While the world's attention is focussed on the ethno-sectarian divide in Iraq, another ethnic divide is simmering nearer home in Afghanistan, which if not resolved, has the potential to develop into another Iraq like situation.
This should concern us in India much more than developments in Iraq for obvious reasons. 2014 has for some time been considered significant year for Afghanistan. When President Obama in 2011 announced the US troop drawdown plan most of the Afghan players as well as the international community considered 2014 as watershed year for Afghanistan. We are already in the middle of 2014 and the situation in Afghanistan is as confusing as ever.
Rather it is more confusing than ever. The contours of US drawdown are more or less clear now but what is not clear is the extent of support, particularly the financial and military support the US and the Western countries will continue to extend to the new Government of Afghanistan.
Or indeed what the new Afghan government will look like. The optimism generated by the successful conclusion of first phase of the presidential election has given way to mutual recriminations and doubts about the election result being perceived as rigged by whoever is not "elected" as the next President and his supporters.
Without an election which is perceived as fair by most of the Afghans, the problems which Afghanistan faces today is likely to be multiplied manifold. Indeed, it would seem that the fundamental issue of the ethnic divide in Afghanistan has not received adequate attention from the international community.
While the attention in international media has been on the US drawdown , signing or otherwise of the BSA ( Bilateral Security Agreement) between the US and Afghanistan and the peace talks with the Taliban what has not got adequate attention is the fact that credible leadership which is perceived as representing all of Afghanistan and not of an ethnic group is a sine quo non for Afghan stability. Dr Abdullah Abdullah's rejection of the fairness of the second phase of electoral process has brought into sharp focus this fact.
Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic society. During 16th and 17th centuries Afghanistan, as it exists today, was broadly divided into three major areas. The northern Afghanistan was ruled by Khan of Bukhara and the people were mostly Turks, Uzbeks and Tajiks - looking towards Central Asia as their natural relations.
The west was under the control of Shia Iranians and the east belonged to the Mughals who were rulers of India. The Kandhar region in the south was under nobody's effective control with the Afghan chieftains sometimes supporting the Mughals while other times joining hands with the Iranians.
However, as southern Afghanistan was inhabited by Pashtuns, it resulted in the establishment of an independent local Pashtun kingdom in Southern Afghanistan in early eighteenth century with its capital in Kandhar. It was Ahmed Shah Durrani who took control of this Southern Afghanistan kingdom later and gradually won complete control of what is now Afghanistan.
He conquered even parts of Iran and reached till Delhi. The Afghan Kingdom formed by Ahmed Shah Durrani has survived despite many vicissitudes till now. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the kingdom is in existence for more than three hundred years, the sense of Afghan nationhood is still non-existent.
Even today, though Afghanistan has created many national institutions, but a pan-Afghan national politics is not visible. The present crop of Afghan leaders represent either Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks or Hazaras. None of them represent Afghans. There have been some leaders who have tried to be Afghan first but they have been accepted neither by their own ethnic groups nor by the other groups. The result is more fragmentation of the society today than ever.
The rejection of the election process by Dr. Abdullah has to be seen in this context. Though Dr Abdullah is half Pashtun, he is perceived by most Afghans as a leader representing Tajik interests. It is not important whether this is true or not. Dr. Abdullah in the mind of most of Pashtuns is a Tajik and so not acceptable as their leader. Without going into the controversial issue whether the election was rigged or not, what can be said without any doubt is that in the minds of the Tajiks and Hazaras of Afghanistan it is so.
The Uzbeks would be thinking the same but for the fact that Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum has joined hands with the other candidate as vice Presidential running mate of Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai , a Pashtun.
Both President Karzai and the former IEC head Zia-Ul-Haq Amarkhail are Pashtuns and this is reason enough for Tajiks and Hazaras to distrust the electoral process. Amarkhail's conduct has not been beyond reproach, and it is well known that there is no love lost between Karzai and Dr. Abdullah.
So, the charges of irregularities have much more traction in Afghanistan than it would have been otherwise. Even in the normal circumstances such a state of affairs is not ideal for holding a fair Presidential election. The role played by foreign powers historically has made the whole issue more complex.
The role of Pakistan in trying to control the Afghan political space has been a prime factor in the current situation in Afghanistan. Pakistan's interest in Afghanistan has a historical background. The Pashtuns on both sides of Afghan-Pakistan border believe that the Durand Line which marks as border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is a colonial, artificial construct of an imperial power and needs a relook.
While some Pashtuns in Pakistan who have joined the mainstream politics have reconciled to this the nationalist Pashtun elements within Pakistan and practically all of Pashtuns within Afghanistan are opposed to the Durand Line. The Pashtun question between Pakistan and Afghanistan erupts periodically and during sixties and early seventies this resulted in strained relations between the two countries.
