The sight of Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri chatting with his Talibani counterpart, the Acting Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, in Dubai, could not but have raised eyebrows in some capitals—Pakistan, particularly. The visit was followed by a rather delayed statement by Delhi on January 8, “condemning” Pakistan’s “Christmas bombing” against Kabul using fighter aircraft. It seems the visit was a rather quick decision with requisite statements issued just days before.
Indian Aid Never Stopped
The simple reason could be that the visit was made as the result of a diplomatic jostling for space in what is likely to be a crowded calendar for the Foreign Secretary, given, among other things, the upcoming presidency of Trump, and several multilateral meetings. In any case, India has been slowly increasing its interaction with the Taliban, quietly acknowledging their representatives in the embassy, and, recently, even sending JP Singh from the Ministry to make the first formal outreach in a long time. Not that Indian assistance for the beleaguered Afghan people ever stopped, as most people tend to believe. As the Taliban took over, Delhi allocated Rs 200 crore for aid and was the first responder in the massive earthquake that took place that year, with the Indian Air Force flying in tons of relief aid, including one shipment through Pakistan. But difficulties created by Islamabad—the insistence that Pakistani trucks be used, something presented as Pakistan’s ‘generosity’ then—led to a revival of the Chabahar route in 2023 to deliver about 20,000 tons of wheat.
Delhi’s logic was simple. It had always been a friend to the Afghan people and wasn’t going to desert them, Taliban or no Taliban. In fact, Taliban leaders even met with Indian officials regarding aid and requested that small projects be restarted, among a bevy of other projects that India had been backing. There was a time when India was providing Afghanistan extensive assistance—some 400 projects across Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, including large infrastructure projects like the Salma dam, three Airbus aircraft for Ariana airways, roads, telecommunication, schools, banking expertise, and even $20,000 for restoration of the shrine of Imam Hazrat Ali. Defence aid included supply of vehicles for the army and over 1,000 training slots with the Indian army, the largest for any country.
Naturally, Pakistan was deeply insecure. The Islamic State Khorasan suddenly turned anti-India. It attacked a gurdwara that killed dozens and claimed the attacks in Coimbatore and Mangalore in 2022. Al Qaeda chief Al Zawahari, too, was seen praising a Karnataka girl for defending the hijab. But then, the IS-K always had a Pakistan hand. Remember the arrest of Aslam Farooqi earlier, along with a Pakistan-trained Bangladeshi, and another from Islamabad? Farooqi had earlier been part of the fight in Kashmir. When Islamabad pressed for his extradition, Kabul refused. In sum, the long tail of accountability indicates a strong Pakistani link with at least one part of IS-K.
The Pakistani Reaction
This brings us back to the Foreign Secretary’s visit. Islamabad is likely to see the trip through the lens of the recent crisis in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations. The wording of Delhi’s protest note is also interesting, since it echoes almost exactly what the Taliban have been saying, that “it is an old practice of Pakistan to blame its neighbours for its own internal failures”. It adds, “We have also noted the response of an Afghan spokesperson in this regard”. The response in question, from the Defence Ministry, was unequivocal in noting that the blatant attack on Afghan sovereignty would not be left unanswered.
This sounds dangerous. Afghanistan doesn’t have much of an army, but it does have the capability to launch exactly what Pakistan trained it in, for decades: low-intensity, high-stakes, conflict. Pakistan witnessed a 40% rise in terrorism last year, according to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. That’s not all. There’s been a 21% rise in casualties, indicating more capability for violence.
There’s also a second “decisive” shift. The Pakistan army is killing more (51%) and arresting less. That can’t be pleasant for the locals. Which is also how the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) emerged. An entirely peaceful movement under the leadership of the charismatic Manzoor Pashteen, it has been demanding an end to the depredations of the Pakistan army, including bombing houses and blowing off roofs, and humiliating checks and search operations. It held a massive jirga calling for an open border and stated its determination to deal with the TTP in its own way. Rawalpindi reacted by banning it and arresting its leaders.
Further down the border, a full-blown conflict in Kurram, once the main infiltration point to Kabul, has created another set of issues. Lakki Marwat in the Bannu division has seen a police uprising demanding that the Pakistan army remove themselves and leave operations to locals. That’s the key. The TTP is almost entirely from tribal areas and was driven out by the Pakistan army in one of its innumerable operations, only to then fight alongside the Taliban. The present TTP is an amalgam of some seven to eight disparate groups that straddle the border. So, the Taliban’s plea—backed by India—that the terrorism issue is wholly a Pakistani problem, is legitimate, not just regarding the TTP but also about the long-festering Baloch issue.
A Dangerous Clash
After the Christmas air attacks, the TTP reacted dangerously. First, it issued a warning that it would not allow any transactions with Pakistan-army owned entities or fronts, including Fauji Cement Company Ltd., Askari Bank Ltd., Fauji Fertilizer Company Ltd., Fauji Foods Ltd., Askari Cement Ltd., Askari Fuels, National Logistic Cell, Frontier Works Organization, Pakistan Ordnance Factory, Fauji Foundation and the Defence Housing Authority, among others. All of these entities contribute, quietly, to the vast wealth of the Pakistan army. The TTP has given shopkeepers two months to get rid of their stocks. A video circulating online also seems to show that the TTP has kidnapped some 16 persons working at the Qabul Khel mining site in Lakki Marwat. While some have reportedly been rescued, it’s still a bad sign.
Meanwhile, some 800 Afghans have been picked up in Islamabad. The army doesn’t seem to know where to stop, even after it arbitrarily pushed out hundreds of Afghans from its country. The strife is unlikely to end well.
However, India seems set on a stabilisation route. Delhi in its statement has committed aid to refugees and other areas. India doesn’t need to supply weapons, given that the Afghans have plenty of their own, ‘gifted’ by a departing US military. What Muttaqi has been really stressing instead is economic development, and, more importantly, a regional thrust to stop Islamic state recruitment. That is going to sit well with Russia, which has called for a dialling down of tensions, as well as China, which has an abiding fear of religious extremism. Oddly, all three have similar objectives in Afghanistan, which centre around stability for the country. While India recently invited Afghan businessmen to use the Chabahar port as a way to bypass Pakistani tantrums, China is said to be developing a route through the Wakhan corridor, with possibly the same objective. Also, both Russia and China can use the Central Asian route to move Afghan trade. Amid all this, Islamabad has seemingly lost the plot. Everyone is moving on, towards connectivity and trade, areas where Islamabad could excel if it wanted to. But it does not. Instead, it is intent on blaming everyone and anyone for a dangerously spiralling conflict that could see tribal areas parting ways with an ungenerous and suspicious Punjabi state.
That’s the bottom line that Pakistani leaders need to recognise. They can either have their country at peace or a group of insurgents at war. They can’t have both.
(Tara Kartha is a former Director, National Security Council Secretariat.)
