Over the past three decades, much has been written in support of and to debunk the various conspiracy theories surrounding Gen Ziaul Haq’s death in a mysterious plane crash in August 1988. Kallol Bhattacherjee’s book, The Great Game in Afghanistan: Rajiv Gandhi, General Zia and the Unending War, however, is not an addition to this list, even though it starts rather tantalisingly with a chapter titled ‘Who Killed Zia?’ Instead, the book is concerned mostly with discussions taking place in the world’s corridors of power between 1985 and 1988 over the future of Afghanistan once the Soviet occupation would end.

But where the book differs from other accounts about this particular period of South Asian history is its perspective: most books tend to record discussions between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the two former superpowers — the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States — about what would happen in Afghanistan after the Soviets’ withdrawal. Bhattacherjee’s book, on the converse, also identifies India as a major player during this period and explores parallel conversations taking place between Rajiv Gandhi, India’s prime minister between 1984 and 1989, and the American and Russian leadership over post-Soviet Afghanistan. In order to do this, Bhattacherjee draws on letters, notes and cables exchanged between New Delhi, Moscow and Washington DC to narrate an “untold tale” of bittersweet US-India relations during the premiership of the Gandhi family’s scion who took over from his mother in October 1984. Bhattacherjee thus arrives at a rather smug conclusion: had the Americans listened to the Indians’ advice about Afghanistan, the Western world would have been spared tragedies such as 9/11 and South Asia would have charted a less violent, more prosperous course of history over the past 30 years.

The book begins with a foreword written by Ronen Sen, former Indian ambassador to the US during the George W. Bush era and a civil servant intimately involved with Indian foreign affairs during Gandhi’s premiership. The foreword comes across less as one to a book on Afghanistan and more as a prologue to a book about India’s former prime minister, which was perhaps not the intention. Sen’s account reeks of arrogance which is peculiar to ‘India Shining’ theorists who visualise India as a country already ranked among the world’s economic and political heavyweights, far ahead of its neighbours. He does not mention Pakistan or Gen Zia by name even once in his foreword. The closest he comes to this is some reference to “nuclear proliferation in our immediate neighbourhood.” This begs the question: why include such a hawkish foreword for a book which is about more than Gandhi’s astuteness at foreign policy?

Purporting to offer fresh insights on negotiations over Afghanistan, this book focuses on painting India as a major stakeholder in the process

The intention becomes clearer as one proceeds. Perhaps it is the title that is slightly misleading: it is, after all, mostly an Indian account of exchanges about Afghanistan that took place between India and the two superpowers. The focal character (or wronged hero of the saga, you may say) is John Gunther Dean, the American ambassador to India between 1985 and 1988, who was removed from his post under allegedly questionable circumstances: in 1988, Dean was declared mentally unfit and his career as a diplomat ended. The declaration of his mental instability was later retracted without explanation.

The author’s adulation of Dean is obvious throughout the book. Bhattacherjee calls him a patriotic American, one of the best diplomats America has ever had, and simultaneously a true friend of Indians. He feels Dean was made a convenient scapegoat for the breakdown of dialogue between the US and India over Afghanistan’s future, believing the diagnosis of mental instability to be fake. If one were to go by Bhattacherjee’s account, then indeed the ex-diplomat’s alleged treatment at the hands of the State Department reads like a Hollywood story. It makes one wonder how these things can also happen in Western countries.

While Dean was working as America’s top diplomat in India, he was keeping records of all correspondence he exchanged with officials in the world’s capitals. It is these now-declassified records that form the basis of Bhattacherjee’s book. Relying on the official papers that Dean collected between 1985 and 1988 and his conversations with Indian and Pakistani civil servants, the author argues that contrary to popular belief, India was an integral part of the discussions taking place between the US, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Soviets in the late 1980s about Afghanistan’s future.

When Gandhi took over as prime minister, he tried to signal a break from his mother’s tilt towards the USSR and started leaning towards the US. This was well-received in the West as evident from the notes exchanged between American officials about the new Western-educated Indian leader.

