[A-List] Indian imperialism: Central Asia

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Indian military shadow over Central Asia
By Ramtanu Maitra
Asia Times, September 10 2002

After months of dodging the issue, New Delhi has acknowledged setting up
an air base in Farkhor in Tajikistan, close to the Afghan border. The
base actually became operational in May following the Pakistani ban on
Indian overflights. This is the first Indian air base abroad and a
genuine military step forward for India.

India had operated a military hospital in Farkhor for years. In fact,
when two suspected al-Qaeda Arabs holding Belgian passports assassinated
Afghan Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Masoud in northern
Afghanistan on September 9 last year, the body was taken to this
hospital. Over the years, many Northern Alliance leaders fighting for
the ouster of the Taliban regime from Afghanistan have been treated in
Indian-run Farkhor hospital, and New Delhi supplied Northern Alliance
troops with arms to fight the Taliban.

India has set up the Farkhor base for a number of reasons. The immediate
concern is the ban on Indian overflights by Pakistan. Without overflight
permission, Indian relief planes to Kabul have to take a much longer
route, through Iran, using smaller planes. With a fully-fledged air base
in Farkhor, India can now use large transport planes to carry relief
items for Afghanistan.

The first priority for India at this point is to firmly plant its feet
in Afghanistan. For years, India, along with Russia, backed the Northern
Alliance opposition group against the Pakistan-backed Taliban. There is
no doubt that India will continue to support the Northern Alliance
leaders although, for historical reasons, it also has wide-ranging links
with the Pashtuns, who resolutely oppose the Northern Alliance
leadership, many of whom now hold high positions in the administration
of Hamid Karzai in Kabul. Indian links to the Pashtuns have been
maintained through the Khalq, the Pashtun faction of the Afghan
Communist Party, following the Saur Revolution of 1978 and during the
decade of the 1980s when the Soviet-backed Afghan communists managed to
stay in power.

In fact, following the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban in 1996, the
deposed Afghan communist leader and former president, Mohammad
Najibullah, made attempts to escape to India. He did not succeed and was
killed by the Taliban militia, but his family did manage to get away and
they are all in India. Also, Hamid Karzai spent a part of his student
days at an Indian university.

The Northern Alliance gambit
India began to support the Northern Alliance wholeheartedly in the
mid-1990s once it became evident to New Delhi that Islamabad, using its
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the religious leaders of bordering
Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province (NWFP), was working on a
plan to organize the Pashtuns around orthodox Islam. Islamabad wanted to
set up an Islamic grouping - which became the Taliban - resembling both
the Wahhabis and the Deobandis (groups of orthodox Muslims from Saudi
Arabia and the sub-continent, respectively) under its control. That
group would be pro-Islam and anti-India, and preferably anti-United
States, Islamabad planned. Pakistan's objective, as perceived by New
Delhi, was to have Afghanistan wholly under its sphere of influence and
to make that country the gateway to Central Asia for Pakistan.

However, for financial reasons, the Taliban could not remain wholly
anti-US. Soon Taliban leaders were in the United States being
entertained by Unocal, the California-based oil giant. At the time,
Unocal, with support from Turkmenistan and Pakistan, was planning to
build an oil pipeline that would pass through Afghanistan and bring
Turkmen oil to Pakistan. Taliban leaders had agreed to this concept,
which would bring substantial revenues to Kabul on a regular basis. But
the pipeline concept fell through as the Taliban became more and more
identified with the anti-US al-Qaeda terrorists under Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban's staunch anti-India position prompted India to back the
Northern Alliance to the hilt, with the objective of bringing it to
power in Kabul. But success was hard to come by. By 1999 the
Pakistan-supported Taliban had gained control of almost 95 percent of
Afghanistan, and the Northern Alliance managed to barely survive under
the very clever and charismatic military leader, Masoud, a Tajik. The
opportunity to get the Northern Alliance into Kabul finally appeared in
2001, following September 11, when President George W Bush decided to
move into Afghanistan militarily. The Taliban was routed and the
Northern Alliance, along with the US, took virtual control of Kabul.

This provided India with a golden opportunity to establish itself firmly
in Afghanistan. Setting up the base in Farkhor indicates that New Delhi
has quickly grasped the opportunity before the scene and the main
characters change again in Afghanistan.

Besides the military angle, India also seeks to be a major player in the
much-talked-about reconstruction of Afghanistan. According to developed
nations, some US$20-30 billion will be spent in the next decade. Unless
the political situation in Afghanistan prevents putting in place such a
long-term plan, India expects to get a good slice of these contracts.

Speaking at a conference in February, the Federation of Indian Export
Organizations pointed out that Afghanistan badly needed roads, housing,
civic facilities, transport, hospitals, schools, colleges, technical and
medical institutions, power stations, telecommunications, medicines,
machinery and goods for everyday life. The chairman of the organization
asked the then-Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, S K Lambah, to spell
out in concrete terms "where and how India's vast and diverse community
of exporters of goods, projects and services should begin in the task of
rebuilding that great nation".

India has extended immediate assistance of $100 million, resumed the
India-Afghanistan air link and signed a memorandum of understanding to
strengthen aviation links further. Masoud Khalili, the ambassador of
Afghanistan in India, stressed that India's role in rebuilding and
reconstruction of war-ravaged Afghanistan would be crucial.

The trade angle
Besides the large reconstruction contracts which Indian companies are
eyeing, New Delhi is looking to speed up trade between India and
Afghanistan. At the Federation of Indian Export Organizations
conference, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) deputy resident
representative Dennis Lazarus informed the meeting that the UNDP had
formed a development group to formulate the reconstruction strategy for
Afghanistan. The objectives of this group, he said, included reviving
trade in the region, and also building up an Afghan interim fund for
rehabilitation over the next six months. He also informed the meeting
that an expert group would be visiting India to guide Indian business
houses on registration, and the supply of goods to Afghanistan through
UN agencies.

