Indian Defence Review

For the past three decades, the people of Afghanistan have been facing the ordeal of war and instability. Taliban came to power by the power of the gun in 2021, replacing the elected Government. Since then, the Afghan people including women and children have been forced to live under the shadows of fear and violence.

The present generation of Afghans see themselves at a critical crossroads. Handicapped as a result of a lack of formal education or skills, with very little opportunity for growth their future is dark and deary. The country lacks infrastructure, adequate healthcare facilities and educational opportunities for the young. To top it up, the girls have been barred from pursuing formal education thus rendering them voiceless to live a life of slaves in a male-dominated society.  

The question is, why does the situation in Afghanistan, continue to remain unchanged with very little chance for any forward movement despite international dialogues, peace talks and forums? Yet the world failed to change course or implement corrective measures preferring the beaten bath. Why is the Taliban not fulfilling its obligations to the people? Going by Taliban’s past record of keeping up its promises, or its willingness to correct itself, does anyone think attempting to persuade the Taliban to reform its ways will yield results?  Where lies the problem and what are the solutions for a way forward?

Afghanistan till today– What is the Reality?

The facts and reality in Afghanistan are clear, Afghans have shed enough blood in this war of power games starting from the Soviet invasion followed by the Taliban rule. Subsequently, after the 9/11, the US ousted the Taliban from power and fought them for two decades, only to hand over the country which was then being ruled by an elected government, back to the very same terror outfit in August 2021, that they had set out to change.  This left the people of Afghanistan with no option but to endure the threats, fear and hardships being perpetrated by the gun totting Taliban rule. A rule under early 10th Century Sharia laws in the 21st century?

Being in total control of Afghanistan with a large military, the least that the Americans could have done was to conduct an election and install a democratically elected government before they departed. That would have been a more honourable exit for the overpowered military that was looking for an exit strategy. US has now left the world to deal with a country which is ruled by a terror outfit that is in power, posing a threat to regional states and the world.

Failing to secure international recognition, Taliban has not felt obliged to its people in the face of a deepening humanitarian crisis. Under the present Taliban dispensation, Afghanistan’s economy shrank by 25 per cent in the last two years affecting livelihoods.

This plight has further been aggravated by the Taliban’s restrictive policies on women’s employment in addition to the ban on their education and resultant growth. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), women’s participation in the labour force in Afghanistan has dropped by 25% between August 2021 and March 2023, despite humanitarian needs increasing at a steady pace and reaching worrying levels. By imposing 50 decrees aiming to erase women from public life and education, the Taliban miserably failed to understand that peace, prosperity, dignity and opportunity in a country for all, depends on equality. 15.3 million people are living in conditions of acute food scarcityin Afghanistan in 2023, representing 35 per cent of the population. Afghanistan is marked as a hotspot of highest concern for food insecurity in the FAO-WFP outlook report on hunger hotspots for June to November 2023.

Terror Affiliations

Taliban’s continued linkages with various militant groups in Afghanistan are well documented and cannot be ignored. More significantly, the presence of Al Qaeda Chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul and his killing by US drone attack in 2022, speak volumes for Taliban’s connections with the terror outfit which goes against the assurances and guarantees Taliban has been feeding the world with.  According to the report by a United Nations Security Committee (UNSC), there are indications that Al-Qaeda is rebuilding its operational capability. Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) is launching attacks into Pakistan with support from the Taliban. As per credible sources, the Taliban is also providing space to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan-based terrorists. Andrei Serdyukov, Chief of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) Joint Staff, stated on Feb 14, 2022 that the presence of ISIS and TTP fighters has increased near Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan. According to the National Resistance Front (NRF) report released in September 2022, the Taliban has transferred 16 high-ranking members of foreign terrorist groups from different parts of the world to Kabul and then to Baghlan, Kunduz and Badakhshan provinces of Afghanistan.

Regional Threat

Taliban’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada on July 06, 2022 in an address to a gathering of clerics in Kabul asserted that Afghan soil would not be used to launch attacks against other countries. “We assure our neighbours, the region and the world, that we will not allow anyone to use our territory to threaten the security of other countries,” Only a day earlier Uzbekistan had claimed that five rockets fired from Afghanistan had landed in Termez, the capital of the southern province close to its border with Afghanistan. These attacks were suspected to be the handiwork of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). Was Akhundzada trying to plead innocence and ignorance?

On April 18, 2022, ISKP fired ten Katyusha rockets at a military base in Termez. Claiming responsibility for the attack, the jihadi group said that the missiles were launched from near the town of Hairatan in Afghanistan’s Balkh province. Though the ISKP’s claim was rejected by the Uzbek Government, Taliban’s Deputy Spokesman Inamulla Samangani subsequently admitted to Uzbekistan’s Gazeta news website that ISKP militants had fired a barrage of rockets at Uzbekistan but claimed that these rockets “did not reach the border of Uzbekistan.” On May 07, 2022, the ISKP again claimed that its fighters fired seven rockets from Khawaja Ghar district of Afghanistan’s Takhar Province toward unspecified military targets in Tajikistan.

