan, in cooperation with the Central Asian hydrocarbon-rich countries, to set up trading links with the rest of the world. A US hydrocarbon company, Unocal, also contributed to this effort. The strategic objective was to block Iran and Russia from any role in this trade. This was despite the fact that, as far as Russia was concerned, all the existing pipelines ran through Russia or Russian-controlled territory. This was also despite the fact that, apart from Russia, Iran was the most economical route for evacuating the oil and gas from Central Asia.

What we see thus is that the stakes in Afghanistan have changed since the days of the Soviet occupation. For the US, it was initially the need to beat back the Soviet Union, and to undermine the unity of that country, and they succeeded in their strategy. For this purpose, they were willing to use the obscurantist forces that Pakistan had nurtured, even though they were aware that at least some of them were anti-West and specifically anti-US as well. But they felt then that they could control the fallout, especially with a friendly Pakistan to keep things under control. The Chinese feel the same way today, and are comfortable seeing the US humiliated in Afghanistan.

However, by the 1990’s, with the destruction of the USSR complete, the stakes had changed, and the US strategy was to impose a double blockade for trade and strategic purposes – against Russia and Iran. This was conceived and driven by the US, and embraced willingly by Pakistan in the South and Central Asian regions. It is worth emphasising that India had virtually no role in any of this. Its hands were full dealing with internal security issues, the need for ensuring economic growth, and later, addressing the diplomatic fallout of its nuclear tests.

India got involved only after the rise of the Taliban and the fall of Kabul, and in this it was not alone; this was an issue that touched nearly every country both in the region, and in the wider world. It is worth emphasising one important aspect of the militant movements in what has now come to be called the AfPak region: this is the growth of extremism, from generation to generation. The Taliban of the 1990’s made the mujahideen of the Rabbani-Mujaddidi type look reasonable. The TTP and the other militant groups of today have similarly outflanked the Afghan Taliban and are making the Quetta Shura look comparatively weak and peaceable. And now we have the ISIL. This point is worth exploring in some detail.

The current militant movement is more ideologically motivated than any of the earlier groups. The growth of this new ideology has been well-documented, and it is recognised as the fastest-growing among all the competing terrorist threats in the world. Their belief, which is widespread in several Muslim countries, especially Pakistan, derives from the Hadith regarding end-times. According to this, the war in Afghanistan is the prophesied Battle for Khorasan, and of course, they believe that their armies will be victorious. This Battle will embrace not just today’s Afghanistan, but also Iran and Central Asia. This will be followed by the Ghazwa-i-Hind – the campaign for India – which will cover today’s India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, as well as parts of the surrounding countries. This will be followed by the battle to liberate the Holy Places, Mecca, Medina, and al-Quds [Jerusalem]. And that will lead to the restoration of the true world-wide Caliphate.

Such is the new ambition among the terrorist groups, and many of their spokesmen – inevitably men, of course – are willing to speak publicly about the contemporary relevance of these prophecies. What it means for them, and their patrons in Pakistan, who are playing this dangerous game with themselves and the entire region, is that there is an enormous amount of warfare to come. This suits Pakistan very well. These fighting forces are mainly Pashtuns, who would otherwise be looking to settling the Pashtun question. However, as long as they are doing what they see as Allah’s work in subduing lands that rightfully belong to Him, they will not look to issues such as their own national and territorial rights. And in this, they will continue to enjoy the support of the Pakistan Army and the ISI. The growth of violence and extremism within the country is a price worth paying for keeping these forces oriented outward.

The Pashtuns, along with the Kurds, are the two largest, most populous tribes in the world that have no homeland of their own. It is estimated that there some 45 million Pashtuns in the world, and they have all the attributes of a nation. They have the language, tradition and culture of nationhood, and recent memory of having ruled large parts of the region. This is what Daoud and the PDPA rulers were playing on; simultaneously, the Pakistanis were turning them towards Islam and jihad, with the calculation that this would raise their sights above narrower Pashtun territorial demands. In this, Pakistan has been successful, perhaps too successful. The Islamist forces they have let slip have become increasingly disenchanted with the Pakistani state, and regard it as un-Islamic, hence itself a target for jihad.

