Centre's guarded stand on Taliban has forced BJP in UP to rethink narrative

When a handful of Muslim clerics and a SP parliamentarian welcomed Kabul's regime change, their statements served the BJP's purpose

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was just the issue that the Uttar Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wanted to re-energise its agenda to polarise the polity along communal lines. The new Kabul regime’s excesses against its opponents, dissidents, ethnic groupings, and women were central to crank up the propaganda against Muslim “fundamentalism” in the state and reinforce the divide. When a handful of Muslim clerics and a Samajwadi Party (SP) parliamentarian welcomed the regime change, their statements served the BJP’s purpose.
 
However, two weeks down the line, India’s official response travelled the course from silence and