This bonhomie, however, was rocked by developments taking place west of India’s border. The author alleges that Pakistan’s interest in having a friendly government in Afghanistan precedes the Soviet invasion, going back to the early days of Gen Zia’s takeover when the Al-Zulfiqar Organisation made the landlocked country a base for its insurgent activities. Pakistan began fearing that Afghanistan, which had been a difficult neighbour since 1947, could become a sanctuary for all manner of political dissidents and militants. This gave birth to the need to have “strategic depth” in Afghanistan, for which Pakistan started to make efforts.

However, India became worried about Pakistan acquiring a mix of strategic weapons and strategic depth in Afghanistan, which would permanently alter South Asian power dynamics. When India raised objections about America’s continuing support for arming the Mujahideen through Pakistan and mainstreaming Pakistan’s nuclear programme, relations between India and the US turned frosty. The resulting lull in Indo-US relations meant that India’s remarkable technological takeoff, which occurred in the 21st century, was delayed by a decade as India also became subject to American tech-transfer restrictions under the Kasten-Inouye amendment. Also, the world became more unsafe and continues to remain so.

Bhattacherjee believes that had the India-led plan been allowed to succeed, it would have “transformed” South Asia and provided the world a more enduring legacy of Ronald Reagan as a peacemaker. Transformation, here, of course is a relative term, since it means a prosperous India and a Pakistan devoid of nuclear weapons — something Pakistani readers and policymakers might not agree with. He implies that India was only forced to adopt an interventionist stance on Afghanistan after being snubbed by the US when the latter started ignoring Indian concerns and favoured Pakistan’s position. He reiterates that had the US listened to India, the Taliban would not have taken over Afghanistan.

Besides the fact that the account is rather one-sided, there are other problems with the author’s analysis: for instance, he mentions events, but fails to provide detail. He says that the Punjab crisis (Sikh discontent in East Punjab) dates back to Partition, but leaves it at that. He also says that Dean believes Israel had a role to play in Gen Zia’s death, but then says no more. On the Pakistani side, he writes copiously about the role of Zia-era civil bureaucrats such as Shahid Amin, Sahibzada Yaqub Khan and Jamsheed Marker, but does not mention so much the role of military officers other than Gen Hamid Gul. One would have liked to know more about decisions being taken at the GHQ than Bhattacherjee is able to divulge.

While the book explains the respective concerns of Pakistan and India in wanting to have friendly governments in Afghanistan, it does not talk enough about the interest of the two superpowers in the West Asian country. A fleeting reference to energy is made, but given the name of the book, it was expected that the classic struggle over resources and trade routes passing through the region would be discussed. Unfortunately, it isn’t.

Then there is the issue of subpar editing. There are quite a few spelling mistakes and a lack of consistency in using names: Gandhi is referred to by his first name and surname interchangeably. There is a lot of repetition and coupled with the long paragraphs, going back and forth without paying caution to chronology makes for a confusing read.

I recall coming across an excerpt from an interview of Gandhi by a few foreign news correspondents shortly before he was assassinated in 1991. The former prime minister was asked to respond to a query about the Kashmir dispute’s seemingly intractability. He replied, “But I know who would have solved these problems with us. Gen Zia. We were close to finishing an agreement on Kashmir; we had the maps and everything ready to sign. And then he was killed.”

This anecdote suggests that contrary to popular perception — and what the book would have one believe — the two South Asian rivals were able to set aside their ideological differences and agree to a way forward on some issues. With many of the individuals who played such a crucial role in those five years gone forever — Gen Zia, Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, Mohammed Khan Junejo, Gen Gul, Benazir Bhutto and her brothers — perhaps we will never have all the answers, at least from the Pakistani side.

The reviewer is a political economist and has taught social sciences at various academic institutions in Karachi

The Great Game in Afghanistan: Rajiv
Gandhi, General Zia and the Unending War
By Kallol Bhattacherjee
HarperCollins, India
ISBN 978-9352644391
300pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, October 29th, 2017