The Afghan imbroglio

We have let this build on till we found ourselves immersed neck-deep in a self-created mess without a neat way out. Wages of misconception? Or sins of dereliction? Whatever may underwrite such callous handling of matters with another state, a not so affable neighbour, a brotherly state with whom fraternity seeps deep down over generations in ethno-religious intermixing that recognises no borders — under an internationally recognised obligation of easement facilitation — and yet, hostile to us in its intent, conduct and treatment; we have walked into a crisis of our own creation. If that isn’t an affliction, what is?

Afghanistan’s reservations on an internationally recognised border and its claims on lands under Pakistan are well known. What was agreed between Afghan king Dost Mohammad and the British in India in 1893 may have run out in 1993 after a hundred years of its life but the Brits have since left and a new nation, now 76 years old, has inherited both the rights and obligations of that incumbency. The journey of coexistence has not been without its lows and yet we have kept pretensions. Earlier there was the concern of a second front even if it already existed in sentiment but we had never gone to war. When India initiated one on the eastern borders the Afghans chose to act nice. And they have never let us forget that: ‘We could, and we didn’t; remember that, always.’ Whether they could with any effect is open to question, but it could have acted as an inconvenient distraction. I guess they are making up for it now. Dispensations may have changed but the sentiment has prevailed. One can’t even call it love-hate.

Afghan dependence on Pakistan is unparalleled in current times. Even Nepal exercises better sovereignty with India than how Afghanistan is indulged by us. Since the Taliban came to power, we have assumed the role of its magnanimous benefactors. None in the world recognises the regime and even if they did all Afghan trade must be facilitated through Pakistan. This has been going on since Pakistan came into being but now much more so since we act as their agents for all their needs and import or export on their behalf. They import with careless abandon using the FE from the Pakistani open market to smuggle the goods back into Pakistan making a windfall either way. As a result, smuggling is rampant — it was a way of life already, now it is an act of charitable benevolence.

The over 3.5 million Afghans in the garb of refugees have upturned our social, demographic, economic and political matrices in KP as indeed in many major cities of Pakistan. Half of them are certified refugees, all others are illegal aliens who have found comfort in a corrupt and a compromised state apparatus where naturalisation comes easy in commercial transactions. They have taken over businesses and trucking, and are the prime dealers in Afghani, PKR and the USD in unregulated yet totally exposed and open illegal markets peddling their wares in public spaces. Want to know why USD is breaching all ranges and the PKR trashed, visit Peshawar and deal in all that you can muster.

Afghans sell and buy these dollars to import what can be smuggled back into Pakistan throttling its rupee, its economy and the lives of the impoverished which number now officially stands at forty per cent of the 240 million Pakistanis. Inflation, humungous debt, unbearable discount rates, windfalls, unexplained wealth, a threatening default, a tanking economy — go, look for the roots in Kabul or Peshawar. The latter is now truly Kabul’s strategic depth. Heck, of the nine trillion PKR currency in rotation, one-third is owned and retained by Afghan nationals. They are the modern hitmen of a target (Pakistan’s) economy. What they may lack in arms and armour they make up in subverting the economy. Modern wars look quite like it. The lack of arms too is misplaced. The equipment Americans left behind when evacuating is patently in the hands of the larger Taliban fraternity including the TTP.

Yet, they are neighbours and Muslim brethren with whom we share ethnic, religious and familial bonds over centuries. We sustain our conjoined twins with all we can offer at serious cost to ourselves. Their needs for cattle, wheat, flour and sugar and every other commodity are magnanimously and through great state benevolence scurried across as law looks the other way. In turn, opportunists on both sides use the transit-trade facility to order what we most lavishly love in indulgence and ostentation in reverse enablement even if illegal. The state of Pakistan does not import even an ounce of gold or a strand of silk, yet our markets are resplendent with these provisions; courtesy — Afghan trade. Imagine what the state loses in taxes and why the state remains poor and the moneyed elites filthy-rich. Peshawar and Kabul are indeed inseparable strategic depths for each other. General Aslam Beg Mirza may have uttered these words in an intellectual fit, but time and indulgence have bestowed the notion a greater meaning and a perpetual life.

It could have stayed that way for eons had the TTP not spoiled the show. They harbour deeper notions imbued with heavenly fervour and zealousness to colour the land of Pathans in their hue. Huge pain to an already stretched and extended Pakistan has rendered the ensuing insurgency an existential threat. TTP’s Afghan lords watch in amusement as a frenemy — a closet enemy — is pushed on the ropes. It implicitly challenges and dilutes Pakistan’s stance on the Pak-Afghan border and threatens to bring the lands under Pashtuns into one integrated region as has been the dream over centuries. Just that it doesn’t meld well with how Pakistan envisions its obligations as a twenty-first century nation-state.

A nation-state must control its borders, not permit illegal aliens on its soil, regulate entry and exit and be able to defend itself to ensure uninterrupted pursuit of a nation’s will and preference for its society, economy and polity. Paramilitaries, law enforcement, immigration, customs and border control and the government have a role to fulfil these obligations. And they must. But then we have this great ethnic soft spot for the brethren across and wish to keep them in good humour — the archaic interpretation of strategic depth already stands trumped. Trade should be strictly regulated per bilateral agreements without being blinded by convention and benevolence. Easement facilitation will need elaborate visa control regimes. Illegal residents need to be expelled. Those who mean harm need to be exterminated and where they might avail safe havens across the border they need to be appropriately engaged.

We shouldn’t shy away under any pretext to reclaim the mantle of a viable nation-state. Hopefully Afghans too will understand.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 24^th, 2023.

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