This is why it would be ahistorical to expect the Islamist forces to come to a negotiated settlement with the Afghan Government. The Taliban have, for example, in fact, declared that the new Afghan Government is unacceptable to them, and they will not accept anything less than a truly Islamic Government, which will follow Sharia in its true form.

For its part, Pakistan, especially in its current debilitated shape, cannot afford to let the Islamists lower their ambition, for then the Pashtun Question will be back in an even more aggravated form, and this time led by well-trained, and motivated fighters who will pose a serious challenge to the Pakistani state and its security forces. It will, therefore, have no interest in a negotiated settlement. What is more, these jihadi forces are the only asset Pakistan has in the politics of the region; if they were to give this up, they would have no value left. They do not have the financial or diplomatic wherewithal, or the soft power, to play any positive role in the neighbourhood.

This also explains why the Pakistanis are opposed to any arms for the ANSF beyond those that a constabulary would have. The Islamists must be able to make the military breakthroughs they need to expand north into and west into all parts of Afghanistan, and from there, into Xinjiang, Iran and Central Asia. Only a strong and well-trained ANSF can thwart these strategies. For exactly obverse reasons, the rest of the world needs to ensure that the ANSF is capable of defending the country.If there were any doubts about this analysis, recent events in Iraq should quell them.

Iraq provides an illustration of the kind of problem that may arise if the ANSF turn out to be under-equipped for the coming tests of strength. The way the Iraqi Army melted away in the face of the ISIL should be an object lesson for the rest of the world. The western and Arab countries were forced back into the fight, and the same will happen in Afghanistan if adequate preparation is not made for the coming trials.

What this narrative has shown is that Pakistan has been nurturing and promoting Islamic extremist forces since the early 1970’s, and not because it was fighting any proxy war with India. The reason was, and remains, the unsettled Pashtun question, for which Pakistan sought an Islamic answer. In the bargain, it has had to resort to growing extremism, and it has to continue to fan it the interests of its own survival. Therefore, any statement that it is willing to moderate its outlook, or to curb the extremists it has nurtured needs to be discounted completely.

Further, the threat posed by these forces is to all the neighbours of Afghanistan, including Russia and China. It is thus no India-Pakistan face-off. To the extent that Indian interests are affected, it will, of course, defend them. But as Iraq again has shown, the interests of the wider world community are also going to be hit, and the other affected countries need to be prepared for this.

Pakistan knows all this well enough, as do the puzzling, though dwindling, number of its supporters in the west. The real message behind this kind of writing is preemptive: Pakistan is going to make another bid for its proxies to gain complete dominance over Afghanistan once again, and countries like India should not stand in the way. That is the true meaning of the talk of a proxy war. It overlooks the reality that the war against Pakistani attempts to dominate Afghanistan will be fought by the Afghans themselves. And in this, they will be supported not only by India, but all of the near and distant neighbours.

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Published Date: 25^th November 2014, Image source: http://www.geourdu.com

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Vivekananda International Foundation)

How We Lost the Peace

Kanwal Sibal 

(Member, VIF Advisory Board)

 

The ceasefire violations occurring on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir are not abnormal. Such incidents occur when two armies with a history of fighting each other face each other in contested territory. It is the act of the Pakistani army in mutilating the bodies of Indian soldiers killed by them that is abnormal. So is the response of the Pakistani government to this deplorable incident.

Pakistan, true to form, has denied the mutilation charge. Its foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, is “appalled” at India’s outlandish claim, as their internal investigation shows that no one from Pakistan crossed the LOC and killed Indian soldiers. She made the worthless proposal for joint investigation, having already announced the result of Pakistan’s own enquiry. She then deliberately tweaked us by proposing an investigation by UNMOGIP whose role India does not recognise since 1971.