The difficulties in speeding up India-Afghanistan trade cannot be
overstressed. The single largest problem is the unsavory environment for
such trade created by hostile India-Pakistan relations.
India-Afghanistan trade cannot take off unless Pakistan allows a land
link between the two countries through Pakistan. During his recent visit
to the sub-continent, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
suggested "patience and a determination to move ahead" by both India and
Pakistan to overcome their animosities. One way to do that, Armitage
pointed out, was to open up the land route. Needless to say, Washington
is keen to see Kabul's trade figures go up. It would not only generate
substantial income for the Kabul government and help the United States
to stabilize Afghanistan, but it would improve India-Pakistan relations
as well, Armitage argued.

A similar request also came from two top Afghan ministers, Abdullah
Abdullah and Younus Qanooni, who visited Pakistan recently. But even
before the Afghan delegation arrived, the chairman of Pakistan's Export
Promotion Bureau, Tariq Ikram, ruled out the possibility of opening such
a trade route in the short term. Ikram's declaration was tantamount to a
refusal to allow regional trade to grow, thus depriving cash-starved
Pakistan of trade revenues.

It is widely known that former Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif, who was
removed by a military coup in October 1999, was building a four-lane
highway that would have linked Afghanistan to India through Pakistan.
One estimate shows that about 70 percent of the highway had already been
built. Sharif believed that by opening up trade between India and
Central Asia through Pakistan, Islamabad would benefit financially. But
now anti-India hardliners within Pakistan, who are ready to cut off
their nose to spite the Indians, will hear none of it. Another
consideration arguably working the hardliners' minds is the possibility
of bringing back the Taliban, or a variation of the Taliban, in the
future, to make Afghanistan an anti-India ally of Pakistan.

The broader picture
Afghanistan's shared border with Central Asia lies between the two
largest Asian powers, Russia and China. While China is not particularly
eager to see India in the region, Russia remains an accommodating
friend.

The area has increasingly figured in India's strategic thinking as a
potential headache. As New Delhi found out, Afghanistan under the
Taliban regime became a flag-bearer for Pakistan on the Kashmir issue.
With very little effort and cash expenditure (aided, in fact, primarily
by the devastation of Afghan society by the Americans and the Soviets),
Islamabad turned the Pashtuns into an orthodox Wahhabi-Deobandi combo,
resembling the most fanatic Islamic groups of Arabia.

India fully recognizes the danger presented by the growth of such
orthodox Islam in its vicinity. It is widely acknowledged that India has
not succeeded in stabilizing its vast Muslim population. Given the
Kashmir angle, and the Islamic community's opposition in general to the
Indian viewpoint on Kashmir, India does not want such orthodox Islam to
spread its roots in Central Asia. That India is highly sensitive to
Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan became evident in India's undying
support for the Northern Alliance.

New Delhi has also recognized that today the Central Asian region has
become an area of immense importance to Europe, the US, China and Iran.
The US is trying to undermine Russian and Iranian gains and has set up
military bases in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan,
while China has committed billions of dollars for the development of the
Central Asian oil fields to help fulfill its future energy demands.

Europe, on the other hand, wants to extend its influence by means of
North Atlantic Treaty Organization expansion eastward and through the
"Partnership for Peace" program. All this is likely to bring high-stakes
power politics into Central Asia. As India has no capability to insulate
the Central Asian nations from these powerful nations' power politics,
it has decided to wield what influence it can by becoming a part of it.

The massive opium growing and drug trafficking that takes place in the
region is also a major consideration. Pakistan has been badly affected
by these antisocial and highly dangerous activities. Tajikistan has also
been affected. India, if it does not take adequate measures and sets up
checks and balances, may face a similar threat in the coming years.

All these considerations shape India's initiatives in the area. Unable
to start a land route through Pakistan, New Delhi has established a
sea-land route via Iran and Russia. There are already existing rail and
road lines in Turkmenistan and Iran. Three-party agreements on the
international transit of goods between Turkmenistan, India and Iran were
signed on February 22, 1997, in Tehran. With completion of these
railroads, the prospect of moving goods from Indian ports to Bandar
Abbas in Iran and then on to the Central Asian region by road and rail
opened up.

India and Russia are developing a new transit route through Iran. New
Delhi, Moscow and Teheran signed an agreement in St Petersburg on
September 12, 2000, to send Indian cargo to Russia through a
"north-south" corridor. According to the arrangement, Indian goods will
be sent from Mumbai or Okha to the Iranian hub of Bandar Abbas via the
Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. From there, containers will be
reloaded on trucks or railway wagons and dispatched to the Iranian port
of Anzali on the Caspian Sea. After transshipment at Anzali, goods will
be loaded on ships and taken to the Russian port of Astrakhan. In the
past Astrakhan had been the springboard for expanding Czarist Russia's
influence toward Central Asia. The land route from Astrakhan to the
Russian mainland is straightforward, as containers from here can be sent
either to Moscow or to St Petersburg.

This new corridor is in effect now, but Indian trade with the Central
Asian nations as well as Central Europe has not yet picked up
significantly. The common refrain is that the route is costly and
tedious. Another transit route, which has been widely discussed, depends
on an agreement with China for the use of its road to Kyrgyzstan though
Xinjiang province. India could use this road by constructing a link road
in Ladakh joining the Tibet-Xinjiang road. Ladakh is already linked by
road with the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.