APPARENTLY, international ‘development’ banks have descended on a ravaged Afghanistan to plan its ‘reconstruction and development’. According to initial estimates, amounts to the tune of $6—20 billion are expected to be poured in during the next ten years or so.

Unfortunately, development is to be guided by agencies that are little known for bringing about true development in the third world. These agencies are known more for ensuring the continued development of the developed world rather than that of the developing countries. That too, mostly at the expense of the latter. While the presence of UNDP should be reassuring, the UN agencies have usually been eclipsed by those international financial agencies that have served as counterparts of the dominant world political system. Consequently, if Afghanistan’s reconstruction and development is to be led by the World Bank, then one might rest assured that the politico-economic agenda of the first world will be towed more in the region than the economic interests per se of the developing country in question. This would, however, not be the case if the interests of the two parts of the world would now converge due to common threats. The above is notwithstanding the internal inadequacies of the developing world itself who are no less responsible for their continued underdevelopment.

Their state of underdevelopment has been contributed both by their own frailties and the traditional paradigm that governed foreign lending since the failure of the Marshall Plan kind of development effort for the third world. According to this paradigm, the underlying but dominant desire of the leaders has been to maintain first world’s supremacy mostly at the expense of third world’s development. Whether this paradigm will continue or shift will depend upon the distance they traversed on their experience curve thereby making them maturer and wiser, the assertiveness of the third world in general and the region in particular, and the capacity of the recipient Afghanistan to take charge.

So, whether the reconstruction and development effort in Afghanistan will lead to its true development is contingent upon a host of variables including the sincerity and direction of development effort. However, so far it appears that the latter will be determined primarily by the lenders with others either just playing along or barely being able to get in edgeways.

The die appears pretty much cast as is also obvious from the manner in which the effort on the political front is being driven or bulldozed mainly by the first world under the auspices of the UN. If the process of Afghan government formation is any guide, it is clear that the world wishes to promote the Afghans settled abroad. The influential Pashtoon from inside Afghanistan left the Bonn conference in disgust as Pashtoons were inadequately represented in Bonn. The Northern Alliance’s interior minister appeared cornered by Afghans from Rome, Peshawar, and Cyprus with deadlines imposed on him when such sensitive processes are no routine matters that can be governed by deadlines. The idea was to impose an interim set up friendlier to the neighbours and the world than to Afghans themselves. How successful would such an interim set-up be is unclear.

Success too would be determined by the goals of the political set-up. If the goal will be to maintain surface calm and stability, then an implanted political dispensation might achieve it as do governments in most developing countries. However, since stability is only on the surface in such a case, discontent simmers beneath and eventually explodes in the kind of terrorism the world is now alarmed at.

So, as reconstruction is undertaken in Afghanistan, the world ought to be thinking more clearly now about development goals than it ever did in the past. If the symptoms of terrorism are to be uprooted from this part of the world, the avowed goal should be peace and prosperity not just for select segments of the population but for all and sundry. However, if the goals are to be the same as what they used to be, then history of many third world countries will be repeating itself afresh in Afghanistan. So, whether reconstruction and development effort will pay off will depend upon the goals and the choice of strategic direction. Two distinct scenarios appear to be taking shape at this point in time.

In scenario-1, the first world will not have grown as wise as it ought to have been. The only lesson learnt will be to maintain a presence in Afghanistan and provide for a face-lift by pouring in billions of dollars that will turn over into physical infrastructure perhaps unprecedented in Afghanistan. This will include roads, bridges, dams, power houses, oil and gas pipelines, irrigation systems and the like. The above cosmetic layer will be possible to erect with the help of an implanted Afghan political set-up which will strive to establish a network with the existing leaders in the various provinces of the country. Funds will also be channelized towards the provision of modern health and education facilities for the course in the few major cities of the country. This model will also employ the disadvantaged in erecting the country’s physical infrastructure required by those segments of the population whose lives will be touched mainly by the above development projects.This development effort will also be an essential prerequisite for intense activity in the world’s oil and gas sector waiting in the wings to take off in the region and channelized through Afghanistan. The bulk of the population will, however, remain bypassed as it has been in those developing countries which experienced an emphasis on physical rather than social infrastructure. In these countries, efforts were channelized for the benefit of the few haves rather than the many have-nots thus creating a demand for funds supplied mainly by what are known as terrorist organizations.