The Pakistanis claim that the highly “professional” army would do no such thing as mutilation. But then, is it normal for a professional army to have “jihad” in its motto, along with “faith” and “piety”. Is it a professional army or a religious army of the faithful whose profession is to fight for Islam?

Once again, in the face of Pakistan’s provocation India is at a loss to react effectively. We wonder what Pakistan gains by such an act when the overall relationship is improving, forgetting that this has happened before, with Kargil, various acts of terror against our cities, pilgrimage centres, and economic institutions, and finally, the Mumbai attacks taking place even while the dialogue process was on. For those behind such provocations the “gain” is political and psychological- of mobilizing anti-Indian elements behind the army, boosting the morale of the Pakistani armed forces by demonstrating that Pakistan can take on India, and expose the latter’s inability to exercise any military option.

Pakistan looks strong as a result. The intention may also be to prevent the thinking of the rank and file from being overly influenced by the positive momentum of the peace process. It may also be to show contempt for the fuss made in India lately over the mutilation of the body of Lt. Kalia during the Kargil war and show that such acts can be repeated with impunity. The Pakis-tani side knows that taking the case to the ICJ is not an option as Pakistan has to agree to the reference.

India has stated many times at the highest levels that it has no option but to continue the dialogue with Pakistan, acknowledging publicly our helplessness. We have shown to Pakistan in recent years that we can absorb serious provocations without retaliating. We did not break diplomatic ties even after the Mumbai attacks; doing so now would seem an over-reaction. It is extremely difficult for the government to reverse course as that would be an avowal of a dramatic failure of its Pakistan policy.

In the face of the defiant Pakistani attitude in the present case, we could take some steps that will not be seen as an over-reaction, but will help to retrieve some ground that we have lost in our over-eagerness to engage Pakistan, as if we need to placate them.

We should cease saying that we have no option but to negotiate with Pakistan; we should change our discourse that both countries are victims of terrorism, as we are not responsible for terrorism in Pakistan. We must forbid visits by Hurriyat leaders to Pakistan and insist that Pakistani leaders will not meet Hurriyat leaders in Delhi. We should postpone for the present any exchange of visits and delay the convening of the next round of the composite dialogue. We should not encourage sporting exchanges.

We could review some of our decisions, depending on developments. Cross LOC trade and movement is incompatible with our interests as we are unnecessarily encouraging the Kashmiris on our side to feel connected and have a sense of solidarity with Pakistani Kashmiris, which is a dynamic that Pakistan can control better than us.

On Kashmir our position should be that there is nothing to discuss except Pakistan’s interference in J&K, and this should be said in private and in public. We should remove Siachen from the dialogue agenda as having it there implies that Pakistan has some locus standi in the matter. The Hurriyat leaders, after their visit to Pakistan, are warning of the fall-out of the Afghan problem in J&K after 2014. We could be less squeamish about Baluchistan and consider permitting invitations to go to separatist Baluch leaders by Indian think-tanks.

As a smaller, more vulnerable country, wracked by extremism and violence, in economic distress, over-stretched by its ambitions, militaristic in thinking, adept at cynically exploiting its geopolitical position, capable of extreme obduracy, animated by fear and defiance of India and attitudes distorted by its Islamic vocation that makes it resort to terrorism as an instrument of state policy, Pakistan is not like us.

Unless we are willing to understand that, we will continue to make mistakes in our Pakistan policy. It is not our responsibility to save Pakistan from itself.

Pakistan’s Russian Roulette

Sushant Sareen

Senior Fellow, VIF

From the day of its creation, Pakistan has always looked for an external patron, one which will pay its bills (or at least a part of them), indulge it with easy money for national projects, provide it with military hardware (or if you will, ‘toys for the boys’ so that they could indulge in their adventurism, mostly against India), lend it diplomatic and political support (once again mostly against India), and bolster its security against imagined and self-created enemies. The country which did all this and more for a larger part of the last sixty five years was the USA. During this period, China also started playing a crucial role in Pakistan's strategic calculus. But unlike the US, which ideologically never subscribed to giving a free lunch but always ended giving one to Pakistan, the Chinese who always spoke about giving free lunches (remember they are at least nominally communists), never gave a single free lunch to Pakistan. Not surprisingly, China has never really been able to stand in as a replacement for the US and the Pakistanis understood this even if they never publicly acknowledged this.

