What If Taliban Came To India?

         

         

What If Taliban Came To India?

Situation in Afghanistan could potentially set off a domino effect in the Indian subcontinent. 

As the Taliban gains near-total control of the country, India will be closely looking at how Afghanistan’s relationship evolves with Pakistan. For one, history suggests that a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan has contributed to militancy and conflict in Kashmir. 

In his book Where Borders Bleed, Rajiv Dogra, strategic affairs experts and India’s last consul general in Karachi, described how the situation was fairly grim for India while Mullah Rabbani was the Taliban’s chief till 2001. “The ISI [Pakistan’s intelligence agency] was believed to have been talking to Rabbani and asked him for men to be diverted to Kashmir,” Dogra tells Quartz. ISI, he said, was probably expecting 10,000-15,000 soldiers. “At the time, Rabbani said he’ll provide 100,000 fighters,” he adds. 

India’s stance on the Taliban :

“The world and India had notice of what will happen once foreign troops leave,” Dogra says. “After all, a corrupt resistance.” 

He cites the example of former Afghan president Mohammad Najibullah, who resisted the Taliban for two years without US support before his own execution in 1996. “Now they are crumbling like a pack of cards and it shows a lack of anticipation, will, and preparedness to confront the Taliban,” Dogra adds. 

But it is also likely that India foresaw the Taliban taking on a key role in Afghanistan once US troops exited. According to Qatari envoy Mutlaq bin Majed Al Qahtani,  in June India reached out to Taliban representatives in Doha, The Hindu newspaper reported. India neither confirmed nor denied this meeting. 

Experts say that India’s policy toward Afghanistan has been consistently anti-Taliban since the group was removed from power in 2001. “This is why the Narendra Modi government’s decision to formally reach out to the Taliban was such a game-changer,” Kugelman says. “And it ended up becoming more important than India could have imagined, given the Taliban’s rapid rise to power.” 

He expects India to quietly and cautiously reach out more to the Taliban, though formal recognition of the new regime is unlikely anytime soon. “That said, recent indications that the Taliban has endorsed Indian development projects in Afghanistan are encouraging, and this could serve as a useful confidence-building measure,” he adds. 

Officially, though, India has largely remained silent on the crisis in Afghanistan, communicating only evacuation efforts for its embassy personnel in Kabul. “Given the volatility and sensitivity of the power shift in Afghanistan, it’s not surprising that New Delhi is staying quiet,” Kugelman explained. “With the Ghani government out of power, India has lost a key partner in Afghanistan. It may choose to see how things shake out before taking on more of a public role.” 

India will also use the United Nations as a platform to convey its views on Afghanistan, given that it holds the Security Council presidency in August. India’s ambassador to the UN, TS Tirumurti, said yesterday (Aug. 16) that the situation in Afghanistan was of “great concern” to New Delhi. 

“The current situation in Afghanistan has numerous challenges,” he said. “However, there are a few opportunities. If there is a zero tolerance for terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and it is ensured that the territory of Afghanistan is not used by terrorist groups to threaten or attack any other country, then Afghanistan’s neighbors and the region would feel safer.” 

Beyond the Taliban, it remains to be seen how India under Modi responds to a worsening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

Dynamics, the Afghan peace process is unlikely to yield results unless the Kashmir issue is also addressed 

The Taliban, the main insurgent group, and the Afghan government, with the outside involvement of the United States, Pakistan, India, Russia, and Iran, aim to bring an end to the war through cooperation and dialogue to restore peace in the South Asian region. However, we believe that any dialogue on peace in the region is unlikely to yield results unless there is a serious engagement with the Kashmir crisis, which is equally a key to regional stability.Since India backs the established government in Afghanistan which doesn’t have a hardline policy over the Kashmir issue, Pakistan benefits from the situation while backing the Taliban forces and maintaining an assertive approach towards Kashmir. In such a situation, the conversations on regional peace and stability should resonate throughout the region. Any solution which ignores this linkage would eventually fail to yield any dividends on the ground.