Present piece deals with recent stunning takeover of Afghanistan by Taliban and India’s foreign policy dilemma in dealing with new ruling. It also deals with immediate implications for Pakistan, India, China and USA and their assumed response over new geo-political landscape in Asia.
Taliban’s stunning takeover of Kabul sent shock waves around the world and has placed immediate implications for the complicated knot of three regional powers in Afghanistan’s neighborhood: Pakistan, India and China. In recent months, all three governments have escalated their diplomatic outreach to the Taliban in anticipation of the possibility that it would grow into a political force in Afghanistan. That possibility became reality as the group swept into the capital ushering in a new geo-political landscape in Asia. For Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban’s return delivers a strategic defeat to rival India, but also potentially a boost to an affiliated insurgent group, the Pakistani Taliban, that threatens Pakistan itself. For India, it heightens anxieties about militancy in Kashmir as it is juggling flammable border standoffs not only with Pakistan but also with China.
Cherished History of Afghanistan
Afghanistan is an ancient mountainous landlocked country at the crossroads of Central and South Asia and is surrounded by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan to the north, and China to the northeast. Its location along the Silk Road connected it to the cultures of both the Middle East and other parts of Asia and has historically remained in contention and violence since the military campaigns of Alexander, the Mauryas, the Arabs, the Mongols, the British, the Soviets, and in 2001 by the United States with NATO-allied countries. It has been called ‘unconquerable’ and nicknamed as ‘graveyard of empires’ though it has been occupied during several different stages of its history.
The modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties of the 18th century but unfortunately very soon became the buffer state in the ‘Great Game’ between British India and the Russian Empire. In 1893 Durand Line was made to mark border of Afghanistan with British India, but was not recognized by the Afghan government and it has led to strained relations with Pakistan since the latter’s independence in 1947. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, the country became a monarchy under King Amanullah, until almost 50 years later, when Zahir Shah was overthrown and a republic was established.
In 1978, after a second coup, Afghanistan became a Soviet Union protectorate. This provoked the Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s against Mujahideen rebels and by 1996, most of Afghanistan was captured by the Taliban, who were removed from power after the US invasion in 2001 post 9/11. This 20 year war has finally drawn to a close on 15 August 2021, with Taliban once again sweeping across Afghanistan.
Insinuations for India
Afghanistan and India have remained strong and friendly over the decades. They had been historical neighbors, and shared deep historical and cultural ties. India was also the only South Asian country to recognize the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Relations diminished during the 1990s when Afghan civil war started which turned into take-over of a government by Talibans. India is the largest regional provider of humanitarian and reconstruction aid to the present day Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and even today is engaged in various construction projects, as part of India’s rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan.
India is recognised by most Afghans as the ‘most cherished partner of Afghanistan’ and is the largest regional donor with over $3 billion in assistance. It has built over 200 public and private schools, sponsors over 1,000 scholarships, hosts over 16,000 Afghan students. In the aftermath of the 2008 Indian embassy bombing in Kabul, the Afghan Foreign Ministry quoted India as a ‘brother country’ and the relationship between the two as one which ‘no enemy can hamper’. Relations between Afghanistan and India received a major boost in 2011 with the signing of a strategic partnership agreement, Afghanistan’s first since the Soviet invasion of 1979.
A major shift in India’s political position on the Afghan Taliban was reported by a Qatar official in June 2021, who confirmed that an Indian delegation had quietly visited Doha to meet Taliban’s leadership. This is a major shift. The Taliban’s reliance on Pakistan is unlikely to change anytime in the near future. The cost to India of remaining distant from the ongoing attempts at reconciliation especially since it has thus far nurtured a relationship mainly with the Afghan government would likely be much higher than the cost of being involved in them.
Scorching Afghanistan and New Geo-Political Reckonings
New developments in Afghanistan have created new scopes in context of geo-politics of the region and might form new equations for realigning the power politics. For China, the U.S. withdrawal has raised fears of a widening network of militant groups targeting the ambitious infrastructure projects it is unfurling westward across Eurasia. The Afghan Taliban pledged in its 2020 deal with the United States that it would not harbor extremist groups such as al-Qaeda if the U.S. military withdrew in a timely fashion. The Taliban spokesman has also said the group would not attack Chinese targets. In Islamabad there is euphoria that they defeated India and America but also worry among the national security establishment that the Taliban may not be beholden to Pakistan in their moment of triumph. After the euphoria, there are second-order consequences that include the potential of Afghanistan to become a haven for terrorist groups, including the TTP (Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan), that might come back to bite Pakistan.
