Hamid Karzai

New Delhi, April 25: India will send a team of eight army officers to Kabul next month to teach Afghan National Army troops and officers “to read, write and speak in English”, defence sources said today.

This is a step-up for India in its involvement in Afghanistan, where it has so far refused to put boots on the ground.

The Indian Air Force’s air warrior symphony orchestra will also host 10 Afghan officers to teach them “martial music” for six months near Bangalore.

This year, India expects to host 49 Afghan army officers in different training courses. But the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the US and Afghan President Hamid Karzai have been asking India for something more substantial than language training and music-teaching.

Indian Army sources said the decision to send the officers follows a request from the ministry of external affairs and that it does not indicate a shift in policy.

The army sources said four of the officers would be from the Army Education Corps that runs the Indian Army’s own basic military education programmes. Three officers in the eight-member team are likely to be lady officers. There are also two infantry officers in the team.

The decision to send the officers was disclosed after an army commanders’ conference last week during which the generals were asked by defence minister A.K. Antony to take note of military stabilisation operations outside the United Nations fold.

The presence of the Indian Army — even for teaching English — would be resented by Pakistan, which has already alleged that India was “meddling” in Afghan affairs. The actual presence of army officers in Afghanistan indicates a shift to a higher gear.

Karzai, who is also the commander-in-chief of the Afghan National Army, in particular has been keen on Indian training for the troops. He has explained that, like the Indian Army, he was keen that the ANA should also be an integrated force made up of different ethnic groups. The ANA is to be expanded to about 70,000 troops by 2008.

The US is trying to raise a force that will be representative of Afghanistan’s diverse ethnic groups — Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and the rest. But the ANA has to overcome several internal complexities, not the least of which is desertion in large numbers.

So far, the Indian Army has been officially present in Afghanistan for a road-building project being executed by its Border Roads Organisation from Delaram to Zaranj in the country’s south.

In September 2006, officials of the Nato at its military headquarters in Mons said they would welcome Indian involvement in stabilisation efforts in Afghanistan. Indian involvement in rebuilding the ANA — for which the US is the “lead nation” — has been limited to supplying 300 trucks and vehicles that are troop carriers and bullet-proof jackets and helmets.