In a warm summer day in New Delhi in April 2007, Afghanistan was inducted as the eighth member of SAARC, the first such expansion in the organisation's 22-year history. But did 3 April really mark a change in how Afghans viewed themselves? Did it identify a latent identity that was overdue its recognition, or was it more of a marker of future possibilities? Was this identity the construct of the governments and political classes, or was there affirmation from the citizenry? More than a year later, the answers from the ground in Afghanistan remain wide and varied. Despite an overwhelming interest in the movies and music emanating from Southasia, especially India (something that is often equated with a consonance of identities), the wider region has limited influence on the social, political and cultural context of Afghanistan.
Whether it is the aid money, mainly from Western donors, which currently accounts for 90 percent of all public expenditure; the fact that Westerners are determining the country's political institutions and economic policies; or that every aspect of gender rights, human rights or other political and civil matters are evaluated against a Western benchmark, both by people promoting or decrying it – in all of this, there is currently very little that is drawn from Afghanistan's links to the two regions of South and Central Asia. So what does it mean for Afghanistan to have become a member of SAARC? Some are emphatic.
Haroun Mir, a keen observer of politics who has set up an Afghan think tank that looks at economics, feels that his country's inclusion in the regional grouping is to be welcomed wholeheartedly. Afghans have always considered themselves a part of Southasia due to the influence of Indian culture, he says – something that is still growing, with Afghans keenly watching Bollywood movies and television soap operas. Does this mean it is the soporific impact of Indian serials that constitute the narcotic binding Afghanistan to Southasia? Sardar, a young journalist working for an international wire agency, disagrees. "I watch Indian movies. I see the Indian culture. I look at the Taj Mahal," he says. "But I watch it from a distance, like something strange and wonderful but alien. I am a Tajik-speaking Afghan, and I feel more Central Asian because the roots of my identity lie in Central Asia and in Persia." Sardar emphasises that his Pashtun countrymen might feel very different, however, due to their closer connection with the Southasian region across the southern border with Pakistan. Though Sardar and Mir are at odds about how they feel, they do agree on one aspect.
The future of Afghanistan, they say, will lie not in joining one or the other region, but by being the bridge between South and Central Asia. Mir feels it is as a transit route that Afghanistan will define its future identity. He says, "Without this, we will be divided along ethnic lines, and that will damage us." For his part, Sardar speaks of the need to revive Afghanistan's role on the old Silk Road. Nilabh, a young professional also talks about the country being a bridge between the two regions – politically, geographically and economically. But all agree that Afghanistan's evolution as a bridge between cultures can only become a reality when the political problems are solved.