In recent years, however, relations between Pakistan and the US have seen a sharp downturn and nearly reached breakpoint on a couple of occasions. Although both countries have, for the moment at least, papered over their very deep differences, there is no trust, and certainly no love, left in the relationship which is all but broken. Notwithstanding expressions and assurances of fidelity by both sides, they are both preparing for life after separation. As a superpower, the US could easily turn its back on Pakistan except for the fact that Pakistan is not only a fountainhead of Islamist terror but also a nuclear weapon country and a nuclearised Jihad is probably the US’ worst nightmare. Add to this the US desire for maintaining a presence in the form of military bases in Afghanistan, for which it will need to remain engaged in some form or another with Pakistan. As far as Pakistan is concerned, it needs to scour for possible sources for replacing all the goodies and benefits it enjoyed from a patron state like the US. Thus it is that in the last couple of years Pakistan has been trying to readjust and reorient its foreign policy so that it can stay afloat after it loses the anchor of the US and its allies, both Islamic (read Saudi Arabia) and infidel (read Western bloc). Domestically too, it pays the government and military establishment in Pakistan well to make an attempt to break out of the US stranglehold and open new diplomatic options.

It is precisely in pursuit of this objective that Pakistan has been sweet-talking India (but without any change in its inimical policy towards India or any let or hindrance in exporting terror, illegal arms and narcotics into India), trying to re-energise its relations with Iran, and desperately wooing Russia. In the Pakistani calculus, if it can enlist the support of both Russia and China – the only two countries that Pakistanis believe can together serve as a possible, even likely, countervailing force to the US – it will be able to tackle the fallout of a divorce with the Americans. The example of Syria, which is being propped up by Russia and China in the face of an onslaught by opposition forces backed by the West and the Saudi-led Arab bloc, has only buttressed this viewpoint. Russia, along with China, is not only seen as a alternative source of supply for military hardware but also as a counterweight to the US in international fora like the UN Security Council.

Over the last couple of years, a number of visits have been exchanged between Pakistan and Russia. President Asif Zardari went to Moscow last year and met his then Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev. Later, Pakistan foreign minister Khar visited Moscow. The Russians also held meetings with Pakistani leaders on the sidelines of SCO summits and became part of a Quadrilateral arrangement which included Tajikistan and Afghanistan to discuss regional security issues and economic cooperation. Russian delegations have been visiting Pakistan and making a pitch for some high profile infrastructure projects like the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, restructuring the Pakistan Steel Mills, building electricity transmission lines for export of electricity from Central Asian states like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan under the CASA 1000 project. There is also a big security dimension to the quest for improved ties. The Russians would like to engage with Pakistan to contain the fallout in its own Muslim dominated regions as well as its soft underbelly in Central Asia from a destabilised, or worse, Taliban controlled Afghanistan. The Pakistanis on the other hand are looking for Russian investments, Russian political and diplomatic support in the event of a breakdown in relations with the US, Russian military supplies and of course a higher volume of trade with Russia.

