Taliban 2.0 & its discontents

India should not be rushed into a response

The warp speed with which the Taliban reached Kabul and ousted the elected government of Afghanistan has wrong-footed most countries. As nations, including India, scramble to evacuate diplomatic and other personnel, the vital next step lies in crafting a credible response to the second term of this rogue regime. Aware perhaps of its less-than-salubrious international reputation, Taliban leaders have suggested that Taliban 2.0 is unlikely to operate in a diplomatic vacuum. Such moves may earn it grudging international legitimacy, but, realistically, prospects of a kinder gentler Taliban appear remote. Its brutal reassertion of Sharia law in the territories it has conquered does not indicate a major break from its past ideology or praxis.

With the US-led alliance having decisively washed its hands of Afghanistan, the moment for a “coordinated response” by countries concerned, of which External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar spoke earlier this month, may have passed. Given that India faces the biggest challenges from a Pakistan-sponsored extremist regime, the country’s response to the changing geo-political dynamics will be critical. More so because of the close ties that India enjoyed with Afghanistan’s democratic government and its decades-long conspicuously benign presence in the form of major infrastructure projects such as the Salma dam in Herat (known, ironically, as the Afghan-India Friendship Dam), the Zaranj-Delaram highway built by the Border Roads Organisation, and numerous health clinics that dot the more remote parts of that country. The biggest symbol of the relationship between New Delhi and pre-Taliban Kabul is Afghanistan’s Parliament in Kabul, built by India and inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
 

Such inconvenient reminders of democracy are unlikely to endear India to the Taliban’s autocratic rulers. The question, then, is how India should respond. So far suggestions have ranged from a need to recognise reality and engage with the Taliban. This has been the drift within some elements in the foreign policy establishment. In an interview earlier this month, the Afghan ambassador to India said the withdrawal of US/Nato troops removed the justification for jihad. Though India has held talks with the Taliban at their Doha base, it would be naïve to assume that Taliban 2.0 will eschew jihad, its raison d’etre. As long as Pakistan remains the Taliban’s chief sponsor, rapprochement is likely to be elusive. Indeed, it may be wiser for India not to rush in precipitately with a response, especially in view of the extremely fluid situation on the ground. Wait-and-watch, therefore, would be advisable even as India’s intelligence and early warning system capabilities along borders with Pakistan are strengthened. How meaningfully it can cope with the crisis it created in Jammu & Kashmir by changing its constitutional status in 2019 also remains a factor in play.

Meanwhile, as with the late 1990s, the country may also need to brace itself for a humanitarian crisis in the form of an influx of refugees, a prospect that could become complicated, given the absence of a settled refugee policy and the religion of asylum seekers. The last time India distinguished itself by collaborating with the UNHCR to offer Afghans fleeing the Taliban refuge and succour. This time, the secular credentials of the ruling party may be tested in new ways.