Examine India’s response to the Af-Pak policy of the US. (2010, 20 Marks)
Barack Obama’s strategy of 27 March 2009, shaped by his special representative Richard Holbrooke, treated Afghanistan and Pakistan as a single theatre: defeat al-Qaeda, stabilise Kabul and make Pakistan the key partner. For India this risked re-hyphenation, rewarding the state it held responsible for cross-border terrorism. India responded on three tracks: resisting regional linkage, contesting the bet on Pakistan, and deepening its own civilian stake in Afghanistan.
Why the policy alarmed India
- It rested on Pakistani cooperation, rewarded through aid: the Kerry–Lugar–Berman Act (October 2009) authorised $7.5 billion of civilian assistance over five years.
- It opened the door to reconciliation with “moderate” Taliban, and the West Point speech of 1 December 2009 paired a 30,000-troop surge with a drawdown from July 2011.
- General Stanley McChrystal’s 2009 assessment warned that growing Indian influence in Afghanistan could provoke Pakistani countermeasures, treating India’s presence as part of the problem.
India’s response
- Keeping India and Kashmir out: early American thinking linked Pakistani help in Afghanistan to movement on Kashmir. Quiet Indian lobbying ensured that Holbrooke’s brief, announced on 22 January 2009, named only Afghanistan and Pakistan.
- Contesting the bet on Pakistan: after 26/11 (November 2008) India argued that the insurgency’s sanctuaries lay in Pakistan and that aid to Islamabad was fungible, strengthening the army whatever its label.
- Conditional reintegration, not a “good Taliban”: at the London Conference (28 January 2010) S. M. Krishna backed an Afghan-led process only for those who abjured violence, accepted the Afghan constitution and cut ties with terrorist groups, and insisted that it be inclusive and transparent. India adapted to the American turn while fencing it.
- Staying the course: despite attacks on its Kabul embassy (July 2008, October 2009) and on Indian nationals (February 2010), India kept its civilian programme: the Zaranj–Delaram highway (2009), power lines, the Afghan parliament building and training. It sent no troops.
- Hedging regionally: excluded from a regional meeting at Istanbul in January 2010, reportedly at Pakistan’s insistence, India worked with Iran, Russia and Central Asia and signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Kabul (October 2011) before the American drawdown.
Evaluation
- Strengths: India kept itself and Kashmir out of the frame, preserved its standing with Afghans and avoided a military role that would have confirmed Pakistan’s narrative.
- Limits: the response was reactive. Harsh V. Pant (India’s Afghan Muddle, 2014) argued that New Delhi kept responding to an environment shaped by others without an autonomous posture. India had no land access or military leverage, and its position rested on an American security umbrella it did not control.
- Theory: a realist reading sees John H. Herz’s security dilemma: Pakistan’s quest for strategic depth made every Indian road look like encirclement, while India saw Pakistani proxies as an existential threat.
- Vindication without influence: the Doha agreement (February 2020), concluded without India or the Afghan government, and the collapse of August 2021 bore out India’s warnings, yet India was neither consulted nor protected.
Conclusion
India’s response was sound in diagnosis but weak in leverage: it prevented hyphenation and built goodwill, but could not change an American strategy built around Pakistan. The lesson shapes current policy. India now pursues engagement without recognition of the Taliban, upgrading its Kabul mission to an embassy in October 2025, and in the same month joined the Moscow Format in opposing foreign military infrastructure in Afghanistan, after Washington sought Bagram back. Its Afghan stake no longer depends on Washington.