The Soviet control of Afghanistan, and US belief that this was part of old Great Game of the Soviets, gave Pakistan a golden opportunity to have a pliant government in Afghanistan. General Zia-ul-Haq and the Pakistani Army saw the opportunity not only as a means to solve the Pashtun question but also an opportunity to use Afghanistan as a strategic depth in its ongoing battle with India.
The opportunity was too tempting to let it pass. While the US interest was to do a Vietnam to the Soviets, the Pakistanis were clear that their interest was to control Afghanistan and have a pliant government. They first tried to gain control of Afghanistan through their supported proxy Gulbuddin Hekmatyar , a Pashtun. When this did not succeed, they created Taliban and supported it fully to take control of Afghanistan.
Through the Taliban the Pashtun issue was sought to be subsumed into the broader Islamic issue, the Pakistani Army felt that by invoking Islamic identity of the local population, they can sidetrack the Pashtun question and gain support of an Islamic Afghanistan against a "Hindu" India. To meet these objectives more hardline the Islamic identity Taliban had, better it was.
They, however, did not take into account the complexities of the ethnic situation in Afghanistan. Since one of the objectives of Taliban's creation was to have a pliant Afghan government who will not raise the Pashtun issue, the Taliban had to represent the Afghan Pashtuns.
So, practically, the whole of Taliban was and continues to be a Pashtun group. This naturally meant that Taliban was not acceptable to non-Pashtun groups within Afghanistan. Since Pakistan was openly giving total support to Taliban, the non Pashtun groups had no option but to take support from whoever gave them support.
This support basically came from Russia, Iran and India. While there is no doubt that there were many Pashtuns who were against Taliban the effective opposition to Taliban came from the non-Pashtun groups.
Thus, the creation of Taliban and its open support by Pakistan exacerbated the ethnic divide within Afghanistan. The mass killings of Hazaras by the Taliban was construed as mass killing of Hazaras by Pashtuns and not only by Taliban.
Even those organizations such as Jamaat-e-Islami who earlier had some trans Afghan ambitions were now perceived as an ethnic party - in this case representing a section of Tajiks. Pakistan thus has played an active part in broadening the ethnic divide in Afghanistan.
Other countries followed suit. Iran under the Ayotollahs considers itself as the leader of the Shia community in the world and so their support to Hazaras was inevitable.
The Russians were closer to Tajiks though after their withdrawl and breakup of Soviet Union their role in Afghanistan was low key. The Indians felt trapped in a situation not of their making. While traditionally they were close to the Pashtuns in Afghanistan, their support to Northern Alliance during Taliban period was perceived by many Pashtuns as support to non-Pashtun groups against the Pashtuns rather than support to anti Taliban groups against Taliban.
New players such as Turks also joined the bandwagon by supporting specific ethnic groups. The Americans were the ones who had no previous baggage as they had not played any part in anti Taliban struggle till 2001and were after 2002 uniquely positioned to bring about the ethnic unity.
However, they naively tried to impose an American style democracy and hoped that once democracy was functional it will take care of the ethnic divide. What the US policy makers have not understood is that democracy requires lot of nurturing and cannot be imposed from outside.
The presidential form of government which was introduced in Afghanistan in 2002 was not suited to the situation in Afghanistan. A strong president with near absolute power means that institutionally there is no mechanism for controlling the president.
Whatever the checks and balances were provided in the Afghan constitution was conveniently bypassed by President Hamid Karzai when it suited his interest. Karzai was caught in an unenviable situation wherein most of the Pashtuns felt he was trying to appease the non Pashtun groups, while others felt he was serving only Pashtun interests.
Till there is international presence and the glue of financial incentives, the Afghan leaders feel that their interest is served by a united Afghanistan. When there will be no binding factor the possibility of the ethnic identities coming to the fore at the cost of Afghan identity is real. This has got serious ramifications not only for Afghanistan but for a region as a whole.
This issue of ethnic divide is extremely important- perhaps more important than that of signing of BSA with US and the so called peace negotiations with Taliban, the two issues which have got the media attention internationally. Unless Afghans can work out this ethnic divide there will be no credible government there with whom US can engage or which can negotiate with Taliban on equal terms.
The capacity of Afghan forces to fight Taliban and Al Qaeda elements will be greatly impaired if the forces are split on ethnic lines - a possibility which looms large if the Presidential election issue is not resolved properly.
What Afghanistan does not need now is a President who is considered representative of a faction or only one ethnic group. Unless this issue is resolved there is a likelihood of Afghanistan turning into Iraq. It is in the interest of all stakeholders -Afghan or international to try and resolve this issue at the earliest.
Attn: The article represents the views of Shri Rajiv Kumar, who retired as Additional Secretary in Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India. Shri Kumar has experience of dealing with security and intelligence related matters for nearly thirty years. (ANI)
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