What has India lost in Afghanistan?

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015. (Manoj Kumar/Prime Minister’s Office)

For the past couple of years India seemed to be the most popular country among Afghans. Afghans saw India as their friend and an ally in the region. One of the reasons for this obvious tilt were the development and energy projects built by India in Afghanistan. Exactly 3 billion US dollars have been spent on dams, hospitals, schools, roads and other projects. All of these efforts by India were seen by Afghans as humanitarian efforts that would help Afghan people as a whole.

Why did India invest in Afghanistan?

On the other hand one must ask the question, exactly what is the catch here? Why would India help Afghans with these billion dollar projects while there is a huge population in India that lives below the line of poverty. And when one gets to the answers, it indicates that India is basically trying to achieve it's nefarious agendas on Afghan soil. All of this investment leads to soften the ground for it's ultimate dark Afghan policies that would destabilize the whole region including India.

India's proxy in Afghanistan

It is now really an open secret that India uses Afghan soil to wage a proxy war against Pakistan. Former US secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel also acknowledged the fact that India does create problems for Pakistan on its western borders. Pakistan's intelligence agencies have provided many sources of evidence that clearly indicated that Afghan soil was used by India against Pakistan. Naval intelligence officer Kulbushan Yadiv's presence in Balochistan was a clear example that exposed India's nefarious proxies against Pakistan. Yadiv confessed that he was facilitating Baloch separatist insurgents that led to the killings of Pakistan army and civilians. He also confessed that Afghan soil has training camps for Baloch separatist militias.

RAW's involvement in Afghanistan

Another important thing to note is the open confession of Ajit Kumar Dovel of supporting Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan against Pakistan. Some intelligence reports also suggested that RAW with the assistance of Afghan intelligence agency NDS both created an intelligence wing called RAMA for the sole purpose of destabilizing Pakistan by supporting terrorist outfits such as TTP, BLA, BRA etc. 

India the big loser

In regards to answering the question that 'What has India lost in Afghanistan?' India has lost her whole Afghan proxy that it funded with billions of dollars of investments. The takeover of Taliban on 15th August tore down the whole Afghan chapter. In reality neither US nor NATO has lost in Afghanistan but India has tasted yet another defeat in the graveyard of empires.