INDIA’S foreign minister, S.M. Krishna, on his second and last day of an official visit to Afghanistan has warned Pakistan from interfering in Afghanistan. After meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss relations between their two countries and holding extensive talks with his Afghan counterpart, Zalmai Rassoul, Shri Krishna warned that external interference could adversely affect Afghan reconciliation efforts and be detrimental to the future of a “democratic, stable, pluralistic and prosperous Afghanistan.” Shri Krishna’s remarks are seen as a warning to Pakistan regarding its northwest tribal region, which according to him, has become a stronghold for Taliban-supported insurgents who seek to topple the Karzai government and drive NATO forces out of Afghanistan with repeated attacks.
India neither shares a contiguous border with Afghanistan, nor is the war-torn country inhabited by Hindus, so India has no case to speak on behalf of Afghanistan. To set the record straight, India sided with USSR when it invaded Afghanistan in 1979. In fact, being a Soviet ally, it cheered the Red Army on since it assumed that Pakistan would be next target. Indian Brahmins have never forgiven Pakistan for gaining independence, since it considered the carving of the Indian Sub-Continent as a desecration of “Mother India” and has been aspiring to conquer Pakistan or fragment it to such a state that it will align itself with India out of compulsion. It was Pakistan that bore the brunt of the burden of hosting millions of Afghan refugees and in the spirit of the Ansars of Madina, welcoming their wretched and displaced Afghan brothers with open arms, sharing their food, hearth and homes with the refugees. It was Pakistan, which led the attack on the Soviet Red Army, with the support of the allies. Afghan stability is a guarantor of Pakistan’s own stability and Pakistan definitely has a stake in the peace and tranquillity of Afghanistan.
Indian interests in Afghanistan can be gauged from the fact that when the Taliban ruled the roost, India provided sanctuary to the Northern Alliance, who were conspiring to topple the Taliban regime. When the US-led allies decided to invade Afghanistan after 9/11, India offered its services for a staging post for the invasion. To its good luck, the Northern Alliance were reinstalled in the power brokerage in the post Taliban era. India was awarded the rights to invest in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Has any western analyst paused to ponder why there are 14 Indian Consulates and Trade Missions in Afghanistan, forming an arc around Pakistan? Even the USA, which is many times the size of Afghanistan, does not have so many Consulates or Trade Missions. The fact is that these Consulates and Trade Missions are manned by Indian spy agency RAW operatives, whose main task is to recruit dissidents, train, equip and launch them into Pakistan to destabilize it. Ample evidence has been presented to the US regarding Indian arms, currency and training manuals, guiding these RAW agents to create insurgency in Balochistan and wage an internecine war in Swat, FATA and Pakistan’s tribal regions.Shri Krishna would be well advised to keep his warning to himself. India has no business to be in Afghanistan now or ever, even after the exit of the NATO and US forces from the region. It is only Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours, who have the right to help it back to stability, since their own future is linked with Afghan’s stability – Dailymailnews
