Even as the British approach alternated between an aggressive forward policy and a relaxed closed border policy, the constant element was containing Russian influence in Afghanistan. As an inheritor of the British legacy in Afghanistan, Pakistan plays this “Great Game” with India. The generals in the Pakistan army have been convinced of the need for a friendly regime in Kabul to not allow India a foothold on its western border. In essence, Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy has been overtly focused on denying space to India.
This is important to remember while reading Avinash Paliwal’s wonderful new book My Enemy’s Enemy: India In Afghanistan From The Soviet Invasion To The US Withdrawal . The book tries to decode the drivers of India’s Afghanistan policy in a relatively more contemporary context.
Paliwal does an excellent job in explaining India’s policy options as a continuous internal debate between two groups—conciliators and partisans—inside the policymaking establishment. Conciliators argue for engagement with all factions inside Afghanistan, including those known for their pro-Pakistan inclinations. Partisans, on the other hand, feel that India should remain loyal to its natural partners (or factions outside Pakistan’s influence).
Whether the conciliators prevail or the partisans depends on, Paliwal says, three intertwined factors:
a) New Delhi’s desire to strike a balance between Afghanistan and Pakistan,
b) the international political environment, and
c) the domestic politics of Afghanistan.
The second and third are obvious. The first one is not so and here Paliwal’s arguments have to be carefully read in the light of the aforementioned drivers of Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy.
So, for Paliwal, India’s relatively unrestrained support of Afghanistan vis-à-vis Pakistan today can be explained by the rise of partisans in New Delhi’s power corridors. The partisans have also been helped by the fact that the power balance between Kabul and Islamabad is heavily skewed in favour of the latter and any desire for a balance between the two will mean India siding with Afghanistan. When the power balance was not so skewed, India did not side with Afghanistan on, say, the Pashtunistan issue. But are there alternative explanations available for India’s policy shifts other than a desire to maintain a balance across the Durand Line?
Paliwal himself reminds us that even Afghanistan has equivocated on Kashmir. Afghan rulers haven’t exactly sided with New Delhi in India-Pakistan rivalries. One reason may be that Afghanistan wanted to win Pakistan’s support by showing loyalty in such instances. But winning Pakistan’s support should not have been a great Afghan concern if it really could match Pakistan militarily.
The balance, which India apparently desires across the Durand Line, actually never existed, regardless of New Delhi’s policy choice. An inheritor of British military institutions, Pakistan had entered into America’s Cold War alliances in the 1950s. At the same time, it had close relations with China. The only time there was some sort of a balance between Pakistan and Afghanistan was after the Soviet invasion—a period when India’s Afghanistan policy mattered little to change the equation on the ground. Moreover, India has never voiced its support in favour of the Afghan position on the Durand Line. And this has remained so irrespective of whether conciliators or partisans held the fort.
It is true that India has been, at times, more accommodative of pro-Pakistan factions like the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami. But there are other ways to look at these choices. While India was opposed to the mujahideens until Mohammad Najibullah was in power, it was quick to shift to the side of mujahideens like Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Massoud in 1992. This was because Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had made its support for Hekmatyar very clear. Similarly India’s limited engagement with factions in Taliban have been with those groups which wanted to reduce their dependence on Pakistan.
This does not mean that India’s engagements in Afghanistan have been a zero sum game with Pakistan—and Paliwal is justified in reaching this conclusion. India’s approach has simply been to secure a regime which doesn’t act against New Delhi’s interests. A regime dependent on Pakistan could not have guaranteed that because of Rawalpindi’s own colonial outlook on Afghanistan. New Delhi has had to contend with this aspect of Rawalpindi’s policy even while trying not to reduce Afghanistan to a playground for India-Pakistan rivalry.
Paliwal’s cholarly approach and depth of knowledge cultivated from years of study and from interviews conducted with as many as 65 individuals with real insights makes this book the best ever written on India-Afghanistan relations. Paliwal also deserves our commendation for a painstaking documention of the Indian intelligence’s side of the story on Afghanistan. He indeed has set a very high benchmark for scholars working on this bilateral in the future.
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In a diverse country like India, where each State is socially, culturally, economically, and politically distinct, measuring Governance becomes increasingly tricky. The Public Affairs Index (PAI 2021) is a scientifically rigorous, data-based framework that measures the quality of governance at the Sub-national level and ranks the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India on a Composite Index (CI).
States are classified into two categories – Large and Small – using population as the criteria.
In PAI 2021, PAC defined three significant pillars that embody Governance – Growth, Equity, and Sustainability. Each of the three Pillars is circumscribed by five governance praxis Themes.
The themes include – Voice and Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption.
At the bottom of the pyramid, 43 component indicators are mapped to 14 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are relevant to the States and UTs.
This forms the foundation of the conceptual framework of PAI 2021. The choice of the 43 indicators that go into the calculation of the CI were dictated by the objective of uncovering the complexity and multidimensional character of development governance
The Equity Principle
The Equity Pillar of the PAI 2021 Index analyses the inclusiveness impact at the Sub-national level in the country; inclusiveness in terms of the welfare of a society that depends primarily on establishing that all people feel that they have a say in the governance and are not excluded from the mainstream policy framework.
This requires all individuals and communities, but particularly the most vulnerable, to have an opportunity to improve or maintain their wellbeing. This chapter of PAI 2021 reflects the performance of States and UTs during the pandemic and questions the governance infrastructure in the country, analysing the effectiveness of schemes and the general livelihood of the people in terms of Equity.
Growth and its Discontents
Growth in its multidimensional form encompasses the essence of access to and the availability and optimal utilisation of resources. By resources, PAI 2021 refer to human resources, infrastructure and the budgetary allocations. Capacity building of an economy cannot take place if all the key players of growth do not drive development. The multiplier effects of better health care, improved educational outcomes, increased capital accumulation and lower unemployment levels contribute magnificently in the growth and development of the States.
The Pursuit Of Sustainability
The Sustainability Pillar analyses the access to and usage of resources that has an impact on environment, economy and humankind. The Pillar subsumes two themes and uses seven indicators to measure the effectiveness of government efforts with regards to Sustainability.
The Curious Case Of The Delta
The Delta Analysis presents the results on the State performance on year-on-year improvement. The rankings are measured as the Delta value over the last five to 10 years of data available for 12 Key Development Indicators (KDI). In PAI 2021, 12 indicators across the three Pillars of Equity (five indicators), Growth (five indicators) and Sustainability (two indicators). These KDIs are the outcome indicators crucial to assess Human Development. The Performance in the Delta Analysis is then compared to the Overall PAI 2021 Index.
Key Findings:-
In the Scheme of Things
The Scheme Analysis adds an additional dimension to ranking of the States on their governance. It attempts to complement the Governance Model by trying to understand the developmental activities undertaken by State Governments in the form of schemes. It also tries to understand whether better performance of States in schemes reflect in better governance.
The Centrally Sponsored schemes that were analysed are National Health Mission (NHM), Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS), Mahatma Gandh National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SmSA) and MidDay Meal Scheme (MDMS).
National Health Mission (NHM)
INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS)
MID- DAY MEAL SCHEME (MDMS)
SAMAGRA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN (SMSA)
MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE SCHEME (MGNREGS)