Now you are confusing Soft Power with Strategic Influence. What you are talking about is efforts of India increasing it's Soft Power, an idea that one of my PhD supervisor floated a while back, his name is Joseph Ney and he is the Dean of JFK School of Government in Harvard. he is also credited with the idea of Neo Liberalism and Obama has been listening to him in that regard. Idea of closing the Guantanamo Holding facility etc were floated by him.
Strategic influence is quite different to that, using entirely different tools and strategies, probably you need to read on to these quite distinct ideas. By using soft Power you can not induce behavioural change. what i was talking about is tools that can induce Behavioural Change.
As far as Indian Soft Power attempts in Afg are concern i think they are seriously wasting their money and that is due to the following facts:
1, Soft Power takes ages to seep in,
2,Indian Soft Power is targeted at a minority of population, the NA, it will never gather the critical mass it requires. For Pashtuns all this is just like whipping them and making them more angry.
3, Soft Power is really Soft, it is like good will and any decent Strategic Influence campaign can do away good will earned in decades in few months. For example consider the following narratives ...
India is building these schools to corrupt our women....
Indians are helping the traitors the NA...
the Indians are helping the occupiers The NATO....
above all India is perceived to be the main Muslim enemy country in the region. Issues in Kashmir, Gujarat can bring all the good work down in few minutes.
NEVER under estimate the depth and reach of ISI in Afg. Do you really think ISI is sitting on its back doing nothing? think again my friend...
Mark my words and mark them well USA CAN NOT stay in Afg for ever.... The day USA leaves, Afg will revert back to Pakistan. (why do you think ISI is keeping Mullah Umer for?) There is a growing consensus amongst non Pashto speakers that they will rather have Taliban then having these thugs that can not control the country.
And mind you Taliban on their next term will not be the Taliban they were last time. Taliban has learned a lot of lessons . Taliban has learned the lesson for not listening to ISI and going with AL Qaeda. Where do you think the Blue Book ( book containing new rules of engagement for Taliban fighter) came from? ISI designed it to give Taliban acceptance in public ... they are marketing them for their return. Return of Taliban is inevitable so if India is building few schools or this and that then i will say good, build more, spend you money build the schools and roads and then Pakistan will not have to spend money on the reconstruction work.
If you think ISI has some hold over affairs in India then multiply that to 100 and thats how much influence ISI has in Afg due to factors like same religion, same language, same ethnic population on both side, Afg can not do without Pak access to sea, long term partners in wars of all sort, ISI gave birth to Taliban, and we still have many many assets in Afg like Gul Badeen hikmatyar etc. At the moment they have rented Afg to USA when USA will not be interested in Afg and will not pay the rent anymore they will take it back.
Tip toe a little and you will see the dire prospects for Indians current endeavours in Afg.
And please dont take me wrong I am just giving you my analysis, its not that I hate India or anything if anything I am staunch supporter of the idea that Pakistan and India should work together and be good neighbours even to extant that there are no visas and free movement of citizens and combining the Human Capital.
Mind you my friend WE DID NOT SEPARATE FROM INDIA, Muhammad Ali Jinah tried his level best to stay united he was a member of AIC and ML at the same time for quite some time. Read history my friend he tried his level best to keep Hindu Muslim together. If it was not up to Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru probably we would have kept the agreement of staying together for 10 years and then deciding according to the situation that if we want to carry on together or want to separate. It was PJN that said once we start together then who gives them the separation and that was what made it clear to Muslims of India that our future in India will be of a 2nd class citizen if we stay in a combined India.
Anyway that is certainly off the topic
.
Pakistans Operation Nijaat tells the whole story whether it is supporting Talibans or not and it is keeping Mullah Omer or not if ISI were so active in Afghanistan it would have eradicated the root cause of suicide attacks the ameer ul momineen Mullah Umer as our foreign minister Makhdum Shah Mehmood Qureshi said in an interview that US should stay in Afghanistan for at least five years and make the job done if Pakistan were supporting Talibans there wont be a wave of suicide attacks in Pakistan enough for some one having common sense and Pakistanis have enough by the grace of Allah Almighty Pakistan supported Taliban government before 9/11 doesnt mean ISI gave birth to it simply it was for a stable government in Afghanistan and now Talibans are never coming into power again forget the blue book
Then Indias presence in Afghanistan raises the question marks
-- India currently has an extensive diplomatic presence in Afghanistan. It includes the Indian embassy in Kabul and another four consulates in Kandahar, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat.
These Indian diplomatic missions serve as launching pads for undertaking covert operations against Pakistan from the Afghan soil. Particularly, the Indian consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad and their embassy in Kabul are used for clandestine activities inside Pakistan in general and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan in particular.
Indian diplomatic and RAW officials have significant ingress in the Afghan ministry of tribal affairs, and are exploiting it to conduct covert activities. Indian agents are instrumental in arranging meetings of tribal elders and Afghans with dual nationalities with Indian consulate officials in Jalalabad, and assisting them in spotting and recruiting suitable tribal elders from Jalalabad and Pakistan's North and South Waziristan agencies for covert activities.
RAW has established its training camps in Afghanistan in collaboration with the remnants of the Northern Alliance. Approximately 600 Ferraris, or Baloch tribal dissidents, are getting specialized training to handle explosives, engineer bomb blasts, and use sophisticated weapons in these camps.
India has invested heavily in its old connections with the leaders of the erstwhile Northern Alliance. It has sizeable support in Afghan parliament. Before the Afghan elections last year, the Indian ambassador called the Northern Alliance's major leadership at his residence and paid them a handsome amount to run their election campaign.
India is gradually increasing the number of its paramilitary personnel in Afghanistan. It is stationing them there on the pretext of providing security and protection to the Border Roads Organization, which is constructing the Zaranj-Dilaram road, and its consulates.
From a few personnel, the strength of Indian troops has reached almost that of a company size force and even includes Black Cat Commandos.
Afghan Police, the Border Security Force and customs officials facilitate the visit of Indian diplomatic staff and intelligence agents to border areas, and help them hold meetings with dissatisfied pro-Afghan dissidents, anti-state elements, and elders of the area.
In this context, meetings of tribal elders are arranged by the Afghan intelligence agency (Riyast-i-Amniyat-i-Milli or RAM) at the behest of those RAW officials who serve in different diplomatic offices of India in Afghanistan. Indian agents are carrying out clandestine activities in the border areas of Khost and in Pakistan's tribal areas of Miramshah with the active support of Afghan Border Security Force officials.--
http://www.afghannews.net/index.php?action=show&type=news&id=442
Addition to that removal of NATO check posts near Pak Afghan border and silence of US over Indias activities and showing its forces morale down when Pakistans forces effort at it peak raises serious questions.