But, as the old saying goes: if wishes were horses, beggars would be ride. While Pakistan’s motives in wooing the Russians are quite clear, the big question is what does Pakistan bring on the table that will make the Russians want to thumb their nose at the US? This is the point on which the entire Pakistani strategy, and indeed Russian coquetry with the Pakistanis appears very iffy. For now it seems that the Russians are only exploring the possibilities of deepening their relations with Pakistan and the benefits this will bring and costs it will entail. It would therefore be highly pre-mature to talk of a budding strategic relationship between Russia and Pakistan at this stage. One obvious problem in building this relationship is that Pakistanis have convinced themselves that the Russians will be more than willing to embrace Pakistan in order to even the scores with the US in Afghanistan. Perverse though it may be, the Pakistani logic is that just as they used the US to unravel the Soviet Union, now they can probably use Russia to bloody, if not break, the US. Of course, the Pakistani mind is unable to factor in the possibility that if indeed the Russians want to even the scores with the Americans, then how come they don’t want to do the same with the Pakistanis who never stop boasting about their role in the breakup of the erstwhile Soviet Union. And if the Russians are hankering for revenge, then is it possible that they could be willing to tie up with Pakistan because this way they will kill two birds with one stone. In other words, the Russians could be getting even with both the principal (US) and the proxy (Pakistan) by playing them against each other and settling the scores for the loss and humiliation suffered by Russia in Afghanistan. After all, if it only wanted revenge against the US then all Russia would need to do is block the Northern Distribution Network and this will fix the Americans while giving the Pakistanis a leg up to squeeze the US for keeping open its logistics lines. 

Revenge as a motive might appeal to an immature country like Pakistan. But it would be puerile for a Great Power like Russia to base high policy on a matter of far reaching significance on something as silly as revenge. It is important to evaluate the strategic and economic benefits that a relationship with Pakistan offers Russia. For now at least, it seems that the Russians are taking a page out of the Chinese book on dealing with the Pakistanis. Just as the Chinese use Pakistan as a ready market for dumping its obsolete technology and armaments and as a virtual captive market for building infrastructure projects at highly inflated costs, the Russians too want that they be given contracts for projects (for instance on the IP pipeline and Pakistan Steel Mills expansion) without any competitive bidding. So far the Pakistanis haven’t said yes but they also haven’t said no. But this dilly-dallying is touted as a major reason for Russian president Putin cancelling his much anticipated visit to Pakistan late last month. That despite all the tall talk of a fruitful relationship, fuelled in part by the visit of the Russian foreign minister to Islamabad and the Pakistan army chief to Moscow, things are not quite hunky dory is clear from the fact that there was no meeting between Putin and Kayani in Moscow, nor one between the Russian foreign minister and Asif Zardari in Islamabad. Normally, if things were good and there was a deal in the offing then Zardari isn’t the sort of man who would stand on protocol or prestige to avoid a meeting with a visiting dignitary to show his displeasure. That he decided to do so with Sergei Lavrov suggests that there was more optics and little substance in the relationship for now.

In purely strategic terms, Pakistan's utility for Russia and China in terms of controlling the spread of Islamist terrorism is very doubtful. Even though Pakistan would like to present itself as a critical player and a stabilising force in the region, the facts on the ground suggest something completely contrary: Pakistan has practically no ability to contribute meaningfully to bringing in peace, prosperity and stability in the region; its real value is its nuisance value in terms of its ability to destabilise the region, something it has demonstrated over the last few decades. In other words, Pakistan can fuel the fire of Islamic terror; it cannot douse this fire. Forget about stabilising Afghanistan, there is a big question mark over whether Pakistan can even get a handle on the Islamist terror groups which are operating inside Pakistan. While the Pakistani military establishment retains a large measure of control over jihadist terror groups that operate against India, it has steadily been losing its hold over the Taliban proxies like Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its affiliates. Therefore, if the Russians are looking towards Pakistan keeping in view the experience of the 1990’s when the Pakistanis spawned the Taliban to establish control over Afghanistan, then they need to understand that the past was a different country, both in Afghanistan as well as in Pakistan. Back in the 1990s the Taliban were neither fighting Pakistan, nor were they aiming to Talibanise Pakistan. Today, both these conditions do not obtain and there are serious questions being raised over whether or not the Taliban will be amenable to following Pakistan's lead or even breaking ties with international jihadist groups like Al Qaeda, East Turkestan Islamic Movement, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or the militants from Chechnya, Dagestan and other parts of Russia.

