A welcome initiative in Afghanistan

India’s people-friendly engagement of Afghanistan has taken an important step forward with the two countries signing a Memorandum of Understanding during their recent virtual summit on the construction of the Shahtoot Dam. The dam, which will be built by India across the River Kabul, is expected to cost $236 million and will take three years to complete. It will help provide drinking water to around two million of Kabul’s residents and irrigate over 400,000 acres of land. Over the past two decades, India’s role in Afghanistan has been aimed at improving the lives and livelihoods of the Afghan people. Several of the programmes it is implementing there are focused on improving nutrition and building capacity. India’s infrastructure-building, which includes the construction of roads, dams, power projects and hospitals have boosted the Afghan economy. The Shahtoot Dam will take Indian support for Afghanistan’s well-being further. Only recently, India supplied 500,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to Afghanistan. Such engagement is positive and is being appreciated by Afghan leaders and people.

India has done well to press ahead with the Shahtoot Dam project despite the huge risks involved. Not only is the security situation in Afghanistan precarious, but also President Ashraf Ghani’s position is increasingly shaky. Besides, the dam project faces opposition from Pakistan. Since it is the Kabul River’s lower riparian country, Islamabad is bound to raise allegations that the Shahtoot Dam is reducing water flow into the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It will find ways to obstruct the implementation of the project. It will seek to intimidate India into pulling out of the project. Other anti-India forces operating in Afghanistan, including the ISI-backed Haqqani Network and other Pakistani terrorist protégés, could target the Shahtoot project. India must not be intimidated by their threats or violence.

Indian workers and projects have been targeted by the Taliban, the Haqqani Network and other hostile groups. Indian workers at project sites of the Zaranj-Delaram highway were abducted and some even killed. The Iranian government expressed its apprehensions over the Salma Dam reducing the Hari River’s water flow into Iran. That dam, too, was built by India. New Delhi’s engagement in Afghanistan has therefore not been easy. It has had to deal with countless obstacles and hostile interests. Some it overcame through dialogue, others it dodged. Still others, it was compelled to ignore in the best interests of the Afghan people and India-Afghanistan relations. Work on the Shahtoot Dam will be challenging but, as in the past with other collaborative projects in Afghanistan, India must stand its ground.