While bilateral exigencies demand diplomatic attention, it is essential for India to support Afghanistan as its strategic & developmental partner, writes Chayanika Saxena
“Afghanistan finds itself at the crossroads once again”.
In the last twenty years that the US has waged its war on terror in Afghanistan, this statement was written at least a hundred times over. However, the sheer frequency of its utterance did not necessarily signal that swift changes were occurring on the Afghan landscape. Contrarily, it demonstrated how little things had changed on the ground, so much so that this rhetoric became a stubborn editorial refrain. Today, the situation in Afghanistan reminds us more of the same. In fact, with the complete takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, life has come a full circle for millions of Afghans.
On the 15th of August 2021, as India marked its 75th Independence Day, a quiet Sunday became extraordinarily eventful courtesy of Kabul’s easy and swift capitulation to the Taliban. Sitting in New Delhi, it was both shocking and tragic for me to witness the “imminent and inevitable” takeover of Afghanistan become a reality for this nebulous nation-state, expelling lakhs of people into spontaneous camps scattered across Kabul. But for all the safety they thought they might find in the national capital, it soon disappeared without a trace. The dissolution of defence and the infamous flight of Afghanistan’s political class, allegedly with a chopper full of cash, allowed the Taliban to walk into Kabul without firing a shot.
In what has been described as a “bloodless” takeover, the supposed victory of the Taliban revealed just about how shambolic the Afghan institutions were. Having spent trillions of dollars in trying to build a nation out of Afghanistan, most of the international stakeholders, including the United States, picked up their bags and left as if they had never marched into this country in the first place. While some departed onboard chinooks, others negotiated to stay back only to force Afghanistan into another chaos that resembles its unenviable past.
The American Misadventure in Afghanistan
In a misplaced, misdirected war that lasted twenty years, the American invasion of Afghanistan did little to create robust institutions that could have sustained the momentum of nation and state-building in this war-torn country. Instead, the once-blue-eyed boy of the West, and the (co) author of what could have been a prophetic book called Fixing Failed States, Ashraf Ghani, left behind a legacy of debilitation, destruction and depletion of morale that would affect generations of Afghans to come. In a cruel twist of fate, much of which was manufactured by Western nonchalance, the situation in Afghanistan is back to square one. Or, perhaps even worse. The gun-toting members of the Taliban are roaming the streets of major Afghan cities, breaking into jails and even go-karting while 98 nations, including many Western countries, negotiate with them to allow their citizens and “Afghans with authorised travel documents” a safe exit out of Afghanistan. But where it is one thing to negotiate for a harmless exit, it is another to reconcile with an emergent reality in which the Taliban will get to call the shots.
The so-called military victory of the Taliban was metamorphosed into a political victory for it owing to the tone-deafness of the international stakeholders who just wanted out of an imbroglio they birthed. Right from the time of the so-called Afghan Jihad against the USSR in the 1980s to the present-day situation in which the writ of the Taliban runs large, the international powers have been complicit in manufacturing the ‘mess’ we are witnessing in Afghanistan. The bloody mess outside of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul where as many as 170 Afghans and 13 American soldiers were killed in a suicide attack executed by the Islamic State of Khorasan (IS-K). The mess of deprivation and humiliation we see spilling out in the streets of Afghanistan in the shape of famished human bodies of more than 3.5 million internally displaced Afghans.
But while the world exits from Afghanistan, Afghanistan has not exited the world. On the world’s political map, it continues to be there as a South Asian country, even though it might be in the wrong hands. Moreover, its location on the periphery of a region of which India is a part makes it even more critical for New Delhi to assess, analyse and act on the evolving Afghan situation to prevent further implosion. It is not only crucial for India to do so from the perspective of its massive investments in Afghanistan’s or the country’s strategic relevance to India’s extra-regional aspirations. It is equally a humanitarian cause for New Delhi to extend a helping hand to a nation of people it has often described as its ‘friend’. Yet, the room and time for manoeuvre available to India are only shrinking as another day goes by in sheer uncertainty that seems to have become the by-name of our “contiguous” neighbour. So then, the objective for us must be to evolve and articulate our position on Afghanistan as swiftly and decisively as possible lest we miss the bus again.
The Indian Conundrum
My intention is not to suggest that we show haste in deciding on our stance on Afghanistan. We cannot pull an America on this war-torn nation, especially in the South Asian neighbourhood where each country is tied to the other at the hip for good and bad reasons. Instead, given the irresponsible and reckless exit of the US, it has become essential for India to weigh its bilateral and regional concerns vis-a-vis Afghanistan on their merit instead of simply aligning itself with the ‘democratic bloc’ as some might have suggested. After all, if geography is destiny, we must learn to play by its rules instead of picking up on cues decided elsewhere.
