Kamal Davar | The quagmire of Afghanistan as Kabul, Kandahar in a power tussle

Down the ages, Afghanistan, the land where many “Great Games” have been enacted, continues to baffle its rulers and neighbours as it brings misery to its impoverished and fratricidal strife-torn suffering people. In the past two years, it has been ruled by its own fundamentalist regime, the Taliban, with no succour to its people but added fatalities, hunger and deprivation, besides the growing abuse of human rights.

Afghanistan is now at the brink of a humanitarian disaster. The hasty, inglorious American exit in August 2021 has contributed nothing but political instability for a people already plagued by various ethnic diversities. That the Taliban have reneged on most of its promises given to the US and the international community prior to the American exit, especially on freedom of speech, democracy and women’s rights is a cause of much turmoil within Afghanistan itself, apart from causing dismay to the nation’s well-wishers abroad. One of the reasons for the instability and the wide political and policy chasms in Afghanistan is the growing rift between the ruling Taliban in Kabul led by Maulvi Abdul Kabir as Prime Minister and its ideological masters led by their supreme leader, Emir Hibatullah Akhundzada, based in Kandahar. The latter has sweeping powers and since his appointment in August 2021 has issued numerous decrees in conformity with his strict interpretation of the Hanafi school of Sharia law.

This infighting among Afghanistan’s ruling clique and its fundamentalist orientation and medieval polices is also preventing foreign recognition of the Taliban regime as the legitimate Afghan government. Afghanistan’s economy faces a paralysis with virtually the non-existence of a suitable banking system, no foreign cash inflows and hardly any foreign exchange reserves, besides meagre food stocks, to feed its population. Basic aid from outside nations is virtually non-existent as the nations which wish to assist the Afghan people don’t want to deal with the extremist regime of the Taliban. Only four nations -- Russia, China, Pakistan and Turkmenistan -- have accredited low-ranking diplomats to Kabul, without any formal diplomatic recognition to Afghanistan. Most nations, especially the West, are utterly disdainful of the Taliban trampling upon the educational and other human rights of its women, not ensuring adequate security of its minorities and all ethnic tribes in a fair manner.

The Taliban will do well to ensure that apart from the Pashtuns who constitute the maximum number in its fraternity, they also reach out to the Shias, Tajiks and Hazaras and thus accord a level playing field to its entire population. Overall, the Taliban government in Kabul is trying to gain global acceptance of their rule but with their current stand on human rights and especially the abject cruelty inflicted on their female population, the world community is unlikely to grant them acceptance.

Even China and Pakistan, who recently signed a couple of agreements with Afghanistan for an economic bailout, have not formally recognised the Taliban regime.

The Taliban, meanwhile, have to ensure the expanding terror footprint of the ultra-extremist Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), Al Qaeda and the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan is kept in check. This aspect of security, that has regional ramifications, must be carefully monitored by Afghanistan’s neighbours, including India. The United States must influence Pakistan, its one-time protégé, not to fish in troubled waters, as terrorists have no loyalty to anyone except their inhuman agendas. The Taliban and Pakistan’s bête-noire, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, have strong links with each other, and for once Pakistan will be at the receiving end if it doesn’t desist from the perennial mischief it has consistently played in neighbouring Afghanistan.

For centuries, India had civilisational and cordial links with Afghanistan and is highly respected among that country’s ordinary citizens. India was significantly involved in Afghanistan’s development before the Taliban came to power, and now has a Hobson’s choice to make in establishing contact with the fundamentalist Taliban or not, and letting that country’s people suffer. It will be in India’s interests that it continues with its humanitarian aid as it did during the Covid-19 pandemic and helping the needy Afghan people. It is commendable that the Indian government has released Rs 200 crores to assist Afghanistan and is sending a technical team to ascertain where it can help Afghanistan to tide over its food and basic medical facilities programmes. The Taliban too has expressed its gratitude to India. India, with the second largest Muslim population in the world, could use its moral authority to try wean away the Taliban from its fundamentalist moorings.

New Delhi should send some respected Islam-knowledgeable clerics from India to Kabul and Kandahar and endeavour to convince both Emir Ahkhundzada and Maulvi Hanif and their followers to move with the times and be receptive to the demands of the modern age and respect human rights, including of their women. But there’s no harm in trying anyway.

The UN and its agencies and the West have their work cut out now in bringing back Afghanistan to some semblance of normalcy. The world must not regard Afghanistan as the forgotten frontier. In fact, the shadows of the current raging unjust war between Russia and Ukraine appears to have shrouded all other trouble spots of the world to the background. Afghanistan’s future trajectory towards being a normal, harmonious and a civilised nation is crucial not only for itself but the region. Let India show the way with its magnanimity and endeavour to restore normalcy by economic and diplomatic efforts to extricate Afghanistan from the quagmire it has descended into.

 

The writer, a retired lieutenant-general, was the first head of India’s Defence Intelligence Agency, is a long-time Pakistan watcher and has been involved in Track-2 diplomacy.