Afghanistan has crumbled. The world has witnessed in the last few weeks a haunting spectacle of a nation succumbing to the idea of the Islamic caliphate.
Disturbing images of desperate Afghans scrambling to board airplanes after thronging the Kabul airport to flee the country - with a number of them falling to death after latching on to the wings, wheels, or whatever they could of a flying plane - will remain etched in people’s memories for a long time. These incredibly tumultuous visuals have defined the dramatic taking over of Afghanistan by the Taliban forces.
image source : nytimes.com
Left to fend for itself by its government led by President Ashraf Ghani who eloped overnight as well as the United States after twenty long years of American military presence and that of the allied troops on the Afghan soil, the country now looks down the barrel of dictatorship by a dreaded extremist outfit. How long will the Talibani supremacy reign again in Afghanistan after it was ousted in 2001 following the American invasion of Afghanistan post the 9/11 terror attack is anyone’s guess.
Taliban 2.0 that is - media savvy, does press conferences, congratulates journalists for their coverage of Taliban’s regaining of control over Afghanistan and assures Afghani women of the protection of their rights under the ambit of the Islamic Sharia law - may have cajoled some into thinking that the attitude of the Taliban of 2021 is a marked departure from how it was two decades ago before the commencement of America’s so-called war against terror.
But history testifies that moderate gestures displayed by dictators - especially those having hardcore religious extremism at the core of their ideology - are only a facade and is only a matter of time before everything goes back to square one as the iron fist slowly withdraws from the velvet glove.
image source : politico.eu
Already there are footages galore doing the rounds on news channels and social media of Taliban spray-painting images of women pasted on the entrances and walls of showrooms, salons etc. There are unconfirmed reports of Afghan girls being forcibly married to Taliban fighters. The Hazara community, the third-largest ethnic group in Afghanistan belonging to the Shia community, which has faced persecution for decades fears for an escalation in atrocities against it with the Taliban’s advent to power. In the wake of such developments and apprehensions, it is hard to imagine Afghan people, especially women, breathing the air of freedom till the Islamic fanatics continue to hold the reigns of Afghanistan.
The fact of the matter is that the US under President Joe Biden massively goofed up by pulling its troops out of Afghanistan in the reckless manner that it did, following the US-Taliban peace deal that was signed last year under the then American President Donald Trump. Consequently, Afghanistan is in shambles. More than 180 people, including US marines and soldiers, lost their lives after multiple bomb blasts rocked the Kabul airport last week.
US may have tried to do face-saving by launching attacks on ISIS-K but the damage is done. Furthermore, the new narrative in the US of portraying the Taliban as the lesser evil compared to the other terrorist groups is only a feeble attempt at defending its unthoughtful withdrawal from Afghanistan after two decades.
The appalling decision-making of the US and its allies has left Afghanistan in a giant mess and it will have global repercussions sooner or later. Regional countries, especially India, will encounter greater security concerns than in the past.
Lobby's fondness for the Taliban
Here in India, there has been a multitude of astonishing reactions to the Afghan turmoil, yet none more hilarious than those emanating from the country’s anti-Modi political fraternity and the pseudo-secular lobby.
image source : scroll.in
While the International community is perplexed as to how it must approach the rather inevitable threats to world peace that arise from the Taliban’s resurrected control over Afghanistan and its connections with the more robust terrorist organisations in terms of global reputation, self-proclaimed left-leaning secular experts of international relations have already started batting for India’s engagement with the new Afghan administration in the form of Taliban.
On the other hand, the world’s ostensibly true liberal and secular nations such as Canada and the European Union have declared that they will not recognise the Taliban as the Afghan government, thereby leaving no room for diplomatic relations with the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Therefore, the Taliban sympathisers in India asking for the Modi government’s engagement with the new Afghanistan regime is nothing but absurd.
Pakistan and China’s patronage for Taliban - a security threat for India
Taliban shares a history of ideological understanding and strategic collaboration with Pakistan in matters of terror and religious extremism. In fact, the Taliban traces its roots right back to Pakistan where the seeds of its birth were sown much before it made its presence felt big time in Afghanistan in the early 90s.
For several years the Pakistani Army and the ISI have had strong links with the Haqqani network, one of the biggest terrorist organisations in Afghanistan that originated as a front against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 80s and has been behind dozens of terror activities across Afghanistan since 2001. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Haqqani network founder Jalaluddin Haqqani’s son and the current chief of the organisation, also happens to be the Afghan Taliban’s deputy leader. In such an intertwined scenario wherein Pakistan is a common denominator, how things pan out in Afghanistan from here on will have so much to do with Pakistan playing a silent yet critical role behind the scenes.
image source : dw.com
On the other hand, China recently criticised the US and its allies for mulling economic sanctions against the Taliban. This came on the back of the US freezing a sum of about $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank and halting cash shipments to the Taliban-ruled nation. Moreover, Beijing has already declared its intentions to pursue a friendly Taliban policy.
As conspicuous as it is, two of India’s bitterest foes - Pakistan along the eastern border and China along the western border - are hand in glove with the Taliban. What this means in the context of India’s national security is the easiest of all guesses.
But to cater to its vested interests, the lobby even entertains the idea of imperilling India’s security situation. The flagbearers of Islamophobia in India and those trying to make a case for the recognition of Taliban as the formal Afghan administration by the Indian government, who constitute a significant section of the pseudo-secular and the pseudo-liberal gang, want India to yield to a possible sinister plot hatched by Pakistan in collaboration with Taliban to destabilise India. Kashmir can be assumed to be an obvious target.