The above scenario also does not provide for a healthy network that would encompass the various hubs of influence thus triggering a self-perpetuating cycle of development. If the network in Afghanistan remains factionalized due to an imposed central government with which the Pashtoons and the Northern Alliance are not entirely comfortable, then resources and energy will keep getting consumed in suppressing dissent. Is this why investment in a compliant civil service and police is being envisaged upfront to maintain the rule of law? Whose rule of law would that be?

For, how will the rule of law be determined in a tribal society having its own customs, rituals, and values not all of which might be conducive for what the free world calls development? If that be the case, then what the traditional model of development and paradigm of assistance are planning to construct is not an infrastructure as such but a superstructure on a traditional infrastructure. Such a superstructure might either not endure or might develop a society as dualistic as the ones developed in may other third world countries. Such ruptured societies provide active ingredients for continued symptoms of terrorism. This would be especially so in a land that has remained a hotbed for it for a long time.

So, if the symptoms of terrorism are to be addressed and if development activity is to be undertaken in Afghanistan mainly in response to the above, then there ought to be a reversal in the paradigm of first world’s development assistance and thereby in the outlook of the international lending agencies. The goals of development in Afghanistan should then converge with those of the first world. Meaning to say that it is true development of this battered country that should be aimed at rather than a cosmetic face-lift. For, the latter route will be self-defeating as it will eventually feed into the issues the world is setting out to address on this soil, as demonstrated above. So, if the first world realizes that development of the third world in general and Afghanistan in particular will lead the world into a win-win situation, then the paradigm of development assistance will shift. The donors ought to have realized by now that their strength will not stem from the weakness of others. Strengthening the weak through equitable sharing is the only sure recipe for peaceful coexistence on a planet bestowed to all alike.

The above vision, if shared by all, would lead into scenario-2 which is a more favourable scenario for the development of Afghanistan. And, development of Afghanistan is not the development of its terrain and landscape only. Rather, it is the development of Afghans that is sought. And, Afghans would include not just the tribal elders and their loyalists or the “talented Afghans” from abroad who will be encouraged to return to develop their homeland they abandoned earlier for greener pastures. Afghans are all the people throughout the length and breadth of the country who should be engaged from day one. And, engagement would not mean mid-term employment in superstructure projects to don the landscape. Rather, employment means engagement in the development of the country’s agriculture and industry for the long haul so that Afghanistan eventually gains a prominent position on the world economic and political map. This would call for basic agricultural development in a manner that would develop the peasant. And, if development is freedom to choose, then development is empowerment at the grassroots. While this is the crux of development, the question is how to bring it about in a society dominated by a tribal culture involving patron-client relationships.

Further, development of Afghans is not merely the development of men. Afghans include both men as well as women who outnumber the men in the country. No country can develop if half the population remains as dormant as it does in many third world countries dictated by dogma, tradition, and morally repugnant gender inequities. So, Afghanistan’s development will also not mean the cosmetic presentation of a few privileged, connected, but docile women ever ready to rubber stamp the decisions taken by the men. Such a representation does more harm than good to the cause of women. Afghans’ development is the development of women as well which, in turn, means tangible measures towards gender parity by and large in the country. But, again, how to achieve this in a tribal society that had actually kept the women confined for a good half a decade under the garb of religion?

Is it absolutely heretical to think of transforming a tribal culture? Not so, if one were to spread the message of religion far and wide. So, Afghanistan’s true development transcends the realm of both politics and economics. In addition to expertise from these disciplines, true religious scholars and social psychologists should play a key role in strategizing for Afghanistan as this country’s development depends upon religious enlightenment that has yet to dawn on this country. People should be encouraged to explore the religious teachings themselves and be self-directed so as to break the obscurantist monopoly of the few who deem it to be their sole prerogative. Only then can true development be aimed at. Otherwise, cosmetic measures will fail to integrate Afghanistan into the world like many of our countries and their populations still kept hung upside down in “caves” of ignorance and darkness.