New Delhi
2 March 2011
India says Pakistan's strategic calculus, which does not show signs of positive
change, is as much to blame for the situation obtaining in Afghanistan today as the faulty
model of development pursued by international actors.
Indian diplomatic sources say euphemistically that while India is ready and willing to
rustle up a lavish breakfast, and Afghanistan is prepared to serve dinner, lunch in
Pakistan remains an issue.
The unmistakable reference here is to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's vision of a new
South Asia, articulated first in 2007, when he talked about his dream of a breakfast in
Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul.
Pakistan's unhelpful attitude was on display again last year when it India overland
transit rights to Afghanistan and beyond.
The sources draw a comparison between India development assistance and
international development programmes in Afghanistan by iterating that the Western
provincial reconstruction teams resembled a parallel administration.
India's concerns about the way forward in Afghanistan, and Pakistan's role in it, have
found some resonance with Canada, one of the US' allies in the 'global war on terror'.
In an interview to this newspaper in New Delhi, William Crosbie, Canada's ambassador
to Afghanistan, said trust deficit between Pakistan and Afghanistan is as much a problem
as any other.
A British parliamentary committee's report, released in London Wednesday, notes how
Pakistan's reluctance "to collaborate in disrupting the activities of Afghan Taliban
operating from within their country has been enormously damaging to the counter-
insurgency effort in Afghanistan." It talks about Pakistan forging ahead with its own
agendas on reconciliation which are not necessarily in the interests of Afghanistan or the
region.
Articulation of New Delhi's concerns about Afghanistan should be viewed also in the
context of next week's first-ever talks in the US, between the Indian Army chief and the
US central command (centcom) commander, and external affairs minister SM Krishna's
talks with his American counterpart Hillary Clinton here in April for the second annual
India-US strategic dialogue.
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