pakistan’s

operate in other parts of Pakistan, including such core areas as Karachi, where they influence the
country’s politics, economics, militancy, crime, and ethnic relations.
Since the British colonial era, Pakistani Pashtuns have been a troubled people, isolated from and
neglected by the rest of Pakistan. Even today, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the
home of many Pashtuns, are stuck in an inherited colonial design: appointed political agents rule
over the territories and the Pashtun people via tribal maliks (tribal elders), a draconian Frontier
Crime Regulation system collectively punishes entire tribes for transgressions, and the areas
lack accountable political representation in Islamabad. Under former president Asif Ali Zardari,
the government of Pakistan eliminated some of the harshest elements of the Frontier Crime
Regulation code and permitted the formation of and campaigning by political parties in FATA.
But the systematic reforms required to equalize the status of FATA with the rest of Pakistan have
not been undertaken. 6 The tribal areas continue to be economically and socially underdeveloped,
lack basic legal and human rights, and hence are politically restless and a fertile ground for terrorist
groups. 7 Thus, the possibility of Pakistani Pashtun separatism, perhaps fanned by Afghanistan
for domestic political reasons or as leverage against Pakistan, remains a worry for the Pakistani
military-intelligence establishment.
The India Specter
The dominant lens through which Pakistan’s military-intelligence establishment, however,
continues to see Afghanistan is through Pakistan’s long-standing existential rivalry with India.
Since 1947, when Britain granted both states independence, Pakistan has fought four wars
with India: three over the status of Kashmir and the so-called Line of Control that separates
the Pakistani part of Kashmir from India’s, and one over the transformation of East Pakistan
into the independent state of Bangladesh. More than a decade ater September 11, Pakistan’s
military-intelligence establishment remains preoccupied with India’s ascendance at a time of
Pakistan’s own stagnation and atrophy. 8
Pakistan thus continues to be deeply suspicious of India’s ambitions in Afghanistan, which has
repeatedly been a prime theater for Indian and Pakistani rivalries. As early as the 1950s, India
offered itself to Afghanistan as a counterbalance to Pakistan via military and economic assistance
and major cultural exchanges. Many Afghan elites have been educated in India and lived there
in exile. 9 During the 1980s, while Pakistan and the United States supported the mujahideen in
Afghanistan, India backed the pro-Soviet regime of President Mohammad Najibullah. During the
1990s, when Pakistan supported the mostly Pashtun Taliban, India (along with Russia, China, and
Iran) provided assistance to the Northern Alliance mostly representing non-Pashtun minorities.
Since 2001, India has pledged approximately $2 billion toward Afghanistan’s reconstruction,
including infrastructure, hospitals, and other highly visible projects, such as a new Afghan
6 For details of the 2011 FATA reforms, see Shehryar Fazli, “A New Dawn for Pakistan’s Tribal Areas?” Foreign Policy, August 12, 2011,
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/08/12/a_new_dawn_for_pakistans_tribal_areas.
7 See International Crisis Group, “Countering Militancy in FATA,” Asia Report, no. 178, October 21, 2009; and Joshua White, “Pakistan’s Islamist
Frontier: Islamic Politics and U.S. Policy in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier,” in The Afghanistan-Pakistan Theater: Militant Islam, Security, and
Stability, ed. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Clifford D. May (Washington, D.C.: Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 2010), 41–74.
8 For more on Pakistan’s India preoccupation, see Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan; and Lieven, Pakistan: A Hard Country.
9 Of course, many Afghan elites have also been educated in Pakistan.
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