Thus, while it is true that New Delhi has a tricky balancing act ahead of it, particularly as it seeks to establish an equilibrium between its regional aspirations, its responsibilities as a rising power and the geopolitical calculus in the Indo-Pacific, India needs to think and (re)act on Afghanistan in a manner that is not entirely beholden to an extraneous discourse. Instead, its policies and actions must chart an indigenous course, mindful of India’s unique spatial, strategic and security concerns vis-a-vis Afghanistan.
As the largest South Asian donor to Afghanistan, India has invested USD 3 billion in developmental projects, ranging from infrastructural offerings (e.g. Salma Dam in Herat province) to human capacity building. Focusing on assisting Afghanistan to transition into a robust nation-state, the Indian investments were primarily concerned with aspects like the rule of law and strengthening of democracy. In fact, as the world’s largest democracy, it was only apparent for India to lead by example and offer instructive lessons on democratic governance, federalism, and the like. However, unlike its democratic compatriots in the Western world, India did not export or impose its model of democracy on Afghanistan. It comes as no surprise then that India, according to one Gallup poll conducted in Afghanistan, was described as a country that played the “most positive role” in the rehabilitation of this nebulous nation-state.
However, today, the political landscape of Afghanistan stands in stark contrast to the one that Afghans, and Indians, had once imagined it to be. Despite its apparent pitfalls, the semblance of democracy, republicanism and other ideal political traits have been consigned to the dustbin of history. Literally speaking, the Afghanistan of 2021 finds itself in the same position in which it was ‘found’ in 2001 — under the de-facto rule of the Taliban.
While much has been written about the (unfounded) claims of change in the Taliban’s outlook vis-a-vis women’s rights, inclusive government and so on, it is not hard to see that the so-called Taliban 2.0 and the Taliban of the 1990s are not two different species. It has just become better at image management and PR blitz. That said, it is also unfortunately true that the Taliban is currently the political reality of Afghanistan, which would not disappear even if the world chooses to shut its eyes close to it once again. Prima facie, regional powers such as China and Russia appear to have reconciled to the new political arrangement in Afghanistan, wherein dealing with the Taliban is no longer just a strategic necessity but a diplomatic fait accompli. India, too is alive to this possibility.
Ways Forward
The recent spate of events, which amongst other things, has witnessed an openness on India’s part to talk to the Taliban, has demonstrated New Delhi’s keenness on adapting its Afghan-centric policies in view of the evolving situation. However, instead of being (mis)read as a diplomatic volte-face, India’s outreach to the Taliban is, in fact, an extension of its larger bilateral template in which India has repeatedly maintained that it shall support any peace process that is “owned, controlled, controlled and led” by the people of Afghanistan. As such, it is critical not to read a riot act against India’s attempt to talk to the Taliban for two reasons. One, engagement in and of itself does not amount to recognising the Taliban. Two, this engagement might throw more weight behind the different non-Taliban Afghan constituencies as they deal with this militant organisation. Thus, while it is wise for India not to reveal all its cards yet, it is equally crucial for India to not entirely dismiss the possibility of establishing a direct line of communication with the Taliban for its own sake and that of Afghans.
The so-called military victory and political takeover of Afghanistan by an insurgent Islamist group are enough to send India’s security concerns into a tizzy. The end of the longest and most expensive American expedition in the dead of night, after all, only reinforces the epithet attached to Afghanistan as the ‘graveyard of empires’. Moreover, it would not be too misplaced to believe that extremist and insurgent groups worldwide, particularly in South Asia, are celebrating what they believe is a strategic win against an imperial superpower. The Taliban’s return to Kabul will likely provide ideological fodder to other radical outfits, including transnational terrorist entities like the Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). For that matter, AQIS has since renewed its agenda to debilitate India, demonstrating the same through a conscious renaming of its online mouthpiece to Nawai Ghazwa-e-Hind or the new holy war against India.
As things stand today, the immutable presence of the Taliban in Afghanistan is bound to inflect the course of India’s policies and actions vis-a-vis this war-torn nation. While these bilateral exigencies demand diplomatic attention, it is equally essential for India to support Afghanistan as its strategic and developmental partner. Its foremost priority must be to ensure the safety and well-being of Afghans who are currently staring at an uncertain future. Moreover, a new generation of Afghans born during the American stint has witnessed freedom, mobility, and a semblance of security to which India had also contributed. As such, it is only incumbent upon us to use a collective moral preference for democracy and development to create a conducive environment in Afghanistan that can anchor the Taliban down to political civility while giving Afghans a reason to repose their faith in us once again.
The writer is a President Graduate Fellow and Final Year PhD Candidate at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. Her doctoral research is on Afghan refugees and migrants in New Delhi and Kolkata
