Chuck Hagel, Barack Barack Obama’s new defence secretary, has sparked off a thoroughly gratuitous controversy at a time when the Obama II dispensation has shown a renewed interest in encouraging India to upscale its multifarious development-centric activities in Afghanistan.
The content of Hagel’s remarks – India has financed problems for Pakistan in Afghanistan – has rightfully upset the Indian strategic-foreign policy establishment and has revived anxiety in New Delhi about the US’ roadmap for Afghanistan and its priorities in the run-up to 2014 withdrawal of foreign combat troops. Who has been financing problems for whom? – this should have been clear to Obama’s advisers on Afghanistan and to Washington which has should be fully aware of systematic duplicity practised by Pakistan’s military establishment.
Aware of India’s sensitivities on Afghanistan, with whom it held a trilateral dialogue with Kabul only a few days ago, the US has now predictably gone on a damage control exercise. Amid the raging row over Hagel’s remarks, Robert Blake, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, has sought to pacify India by calling New Delhi the lynchpin of economic growth in Afghanistan. “We appreciate very much the significant role that India is playing in Afghanistan. In fact, we see India as kind of the economic lynchpin for future,” Blake told US legislators during a hearing by Asia and the Pacific Sub-committee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He underlined that India will play an important role in the process of turning Afghanistan into a trade-based economy from an “aid-based economy” once the US spendings get scaled down after the 2014 pull-out. “As our troops (and) their spending draws down, it’s going to be much more important now to establish a private-sector basis for the Afghan economy and to make a trade-based economy and not an aid-based economy. India is such an important role to play in that” said Blake. More praise flowed from Bob Blake: “It has invested in things like the Hajigak iron ore deposit that’s going to be probably an $8 billion to $10 billion investment. It has its own very substantial assistance programme of approximately $2 billion,” Blake said. He also pointed out that compared to India’s, China has a relatively modest assistance programme for Afghanistan. “I’d say it’s about one-tenth of what the Indians provide. So again, a lot of humanitarian assistance and infrastructure assistance like that would be very welcome from the Chinese and we’d like to see them do more,” Blake said.
On another track, the US is now trying to redeem Hagel in India’s eyes as a friend of India. “Secretary Hagel is strongly committed to the US strategic partnership with India and to fostering an even closer defense relationship with India that builds upon the work of Secretary (Leon) Panetta, Deputy Secretary (Ashton) Carter, and their Indian counterparts,” Washington Free Beacon, the rightwing online newspaper, quoted Pentagon spokesperson George Little as saying. “Secretary Hagel looks forward to working closely with Indian national security and defence officials,” Little told the newspaper. In a previously unreleased 2011 speech, Hagel had said: “India for some time has always used Afghanistan as a second front, and India has over the years financed problems for Pakistan on that side of the border. “And you can carry that into many dimensions, the point being (that) the tense, fragmented relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been there for many, many years.”
India has reacted sharply to Chuck Hagel’s orations. The Indian embassy in Washington said that Hagel’s 2011 remarks were not grounded in “reality.” “Such comments attributed to Sen. Hagel, who has been a long-standing friend of India and a prominent votary of close India-US relations, are contrary to the reality of India’s unbounded dedication to the welfare of the Afghan people,” the embassy spokesperson said in an email to the newspaper. “India’s commitment to a peaceful, stable, and prosperous Afghanistan is unwavering, and this is reflected in our significant assistance to Afghanistan in developing its economy, infrastructure, and institutional capacities,” the spokesperson said. “Our opposition to terrorism and its safe havens in our neighborhood is firm and unshakeable.”
Does India need to tell the US all the time what it is doing in Afghanistan and seek Washington’s endorsement? Indian officials should have simply asked Obama’s AfPak policy advisers to talk to some of Afghan MPs who visited India less than two weeks ago. Bob Blake spoke about India’s holistic view towards Afghanistan. It’s time Washington took a holistic view and not play the game in different voices, to wit T.S. Eliot.
Author Profile
- Manish Chand is Founder-CEO and Editor-in-Chief of India Writes Network (www.indiawrites.org) and India and World, a pioneering magazine focused on international affairs. He is CEO/Director of TGII Media Private Limited, an India-based media, publishing, research and consultancy company.
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