Modi's soft diplomacy is hurting Pakistan hard
Amidst reports that the United States, China and Pakistan are working towards reviving the reconciliation attempts between the Afghan government and the Taliban, Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif's meeting with the Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of the World Climate Change Conference in Paris last week assumed a new significance. But what really changed the terms of South Asian debate was a brief, but widely watched interaction between Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in Paris at a time when there are no formal talks going on between India and Pakistan.
The two nations took a step towards restoring their dialogue when their national security advisors met in Bangkok on Sunday paving the way for Indian external affairs minister's visit to Pakistan this week for a regional meeting on Afghanistan. The Congress party's response has been predictable by crying out "betrayal" forgetting what their luminaries have been preaching the Modi government in recent weeks and ignoring the strength of Indian diplomatic hand due to effective policy-making.
South Asia is passing through a phase where Pakistan is getting increasingly isolated and India under Modi is making its presence felt around the world. Modi's pro-active diplomacy has expanded the strategic space for India to manoeuvre in South Asia and beyond. Just last month, New Delhi took an important step towards operationalizing its 2011 strategic partnership agreement with Kabul by deciding to deliver four Russia-made Mi-25 attack helicopters, with the Indian Air Force, to the Afghan National Army by January 2016. This marks a significant departure in India's Afghan policy which has so far consistently refused to supply any lethal weaponry to Afghanistan and has limited its outreach to supplying military transport vehicles and some unarmed helicopters apart from providing military training to around 1000 Afghan security personnel every year in India.
India's decision comes against the backdrop of growing resentment in Afghanistan about Pakistani military establishment's unwillingness to change its strategic agenda vis-a-vis Afghanistan. Ghani had hoped for a new phase in Afghan-Pakistan ties when he reached out to Islamabad immediately after his elections even at the cost of antagonising India. But it did not work out as he had hoped for. The military in Pakistan scuttled this Afghanistan-Pakistan rapprochement.
After a spate of deadly terror attacks in Afghanistan in August 2005, Ghani lashed out at Pakistan for the violence. Ghani remarked that Kabul "hoped for peace, but war is declared against us from Pakistani territory," underlining that "the incidents of the past two months in general, and the recent days in particular, show that the suicide training camps and the bomb-making facilities used to target and murder our innocent people still operate, as in the past, in Pakistan."
The silence over Mullah Omar's death for years and its inability to control the shenanigans within the Taliban also exposed the hollowness of Pakistani claims of being an honest broker in bringing the Taliban and the Afghan government together. The peace process inevitably came to a standstill and after the fall of Kunduz in late September, it was clear that Ghani will have to go back to his predecessor's policy of engaging India substantively in Afghanistan's transition.
Kabul's latest outreach to New Delhi which involves an upgrade in defence ties has once again put pressure on Islamabad. Meanwhile, Modi's energetic global and regional diplomacy is further marginalising Pakistan. Without mentioning Pakistan, Modi's foreign policy has had a laser-like focus on achieving support from other states on India's agenda of isolating those states that support and nurture terrorism.
In the current anti-Islamic State climate, Modi's warnings are hitting closer to home for most states. In a master stroke, Modi even managed to persuade the United Arab Emirates, one of Pakistan's closest partners, to support India's case when in their joint statement, the two nations denounced and opposed terrorism in "all forms and manifestations, wherever committed and by whomever, calling on all States to reject and abandon the use of terrorism against other countries, dismantle terrorism infrastructures where they exist, and bring perpetrators of terrorism to justice."
New Delhi has also been trying to convince China of the need greater counter-terror cooperation and recently the two nations have agreed to develop dedicated communications channels to exchange intelligence on terrorism.
Pakistan is feeling the heat and its civilian leadership recognises the changing realties. It is not surprising therefore that the Pakistani Prime minister is keen to reassure Afghanistan of Pakistan's sincerity in working with Kabul "as an equal and sovereign state" but has also expressed his desire for a dialogue with India "without preconditions." But both New Delhi and Kabul remain cautious as the real power centre in Pakistan, its military intelligence complex, remains as intransigent as ever.
Recently, citing security reasons, it prevailed upon the civilian government to deny Afghanistan's request to permit Afghan trucks a throughway to Delhi and to load cargo as they returned from Wagah to Afghanistan. Afghanistan, in response, pushed back and denied Pakistan's request for access to Tajikistan, leading to a failure of bilateral trade talks.
It is this zero-sum mentality of the Pakistani military that continues to be the biggest stumbling block in South Asia's economic prosperity. And unless this mindset changes, the peace process, be it the Afghan-Taliban one or the India-Pakistan one, will remain a work in progress. Instead of relying too much on Pakistan's weak civilian administration, howsoever well-intentioned, to deliver on its commitments, New Delhi should use the space created by Modi government's diplomatic efforts to protect and enhance India's vital interests.
Dialogue can continue but other arrows in India's quiver should remain ready to meet the challenges that Pakistan will inevitably pose in the coming months and years.