Pakistan’s close ally China has also sought a deal with the Taliban that they will not hamper any Chinese interests in the region. China’s conciliatory posture toward the Taliban marks a stark public turnaround from previous decades, when it voiced concerns that the group was harboring ethnic Uyghur fighters who sat on the Taliban’s ruling council while plotting separatist war in their homeland of Xinjiang. China was ready to contain any fallout from Afghanistan by pressuring the Taliban to make a ‘clear break with Xinjiang-related forces’, holding joint military drills with Russia and other regional governments, and reinforcing border controls.
In India which had long argued for a power-sharing deal in Afghanistan, anxieties soared in recent months as India’s partner, the former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, sustained a string of battlefield defeats before fleeing the country. For the first time in decades, India will no longer have a friendly government or tribal faction in the country. And more problematic to India Taliban’s return will be a morale booster for Pakistan-based groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad and the TTP. It could be a psychological victory of the terrorist groups and the terrorist groups will use it to try to drum up a little more recruitment among youth in places like Kashmir.
Could China gain a foothold in the Region?
China has reportedly promised big investments in energy and infrastructure projects, including the building of a road network in Afghanistan and is also eyeing the country’s vast, untapped rare-earth mineral deposits. And it was already reportedly preparing to formally recognize the Taliban before the group seized control of the country. Laurel Miller, the program director for Asia at the International Crisis Group, tells NPR that “The Taliban see China as a source of international legitimacy, a potential economic supporter and a means of influence over Pakistan, a Chinese ally that has aided the group,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, the Taliban could be pushing China and Russia closer as the two countries seek a hedge against the potential for instability in Afghanistan. Both countries are concerned about possible ‘spillover’ of Islamist extremism, Miller says. Despite their Cold War animus, China and Russia recent time reportedly deployed 10,000 troops, as well as planes and artillery pieces, to China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region as part of a joint exercise to fight terrorism, and jointly protect peace and stability in the region.
Is America now weaker?
The nature of withdrawal comes at great risk to US national security and to America’s standing in the world. What is happening on the ground is a complete collapse of the US-led negotiations with the Taliban, which left the United States flat footed to respond to the events rapidly unfolding on the ground. The world will not view this as a logical transition away from a country in which the United States does not belong. Instead, Biden’s realpolitik message juxtaposed against the chaotic scenes in Kabul simply reinforces longstanding global opinions of America’s unreliability and diminished superpower standing in the world. Biden tried to assure Americans, and the world, that Washington would continue to fight global terrorism. Finally, the United States still needs eyes on Afghanistan and must move quickly to evacuate Americans from Afghanistan and then begin the hard work of developing a plan for protecting its long-term national security interests in South Asia.
Indian Dilemma
The idea of dealing directly with the Taliban is a bitter one for Indian officials and the larger Indian population. This was the group that escorted terrorists into Pakistan following the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight in 1999. India needs a long-term strategic approach towards Afghanistan that weaves political, economic, military and diplomatic dimensions into a coherent whole within the framework of a grand strategy. India’s Afghan policy must be based on a clear-cut understanding of India’s strategic goals in the region, and the regional and global strategic environment.
Currently, there are two wars in Afghanistan, one inside Afghanistan that has gone on against foreign intervention for the last four decades, and the other against the Afghan government from Pakistani soil causing a parallel internal disturbance. Since Pakistan’s key policy objective has been to establish its hegemony in Afghanistan, it views an independent Afghanistan that has a vibrant relationship with India as the main hurdle in the achievement of its hegemonic ambitions. However, an Afghanistan deprived of Indian presence would be nothing but another hapless province of Pakistan to be ruled by movers and shakers from Rawalpindi, and to be exploited by China through the Belt and Road Initiative. More problematically, this will not only compound the humiliating experiences of the Afghan people by way of rollback of their basic freedoms, but also create a breeding ground for various fundamentalist organisations, ready to escalate religious and sectarian conflicts across the region. Only Time can tell what actually happens in Afghanistan over the next couple of years. Whatever be the final truth, India must engage with the Taliban leadership, leverage our support amongst the people, build our resources to deal with any surge in terrorism within our borders and keep our powder dry.
