The news that Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has made a successful visit to Afghanistan this week should gladden the hearts of all of us in the Opposition who believe that our political differences stop at the water's edge and the border line. When it comes to India's national interests, there is no Congress foreign policy or BJP foreign policy - there is, or should be, only India's foreign policy.This was already amply demonstrated at the time of the very first non-Congress government in 1977, when the Janata Party Foreign Minister of the time, Atal Behari Vajpayee, conducted a Nehruvian foreign policy with style and grace. Sushma Swaraj shows every sign - in Nepal, in Bangladesh and now in Afghanistan - of doing the same.India and Afghanistan share a strategic and development partnership based on historical, cultural and economic ties. We have an abiding interest in the stability of Afghanistan, in ensuring social and economic progress for its people, getting them on the track of self-sustained growth and thus enabling them to take their own decisions without outside interference.The binding factor in our relationship is that the interests of Afghanistan and India converge.In our efforts towards the stabilisation of Afghanistan, the focus has been on development. Our U.S. $2 billion assistance programme, modest from the standpoint of Afghan needs, is large for a non-traditional donor like India, and is in fact our largest aid programme in any country. Our assistance programmes are being implemented in close coordination with the Afghan government, and are spread all over Afghanistan.India is the fifth largest bilateral donor in Afghanistan.The principal objective of this effort is to build indigenous Afghan capacities and institutions for an effective governance system that is able to deliver goods and services required by the Afghan people, who have suffered years of unremitting violence.India has helped build the infrastructure of the new Afghanistan. The 218 Kms (130 miles) Zaranj-Delaram highway, in south-west Afghanistan near the Iranian border, was an Indian triumph and has opened an alternative route for Afghan goods and services which were otherwise totally dependent on Pakistan. The Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul power transmission line and the sub-station at Chimtala -- constructed by brilliant Indian engineers at a height of 3,000 metres -- has lit up Kabul, which, thanks to India, has round-the-clock 24/7 electricity supply for the first time since 1992. We have constructed the Salma Dam on the Hari Rud River in Herat and the Afghan Parliament building, a visible and evocative symbol of India's commitment to Afghan democracy.India has also given at least three Airbus planes to Afghanistan's ailing national airline, Ariana. Several thousand Indians are engaged in development work. Funds have been committed for education, health, power and telecommunications. There has also been money in the form of food aid and help to strengthen governance.For capacity development, we are providing 675 scholarships each, annually, for undergraduate and graduate students in India, and for Afghan public servants to train in Indian public training institutions for up to 180 days in areas of their choice. These are the largest such programmes that India has for any other country and the largest among the skills and capacity development programmes offered to Afghanistan by its development partners.Bilateral trade has grown rapidly, but could grow much more if transit through Pakistan was made less cumbersome. It is a shame that the Pakistani military still sees Afghanistan as a zero-sum game - that anything that is good for India must be opposed and obstructed, even if doing so is bad for Afghanistan. In fact both Pakistan and India stand to benefit from enhanced and smooth trade and transit to and from Afghanistan.Given its geographic location, Afghanistan has an immense potential to develop as a hub of trade, energy and transport corridors, which would help the long-term sustainability of development efforts in Afghanistan. There is a need for greater regional cooperation and economic integration of the Afghan economy with South and Central Asia. The historical and cultural relationship of Afghanistan with the other South Asian countries makes it a natural member of SAARC, which it joined only after some delay. As its western-most country, Afghanistan is the key link for SAARC member States with Iran and Central Asia.This economic interdependence could catalyze peace and prosperity in the region at large and in Afghanistan in particular. But it needs Pakistani co-operation for Afghanistan to be able to fulfil its great potential as a transit hub for the region.We believe it is important for the international community to maintain its commitment to the people of Afghanistan even after the planned American withdrawal. India remains fully committed to assisting our Afghan partners in the process of reconstruction, and economic and human resource development, as they build a prosperous, democratic and pluralistic Afghanistan.The recent presidential elections conducted by the Afghan Election Commission this year are a landmark event in Afghanistan's evolution as a democracy, marking a transition from the first post-Taliban Presidency of Hamid Karzai, a friend of India. As a fellow developing democratic country, India appreciates the resoluteness and determination of the Afghan people who participated in the election process, notwithstanding threats and intimidation by the Taliban. It is heartening that the campaigns were conducted in a democratic spirit, that there were no incidents of violence resulting from any clashes between supporters of the candidates, that participation in the elections was broad-based, and that voting was across ethnic lines.The elections were hotly contested and have ended in a bitter standoff, with the results in favour of Ashraf Ghani being passionately challenged by the apparent loser, his former Cabinet colleague Abdullah Abdullah. Still, in a land so ravaged by civil war and terrorism, neither of the contestants is reaching for his gun.Soon after the inauguration of the new Government, the international community and the Afghan Government would need to come together to configure the contours of their partnership for the next five years. This is why Sushma Swaraj's visit is particularly timely.The threat of terrorism is never absent in Afghanistan and India has faced it unrelentingly. Local Taliban are blamed for attacking and kidnapping Indians in the country.There have been explosions and grenade attacks on the Indian consulates in Herat and Jalalabad, and two major attacks on the Indian Embassy in Kabul, one of which killed two senior Indian diplomats. Both took a heavy toll of the lives of Afghan passers-by.Given the turbulence of the recent past and the dramatic decline in security, there is need for an intensified focus on security, governance and development by the Afghan Government. Here, India and the rest of the international community should do what it can to assist. Failure in Afghanistan's stabilisation will entail a heavy cost for both the Afghan people and the world at large. India cannot send troops, but it is doing its best to train Afghan military and police personnel in India, and these efforts should continue.There is a growing understanding that the increase in terrorist actions in Afghanistan is linked to the support and sanctuaries available in the contiguous areas of Pakistan. That explains the particularly high level of violence in the border areas of Afghanistan.The international community should put effective pressure on Pakistan to implement its stated commitment to deal with terrorist groups within its territory, including the members of Al Qaeda, Taliban's Quetta Shura, Hizb-e-Islami, Lashkar-e-Toiba and other like-minded terrorist groups.The world has come to realize, at considerable cost, that terrorism cannot be compartmentalized, and any facile attempts to strike Faustian bargains with terrorists often result in such forces turning on the very powers that sustained them in the past.The Indian Foreign Minister's visit comes within days after Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri announced the establishment of an Indian branch of his terrorist movement in a 54-minute video in which he said that Al-Qaeda would recognise the overarching leadership of the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar. Her visit at this time underscores the shared interests of Kabul and New Delhi in resisting Al-Qaeda terror.As American withdrawal looms, a sense of defeatism pervades certain sections of international opinion. This needs to be guarded against, because it runs the risk of encouraging insurgent groups, besides weakening the authority of the Central Government and its institutions.There are really only two choices confronting the international community - invest and endure or give up and exit. India has already made up its mind - invest and endure -- because we believe in the cause of peace, democracy and development in Afghanistan. Sushma Swaraj's visit is a signal to the rest of the world that India is not giving up.