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    Taliban-US peace talks worrying for India

    Synopsis

    India Finds Itself Isolated With Afghan Govt’s Exclusion from Taliban-US Peace Talks

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    The Doha peace talks on Afghanistan, initiated by the US with the Afghanistan government excluded, and the possible restoration of a Taliban government in Kabul, are a worrying prospect for India. President Trump’s efforts to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan, driven by his electoral compulsions, illustrates the transactional nature of American diplomacy. Trump’s stoppage of military aid to Pakistan, because the latter had not done enough to eliminate terrorism, had raised hopes about the US coming all out against Pakistan. But, it has turned out to be a bullying tactic to spur Pakistan to persuade Taliban leaders to attend the negotiations. With the Afghan government excluded from the talks at the behest of the Taliban, India finds itself isolated.

    If power is transferred to the Taliban, there is no guarantee that the Taliban –– in pursuit of its mission of establishing Sharia –– will stick to any commitment. In that eventuality, Afghanistan could become a hotbed of internal strife and terrorism. Pakistan’s influence on a Taliban hostile to India could be a valuable asset for its Kashmir designs. PM Imran Khan’s admission that Pakistan has 20,000-30,000 terrorists holed up in its soil may appear candid, but these could get refuge in a future Taliban-led Afghanistan as a proxy army against India, giving the false impression that Pakistan got rid of them. Thus, the winners in the emerging scenario are the Pakistan Army and ISI whose pursuit of strategic depth in Afghanistan seems to be fructifying with India losing influence.

    The Pakistan Army has been described as an ‘Army with a Nation’. Its deep-rooted reputation as a panacea for the ills of the Pakistan polity has invested it with the aura of an arbiter of Pakistan’s destiny. As a defender of Islamic ideology, its culture and inveterate revisionism (anti-status quoism) have been the subject of research by scholars like Christine Fair (‘Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War’).

    Fair says the Pakistan Army does not consider itself as ever having been defeated by India, attributing the 1971 defeat to treachery rather than war. It believes Pakistan will be victorious as long as it has not been defeated and continues to resist India’s will. Pakistan’s defence establishment believes that India is opposed to Pakistan’s existence and the two-nation theory.

    According to Fair, the army’s culture is characterised by its espousal of Jihad in its role as a defender of Islamic nationalism. In the army’s view, Pakistan will be defeated only when it can no longer work to deny India’s claim on Kashmir and will continue to weaken India. The Pakistan Army believes that it alone is best suited to safeguard Pakistan’s ideological frontiers. Should relations with India improve, the army will find it difficult to justify its claim on national resources. Fair says the army is the single most likely spoiler of any rapprochement.

    For the Pakistan Army, giving up claim over Kashmir will amount to its abandonment of the two-nation theory and it is unlikely to give up its mission on Kashmir.

    Whenever prospects of a dialogue brightened at the political level, terrorism was used to thwart it. Clear examples are the Pathankot and Uri incidents and many others before. The ISI and the Pak Army never allowed the thawing of bilateral relations beyond a threshold. Is it realistic to look up to Pakistan’s political leadership, tethered to the apron strings of the army, to take any initiative to eliminate cross-border terrorism? Even if Imran Khan challenges the Army’s dominance, the Islamic fundamentalists could be the second line of resistance to any reconciliation. As Husain Haqqani, former Pakistani diplomat, writes in his book ‘Reimaging Pakistan’: “To give up jihad is anathema to the noisy Islamists who can be counted on to launch fatwas against anyone who suggests that the national interests require focusing on economic growth rather than settling dispute with neighbours by force”.



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