DRIVING INDIA’S AFGHAN POLICY

Ten months after the Taliban walked into Kabul, taking over the city without firing a shot, there remains a tense standoff with the world at large.  While others can ignore what happens in this benighted part of Asia and focus on the war in eastern Europe, India can ill afford to do so.  Despite its distaste for extreme regimes of any kind, India must reconsider its interactions with the new dispensation in this strategically important corner of India's immediate neighbourhood.

The Taliban is superintending an 'interim' regime that will determine the geopolitical and domestic course of the country in the short term, at the very least.  Where does all this leave India, which has not been particularly "friendly" with the Taliban for strategic and ideological reasons?  The present events have raised questions about the reopening of the Indian Embassy in Kabul.  India cannot easily do away with its “developmental partnership” in Afghanistan.

Background

The ties between India and Afghanistan go back to the 1950s, when a ‘Treaty of Friendship' gave a concrete political configuration to their "civilisational" relations.  The establishment of the Indian embassy in Kabul was the result of this treaty.  But the way the relationship was precariously poised was amply demonstrated by the 2008 suicide bomb attack on the Indian Embassy, killing 58 people and wounding 141.  Not surprising, when the Taliban fighters walked into Kabul streets in August last year, the Indian Embassy promptly evacuated lock, stock and barrel, leaving behind all its development investments and relationships built over the last two decades.  Now into this vacuum, the Indian foreign ministry is contemplating a return, hopefully, one that has been smoothened with the Taliban in a series of backroom talks held in neutral states.

Analysis

Afghanistan is one of the smallest economies in the world today.  Moreover, it happens to sustain itself on international benefits, which amounts to 42.9 per cent of its gross domestic product in 2020.  Similarly, most of its infrastructural assets, from its National Assembly to the Ring Road-have been funded by donors such as India.

India was the largest donor to Afghanistan in South Asia till the U.S. fostered regime in Kabul collapsed.  With its trusted developmental and strategic partnership and with the recent turn of events that have re-established the Taliban in Kabul, India has reasons to be bothered about its infrastructural assets in Afghanistan.  From attacking the Salma Dam in Herat province to its alleged seizure of Indian MI-24 attack helicopters, the Taliban has not manifested a “pally” approach towards India.

In this situation, it becomes critical for India to approach the evolving situation in Afghanistan with due diligence and an eye for the future.  For that affair, India must step up to make sure that the transitional essence of the present regime in Afghanistan terminates.  In doing so, India must pursue to engage with the Taliban to ward off further deterioration within the Afghan society by standing as a rampart of those ideas and epitome that an entire generation of Afghans have grown up believing and accepting.

Besides, India can also deploy regional and extra-regional support at platforms such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).  These can be helpful in taking action on the brewing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, in addition to the issues of radicalism and terrorism.

Wielding its wait and watch policy, India’s stance on the official recognition and acknowledgement of Afghanistan under the Taliban and engaging Kabul has resonance with most international and regional countries.  New Delhi is resistant to drawing sharp conclusions on the nature of the Taliban rule.  However, there is a cognisance that India should stay relevant and maintain its influence in the region.  This has manifested in the episodes that led up to the Delhi Regional Security Dialogue on Afghanistan, congregating National Security Agency (NSAs) of regionally important countries.

There is the need of the hour to frame a strategically sustainable Afghanistan policy and a realistic assessment of its long term and short term goals.  Rethinking the issue of opening its embassy in Kabul can be a good beginning for India.