The attacks were carried out from Balkh and Takhar provinces in northern Afghanistan, which border Central Asian countries, signalling the jihadi group’s expanding presence in Afghanistan. Given the deep alienation among Afghans of Uzbek and Tajik ethnic origin with the Pashtun-dominated Taliban, the ISKP could strike a chord with these alienated ethnic groups and their ethnic neighbours in countries across the border.

The point is, Taliban’s unwillingness to carry the other ethnic groups along, in preference to the Sunni Pashtun elements forecloses any preference of the people of Afghanistan for Taliban rule in the country. Legitimacy to a group seeking to rule a country is provided by the people and not by self-proclaimed leaders. How can Taliban then represent the people of Afghanistan as their legitimate government?  

The other disturbing news is about the formation of Tehrik-e Taliban Tajikistan (TTT), the Movement of the Taliban of Tajikistan which was formed in the northern Afghanistan to unite people from Tajikistan under the Taliban brand to overthrow the Government in Dushanbe.

Since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s rise to power in Kabul, the terror threat to Central Asia has risen manyfold. Looks like terror groups including ISKP, some aligned to major powers are using Afghan territory as a springboard for operating in the region and beyond. The larger aim of the terror groups to launch ‘global jihad’ beyond Afghan borders is a very appropriate narrative for the major powers aiming to contain and destabilise countries in the region. China and Moscow are concerned that the Afghan territory might become a logistic hub and a ‘safe heaven’ for several terrorist organisations and that the Central Asia may be destabilised with a view to spread terror to their countries.

Terrorism has become a severe threat in Tajikistan. The Prosecutor General of the Republic of Tajikistan stated that the number of terrorists and extremists in the country has increased over the past six months. Tajik security forces registered in the first half of 2022, seven hundred and twenty crimes related to extremism and terrorism.

Taliban’s International Engagements

With vested interest, various countries have been engaging with the Taliban in an uncoordinated manner each working towards their own geopolitical interests. The question is, on what basics is the world engaging with the Taliban, a terror group that had seized power by force and whose cabinet is filled with designated terrorists claiming itself to be the Government of Afghanistan? The international community ought to have first put in place a mechanism to solve the legitimacy issue before entering into any dialogue or discussion. Do the UNSC and the countries of the world consider the present ruling dispensation, the legitimate representatives of the people?

No details of the discussions at various meetings of countries with the Taliban have been put out in the public domain excepting stating that Taliban has been impressed upon to establish an inclusive government and allow education for the girl child. Neither of these have yet been fulfilled by the Taliban giving a clear indication that Taliban is in no mood to change. The question is why then are countries continuing these futile talks? What have they achieved till now and what do they expect to gain by reinforcing failure?

India’s engagement with the Taliban was first established in June 2022, when it had sent a ‘Technical team’ to Kabul. India has not recognised the Taliban led Afghan Government and has no Ambassador or Charge de Affaires (CDA) positioned in Kabul to represent the country.

India has de facto permitted the Taliban to induct its representatives into the Afghanistan embassy in New Delhi over a period, unethically removing Ambassador Farid Mamundzay and the diplomats of the Embassy appointed by the Ghani Government unannounced by November 2023. First it started with Taliban nominated Qadir Shah’s coup within the Afghan Embassy in April last year and subsequently, by installing Taliban loyalists Ms Zakia Wardak, Consul General Mumbai and Mr. Sayed Mohammad Ibrahimkhil Acting Consul General Hyderabad, in the Afghan Embassy in New Delhi. No official announcement was made by the Indian Government regarding the induction of Taliban representatives inside the embassy. However, Taliban’s Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai declared in an interview with Afghanistan’s state broadcaster RTA that “the embassy of Afghanistan in India will soon start operations.”

On the occasion of India’s 75th Republic Day, India invited Badruddin Haqqani, the Charge d’Affaires at the Taliban-run Afghan embassy in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to attend a ceremonial reception in the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi. Badruddin Haqqani, had an association spanning close to three decades with the Haqqani Network, which was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) by the United States of America in 2012. Worldwide intelligence conclusions point to the Haqqani Network as having been primarily responsible for a 2008 attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in which 58 people were killed. Close on the heels of this outreach, on January 29, India was officially represented at a regional conference in Kabul, convened by the Taliban administration’s foreign minister.

Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s Special Representative for Afghanistan was also present at the meeting. A day later, on January 30, 2024, China’s President Xi Jinping accepted the credentials of Asadullah Karimi, the Taliban-appointed Afghan ambassador in Beijing, for whatever it may mean, without announcing the recognition of the Taliban led Afghan Government.  For the first time since the Taliban takeover in 2021, probably on September 2023, China has appointed Zhao Sheng as its ambassador to Kabul. “This is the normal rotation of China’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, and is intended to continue advancing dialogue and cooperation between China and Afghanistan,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement. China probably has kept its options open by leaving things vague.  

