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Shaping the agenda in Afghanistan demands presence on the ground, or at least leverage with some, if not all, actors in that country. The National Security Advisers’ meeting that will be held in Delhi on Wednesday is being billed as India “setting the table and the menu” on Afghanistan. The delegates — from Russia, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan — are expected to discuss the security fallout of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and the implications for the region. Pakistan will not attend, and not unexpectedly, China has also cried off, citing other engagements. After two other meetings of this format were held in Iran, it was India’s turn to host the meeting end-2020, but the pandemic upset the schedule. India will flag its concerns, including the presence of Pakistan-based UN-designated terrorist entities in Afghanistan, and no doubt others present share these concerns. There is real anxiety that once again, Afghanistan may become “terror central” and the region will have to bear the spillover, and that the model of its takeover of Afghanistan will inspire similar movements in other parts of the world. But it would be wishful thinking to believe that this meeting will help India take charge of the wheel on Afghanistan with other countries eagerly taking their place behind it.
Shaping the agenda in Afghanistan demands presence on the ground, or at least leverage with some, if not all, actors in that country. India could boast of this before the Taliban takeover on August 15. Had Delhi been able to host this gathering of regional powers, big and small, even as late as last year, when its massive development assistance to Afghanistan gave it a game on the ground and friends in the erstwhile political establishment and civil society there, it would have helped draw attention to the security concerns over the situation as it was developing then, even if it could not have changed the direction in which it was going. India does not have this leverage anymore. It has even stopped taking refugees, which could have been one way of retaining some clout in Kabul, and on the international stage.
What is noteworthy is that eight countries in the region, including two heavyweights, Russia and Iran, will be at the table. Most of them also attended a foreign ministers’ meeting on Afghanistan in Pakistan, and another in Iran, to neither of which India was invited. Their attendance shows that even if Delhi’s role in Afghanistan is limited, each of these countries takes its bilateral relationship with India seriously, and that includes Russia. On the other hand, Pakistan’s non-attendance, and the outburst by its National Security Adviser about India as a “spoiler”, has served only to show up its irrational antipathy to any role for Delhi in Afghanistan. It is unfortunate that China, whose security concerns over Afghanistan are no different than those of other countries in the region, has also chosen to stay away from the meeting.
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