THE signing of the India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership last week reaffirmed the establishment’s narratives about Pakistan’s real concerns across its western border: it’s not about militancy or instability, but about Indian hegemony.
The timing of the pact, and its focus on security cooperation, intimates Pakistan’s nightmare scenario of encirclement by India. Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf pointed to the pact as proof that India is seeking to create “an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan”. And so we’re back to binaries: India versus Pakistan in a potential proxy war in Afghanistan.
But things are never as straightforward as they seem.
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