Indo-Afghan Bilateral Relations - 1 | UPSC Mains: International Relations PDF Download

The Indian-Afghan relationship has drawn closer in the post-September 11, 2001 period. Building on a long history of bilateral relations, the Indian government reengaged with the Afghan government after the 2001 defeat of the Taliban, initially largely on a humanitarian basis. The importance of Afghanistan to India has increased significantly for political and geo-strategic reasons, as well as for access to natural resources.

India and Afghanistan: A Long History of Bilateral Relations

Historically, Afghanistan has been the land bridge to India from the West. The two countries also have a common history, with several empires having encompassed areas of present day Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The anti-colonial struggles of British India had a champion in Afghan-Pakistani Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, also known as the “Frontier Gandhi,” and the close ties between the freedoms movements of both countries carried over into the post-independence period. Despite the Cold War and ensuing regional and geostrategic calculations of all neighboring countries, relations between India and Afghanistan remained friendly.
The relationship only deteriorated when India was one of the first and few countries to recognize the Sovietinstalled government in Kabul in 1979. Yet India remained engaged with Afghanistan during the civil war that followed Soviet withdrawal in 1989, providing Afghanistan with several million U.S. dollars in grants and humanitarian assistance through the United Nations during the 1990s. Only with the rise of the Taliban in 1993 did India totally sever official relations with Afghanistan. Instead, from the 1990s up until 2001 India provided development assistance to Afghanistan through funding for United Nations (UN) agencies providing humanitarian assistance in the country. During this period India also provided intelligence and military support to the Northern Alliance, the main anti-Taliban force.

The India-Afghanistan Development Partnership 

India’s development partnership with Afghanistan since 2001 should be understood against this historical context, as well as India’s changing regional and global economic and geopolitical perceptions and needs.
India is today the fifth largest provider of development assistance to Afghanistan with its total commitment for 2013/14 at approximately US$ 1200 million as seen in figure 1. Moreover, Indo-Afghan development cooperation is likely to increase in importance and volume after the withdrawal of most international forces in 2014.

Figure 1: India’s Development Cooperation with Afghanistan: Commitments and Expenditures, 2002/03 – 2013/14
Source: International Development Cooperation Research (IDCR) based on respective Outcomes Budgets, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India and Government of India Budget

• Humanitarian Assistance
  India currently supports a daily distribution of high protein biscuits through school feeding programs managed by the UN World Food Program for nearly two million Afghan children and has also periodically supplied emergency food assistance to tide over food shortfalls. Indian humanitarian assistance has also included medical services and equipment through the reconstruction of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health in Kabul and the provision of free medical consultation and services to over 30,000 Afghans monthly through Indian Medical Missions in five Afghan cities.
• Development Cooperation
  The vast majority of India’s commitments between 2002 and 2013 is in the form of grants. These grants have spanned a variety of sectors identified by the Afghan government and the Afghan National Development Strategy as priority areas, particularly infrastructure, small and community-based development projects, and education and capacity building projects.

As seen in figure 2, the majority of India’s development financing in Afghanistan is committed to infrastructure projects. Some high-profile projects have included construction of the Afghan parliament building in Kabul, the Zaranj-Delaram road which links Iran’s Chabahar port and roads to Afghanistan, a power transmission grid to bring additional electricity to Kabul, the power-generating Salma Dam in Herat, and telecommunications infrastructure in 11 Afghan provinces. Small and community-based development projects have focused on socio-economic development in border areas, while education and capacity-building projects have included provision of 500 annual scholarships for Afghan students to study at universities in India, 500 annual scholarships for Afghan civil servants to receve training in India , and vocational training programs in Afghanistan.

The Government of India has recently stated that its development cooperation commitment to Afghanistan has been increased to US$ 2 billion.  disbursement rates always lag behind commitments and the security environment in some areas of Afghanistan has led to understandable delays (for example, in road construction), other delays in projects, such as only partial delivery of 200 mini buses promised several years ago, point to capacity constraints on the Indian side.