India's appetite for Afghan nuts and Kabul's love for Bollywood may be re-framing the geopolitics of the region, says a US think tank.
But Afghanistan now must walk a fine line to avoid becoming a pawn in what it calls 'a new proxy war between India and Pakistan', says Jayshree Bajoria of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
"Given the geopolitical realities of the region, it can neither spurn India's aid nor afford to antagonise Pakistan," she says.
As a report by the United States Institute of Peace suggested, the three nations should 'keep the India-Pakistan dispute out of Afghanistan's bilateral relations with both'.
When Afghanistan joins the South Asia Free Trade Agreement in February 2008, it can start exporting a wide range of products to India at zero import duty. India has offered $750 million in aid to Kabul since 2001, making it the largest regional donor to Afghanistan.
Besides helping to rebuild Afghan roads, airlines and power plants, and providing support to the health and education sectors, New Delhi also seeks to spread its own brand of democracy in Kabul, says Bajoria.
Not only will future Afghan parliaments sit in a building that India helped construct but also Afghan civil servants, diplomats and police officials will have received training from their Indian counterparts.
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