Mr Rajiv Gandhi has sprung a big surprise on the country. It is doubtful if anyone outside the small circle of his aides, if there, could have anticipated that he was about to invite President Najibullah for a discussion of the post-Geneva accord situation in Afghanistan. To be candid, we could not have anticipated the move. So it will be disingenuous of us to pretend that we are in the know of the calculations that lie behind the decision. We are not.
There can be no question that the move is extraordinarily daring. It is difficult to recall another Indian initiative of this kind since 1971 when Mrs Indira Gandhi defied the United States, China and Pakistan over Bangladesh. India’s stakes in Bangladesh were, of course, much higher than they are in Afghanistan and so was New Delhi’s capacity to intervene effectively. But that cannot detract from the fact that like his mother, Mr Rajiv Gandhi has decided to take on the same formidable combination of the US, China and Pakistan even if in the diplomatic and not in the military sense. And remember the situation in 1971 was far more favourable for India than it is today. The US was still trying to get out of the losing war in Indo-China; China was still trapped in the chaos of the cultural revolution, and the Soviet Union was at the height of its power and self-confidence. Now we are witnessing the retreat of Soviet power, China is more self-assured than ever before in the last three decades; the US has never before deployed so much muscle in the Indian Ocean.
It can well be argued that these larger power realities do not come into play in the case of Afghanistan. In the context of the Soviet decision to withdraw its troops from there, the central issues in Afghanistan are: (a) whether Pakistan has in the Peshawar-based Mujahideen groups an instrument capable of bringing down the Kabul set-up: (b) whether an alliance system not limited to the fundamentalists favoured by Islamabad can be put together to accomplish this task and (c) whether Dr Najibullah can marshal sufficient support to survive. Mr Rajiv Gandhi is in no better position to answer these questions than anyone else. Thus from whatever angle we examine the move, it is a remarkably daring one. He has publicly aligned India with the Najib government and staked his own prestige on its eventual survival. What he can do or propose to do in the pursuit of this objective is far from clear.
That apart, certain other points are obvious. Independent India has always had friendly relations with Kabul. New Delhi not only recognizes the Najib government but regards it as being friendly. Its survival is in India’s long-term interest. It follows that India is within its rights to do what it can to help it and that it is in India’s own interest to do so. On this reckoning, Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s gesture of goodwill towards Dr Najibullah makes sense. It must infuriate Pakistan. But that need not worry New Delhi for the obvious reason that Islamabad is engaged in a determined bid to promote terrorism in Punjab, to put it no higher. And if the United States can ignore India’s susceptibilities on the issue of arming Pakistan, so can India on that of the future of Afghanistan. The same is true in respect of China. The principle of bilateralism is as valid for New Delhi as for Washington and Beijing. We Indians are too often on the defensive. To the Prime Minister’s credit, he has shown the capacity to get out of the familiar psychological trap, at least in this case.
There is, however, another way to look at the likely course of developments in Afghanistan. As argued in these and adjoining columns in recent weeks, Pakistan is in for trouble whatever happens there. We, on our part at least, cannot think of any resolution of the crisis in Afghanistan which can be helpful to Pakistan. Indeed, it is partly because we believe that President Zia has brought on a potentially grave tragedy on his country that he might be looking for a distraction in the form of stepped up terrorist activities in Punjab and possibly trouble in Jammu and Kashmir as well. If this view is not too wide of the mark, then the Prime Minister’s deepest concern must be to take the necessary measure to check infiltration of arms and men from across the frontier into Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.