Karzai in New Delhi

In the absence of an official statement or the joint press conference after President Karzai's meetings with Indian leaders, it would be hard to know if his quest for more military assistance was met with success. But the very fact that the two sides decided not to go public sufficiently suggests that some progress was there, which they thought wise not to make public. That Karzai was there to seek Indian military hardware, there are no two opinions. Last week his spokesman, Aimal Faizi, announced that the Afghan leader would ask for "all kinds of assistance from India in order to strengthen our military and security institutions".
As to what that assistance would be it was an Indian foreign ministry official who volunteered information saying 'the discussions in New Delhi would cover a potential arms deal between the two countries,' and that "India is ready to meet any request that would strengthen Afghan security institutions". There is huge lobby in India that is always out to seek more intense relationship with Kabul, arguing that filling up the expected power vacuum following the withdrawal of the US-led coalition forces from Afghanistan should be the New Delhi's responsibility as emerging regional policeman. And why not, insists India's former ambassador in Kabul, Vivek Katju, who believes that the India-Afghanistan strategic agreement factors in fuller Indian support for Afghan military build-up "without refracting it through the prism of our relations with any other country (read Pakistan)".
If Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is reluctant to go that far, in deference to his would-be Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif's extended hand of friendship, we don't know - except for the inhibition nursed by a small section of Indian intelligentsia, which believes in the historic truth that 'Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires'. Getting into Afghanistan is that very easy but getting out in one-piece has always been a serious problem. Ask the Americans. President Hamid Karzai has the singular honour to be instrumental all the troubles the coalition forces and their governments are in Afghanistan. He was there in Bonn when an excited and sure-to-win West decided to send its sons and daughters to fight an elusive adversary in the arid wastes of Afghanistan, and frowned as many of them have arrived home in coffins. A shrewd power player that Hamid Karzai is has been on it once again. Before undertaking his trip to New Delhi he launched a fierce campaign against Pakistan accusing it of committing cross-border aggression, an act which he knew would sit well with New Delhi. And to his antics New Delhi is aptly receptive, driven as India is with mission to take the place of coalition forces in Afghanistan. For instance, as President Karzai was meeting his Indian hosts the Indian vice president is in Central Asia lobbying support for greater role in post-withdrawal Afghanistan.
India may not put boot in Afghanistan. Its indirect presence as military instructors, development workers or horticulturalists - India wants to set up an agricultural university in Kandahar - that it finds a better option. But it would be equally interested, and involved, in strengthening Afghan air force and field artillery, both under the garb of beefing up Afghan border security. Not that Pakistan is caught in surprise over the Karzai yatra to New Delhi, such an act on the part of Kabul government is always expected, though the recent spurt of bonhomie in the wake of May 11 elections the people in Pakistan expect New Delhi to be a bit different from its past. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh welcomed the spectacular electoral victory of Nawaz Sharif we greeted his move asserting in this space that 'democracies do not fight'. It is our hope that New Delhi would desist muddying the regional waters by arming the regime in Kabul that has forfeited the trust of its people, and would like to prolong its stay in power by keeping Afghanistan in a state of perpetual warfare.