Interaction by the United Nations

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres convened an initial conference of the world’s special envoys to Afghanistan in May 2023 in Doha to address the issues relating to the potentially destabilizing conditions in Afghanistan, including a failing economy and increasingly restrictive Taliban policies on women’s rights.  

That was followed by a two-day meeting in Doha on February 18-19, with the participation of member states, special envoys and civil society members. The Taliban however did not attend the meeting. According to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the Taliban had set unacceptable conditions for attending a UN sponsored meeting on Afghanistan. The Taliban demands included the exclusion of Afghan civil society members from the talks in Doha, Qatar, and a treatment that amounted to official recognition of the Taliban as the country’s legitimate rulers. Another point of contention was the appointment of a UN special envoy in the country, which the Taliban opposes.

An unimaginative Afghan Strategy

The world community is missing the point. Taliban has snatched Afghanistan by the power of the gun and has not established its rule, duly sanctified by the will of the people. Taliban as of today, it must be realised, has nothing to take from the people. Why should then the Taliban consider the needs and the well-being of the people?

Consequently, the people have no option but to accept the dictates of the ‘Terror group’ and its terrorist cabinet appointed by its lead religious leaders. They do not recognise any constitution or law and what the terror group and its religious leaders think are the laws of the land and they are applied on the people without any consideration for the period in which we are living, Taliban’s methods of flogging, executions etc in public has created fear in the minds of the people.

Why is this happening? Why this, arrogance of the ruling elite and security forces towards the people? To whom the country legitimately belong? The problem is with the world community which instead of realising the importance of Taliban seeking legitimacy from the people, seems satisfied with Taliban forming an inclusive Government and allowing the girl child to go to the school or Taliban removing some of the restrictions imposed on the women. Pray let these expert diplomats tell the world, as to what happens if the Taliban re-imposes these restrictions once it is recognised?

Such recognition, including providing the UN seat to the Taliban led Afghanistan, would mean legitimisation of the group and its harsh interpretation of Sharia Law, which has resulted in the despicable treatment of women and minority groups.

Do the people of the country have any means to force the Taliban to adhere to its promises? Do the people of Afghanistan have the powers to force the Government to do what is in their best interests or remove them from power if they fail to act?

Taliban’s record of implementing agreements till date has been abysmal to say the least. Will the world body or the major powers be able to force Taliban to implement the agreements? Probably not, excepting by going to war with Taliban led Afghanistan, which will again place the people to face bloodshed, destruction and economic woes that directly affect them, which the world is trying to avoid.  

The world needs to realise that recognition of Afghanistan and its induction into the world body are the only leverages that the world has, to correct the situation in Afghanistan. If that influence is given away, the Taliban led Afghanistan will become a liability to the world for ever.

The Way Forward    

In the first place, recognition of Taliban should as a matter of rule, be handled solely by the world body with the advice of major powers and regional countries and not by individual players seeking petty geopolitical gains. Individual dealing directly with the Taliban only legitimises the terror outfit and enhances its importance.  

Inclusive Govt, respect and education to women etc as is being demanded by the world community and the major powers are merely side issues. The problem that needs recognition is that Taliban is interested in following Sharia Law teaching without caring for the sentiments of the people. As a result, the gun wielding Taliban cadre, do not respect people and is only too eager to implement the Sharia laws-based rules evolved by Taliban, like the need for a woman to be accompanied by a male member of the family. Consequently, the people are not free and are scared when confronted by a Taliban militant with a gun.

The strategy for recognition of Afghanistan must demand that political entities and others seeking to rule Afghanistan need to get their legitimacy endorsed by the people of the country through elections or by any other means available and considered appropriate. This will automatically open up the options for dispensations other than Taliban to contest for ruling the country. This may however induce clashes amongst contestants for ruling the country with attendant bloodshed which must be accepted.

The strategy will willy-nilly force the entity to interact with the people, seek their support and adopt rules that are fair to all sections of the society. The law enforcement cadres will be controlled to remain respectful to the people. The women will be respected and will be given their dues in the society.  

The country needs to have a constitution to be considered eligible for recognition. If the constitution doesn’t exist, the selected entity needs to create one within six months of its recognition duly endorsed by the people. The constitution needs to be designed to give power to the people including for the removal of a renegade establishment from ruling the country.

If this option fails, it may be necessary to create a government in exile, support them politically and economically and get the Government recognised by the countries of the world and the UN. The head of the government in exile could be identified with the help of former Ambassadors of Afghanistan and members of the civil society with a caveat that they will have to create a constitution and hold elections to have a permanent government say within two years of establishment of the proxy government.  

Will the UN Secretary General and the major powers at least now change course?