Both the Russians and Chinese are also confronted with another big dilemma. While they are not comfortable with the presence of US troops in the region, they are also aware of the instability that will result once the Americans leave the region. Post 2014, the menu of options before Russia and China is basically a Hobson’s choice: they can do most of the heavy lifting themselves and at the same time depend partly on a mercenary state like Pakistan to handle the political and military affairs in Afghanistan in return for some military and economy aid; alternatively, they can just wait and watch and try to insulate themselves to the extent possible from the adverse fallout of Afghanistan’s descent into chaos. In either of these cases, Pakistan will almost certainly get sucked into the Afghan vortex, something that will only destabilise Pakistan further and spell ruin for its already bankrupt economy.

There is of course the possibility that China and Russia might lend some economic and military support to Pakistan. But chances are that this support will be woefully short of anything that Pakistan might require to continue staying afloat. On the flip side, a close military relationship with Pakistan will rob Russia of a lucrative market like India, especially in the field of defence supplies. No amount of military and economic cooperation with a basket case like Pakistan will be able to compensate Russia for the loss of a market like India’s. After all, how many countries will be willing to spend close to $ 3 billion for a worthless tub like the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and sill uphold it as an example of close defence relationship with Russia? Unlike India which pays Russia in hard currency for defence equipment, Pakistan will only want it either gratis or on long deferred terms of payment (which in the Pakistani context generally translates into ‘forget about the money’).

Put it all in perspective, and it becomes quite clear that the much of the talk in Pakistan of building an alliance with Russia is for the moment at least only that. 

Talk on ‘Sufism and Indian Islam’

A talk on ‘Sufism and Indian Islam’ by Hazrat Maulana Syed Mohammad Ashraf Sahab Kichhouchhawi, General Secretary, All India Ulama & Mashikh Board was held at Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) on 23 Apr 2012. The event, which was organized by the VIF in collaboration with the Global Foundation for Civilizational Harmony (GFCH), aimed at understanding and projecting the Sufi legacy in India of tolerance. It was opposed to the more extreme ideologies, which promoted terrorism, thus strengthening India’s social and religious harmony. The evening session, presided by Mr. Subhash Chandra, the founding Chairman GFCH and ZEE Television networks, was attended by a large number of people including social activists and religious enthusiasts, among others. Mr. Ajit Doval, KC, Director VIF welcomed the guests while Dr. Khawaja Ikram, Associate Professor at JNU's Centre of Indian Languages briefed the audience on the evolution of Sufism in India.

Mr Doval’s initial remarks, part of his welcome speech, stressed the global need to develop a greater understanding among all human beings, regardless of caste, creed or religion. He also underscored that Sufism, the inner, mystical dimension of Islam had contributed significantly to India’s rich cultural and religious legacy. Dr. Khawaja Ikram noted that while the tradition of Sufism preceded Islam, the major trends of Sufism could be found in many religions across the world.

Hazrat Maulana Mohammad Ashraf, the renowned scholar of Sufism, identified love for the entire humanity and unconditional devotion to the Almighty among the basic tenets of Sufism. Sufism stresses that purging of all base thoughts from the soul is a prerequisite for the attainment of higher spiritual goals. The self becomes complete only when Ilm (Knowledge) is fused with Isque (devotion). He however said that the primary reason for Sufism not being very popular is that it dwells more upon practice, less on theory. "The notion of heaven and hell doesn't affect a Sufi practitioner because fear of hell and greed for a place in heaven are trivial for a Sufi", the noted scholar observed. He further said, "In our society, people are segregated into different classes based on their religion, caste, and region. A place like India where language changes virtually every 50 kms, it is imperative that people live in harmony and respect and appreciate the diversity". Rejecting the notion that Jihad means offence, Hazrat Maulana asserted that it is essentially a form of defence, especially against the evil which is present within all of us. Mr Subhash Chandra wrapped up the proceedings and said that he felt personally motivated by the thoughts expressed by Hazrat Maulana and extended all possible cooperation in spreading the teachings of tolerance and harmony across the entire nation.

Report prepared by Sanjay Kumar