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If we listen to people intimately associated with the subject, academics, political scientists' et al, we get the impression that India be very afraid of the Taliban, if they ever come back to power in Afghanistan. Their support to Osama Bin Laden and the Al Quaida that enabled them to plan and conduct the 9-11 carnage in New York is not something that can be easily forgotten.
Nor, for that matter, their active connivance in assisting members of the Pakistan based Harkat Ul Mujahedeen who hijacked the Indian Airlines flight IC 814 to Kandahar in December 1999. Closer home, there have always been reports of "Afghan Mujahedeen" fighting for the liberation of Jammu and Kashmir. Thus, Indian policies of strengthening elements opposed to the Taliban, building people to people relationships and working towards becoming an active stakeholder in the region after the forthcoming withdrawal of the US and ISAF forces, with all that it entails, appears to be reasonable, in its interests and to be commended.
However, should India, which is an influential power in Asia along with China, be concerned about the chances of a Taliban come-back?
To study this aspect, there is a need to consider the parallel discourse. Other than the conquests of Ahmad Shah Abdali in the mid 18th century when his writ ran from Agra to Mashhad in modern day Iran and included the Punjab, Sindh and Kashmir, the Afghans have had "but a few hours of political or administrative unity. Far more often it had been the 'the places in between'- the fractured and disputed stretch of mountains, flood plains separating its more orderly neighbours. At other times its provinces formed the warring extremities of rival, clashing empires..... Everything had always conspired against its rise: the geography and topography and especially the great stony skeleton of the Hindu Kush... then there were different tribal, ethnic and linguistic fissures fragmenting Afghan society: the rivalry between the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazara and the Durrani and Ghilzai Pastuns; the schism between Sunni and Shia; the endemic factionalism within clans and tribes, and especially blood feuds within closely related lineages." I
If anything, the situation has only got worse in the last three to four decades with the Soviet invasion, the subsequent civil war and Taliban rule, the occupation by the USA, NATO and their allies and the ongoing insurgency. Thus we have a small country of approximately 30 million, located in extremely difficult terrain, living in dark ages with a literacy rate of 28% and an average life expectancy of 44 years and a known proclivity for violence. It produces little, a GDP of US $19.6 Billion, is greatly dependent on foreign aid, has no industry worth the name and exports gems, carpets, dry fruits and opium.II
All this adds up and leads to a very straightforward conclusion that Afghanistan has little relevance to the outside world and with its ongoing problems can only cause more harm than good and is best avoided. That is as it should be because its importance only arose in Napoleonic times when Napoleon in an alliance with Czar Alexander II of Russia envisaged a land conquest of India to take away the jewel in the British crown which forced Britain to establish an Embassy in Kabul in 1809III and can in some ways be considered the precursor to the "Great Game" that was to follow-the rivalry between Russia and Britain.
Along with the end of the British Empire, Afghanistan too faded into the background only to be resurrected into the limelight with its occupation by the Soviet Union in 1979 and the subsequent insurgency organised by Islamists supported by the USA which was probably under the misapprehension that the Soviet Union had occupied Afghanistan with a view to extending itself in its elusive search for a warm water port. Little did they realise that the occupation had been undertaken to try and counteract the Islamist interventions then being undertaken by extremists through Afghanistan on the Central Asian Republics, similar to actions undertaken in 1925 by Islamist groups supported by the Afghan Army in Tajikistan that had then been successfully countered by the employment of Soviet Airborne Forces.IV With the withdrawal of the Soviet forces, it again fell into obscurity and civil war only to be resurrected into the spotlight with the American intervention in 2001, events too recent to bear repetition.
The forthcoming withdrawal of the US and ISAF in 2014 from Afghanistan that may lead to the country's reoccupation, or at the least the control of Kabul, by a resurgent Taliban creates apprehensions in Indian minds primarily for two reasons. First, that an Afghanistan ruled by a pro Pakistan Taliban will provide it strategic depth at our cost and second, that Afghanistan will again become a launch pad and training ground for fundamentalist forces that Pakistan will be able to utilise for its jihad in Kashmir.
The truth is that these apprehensions are far from reality. The US experience will ensure that Afghanistan can never again become a training area or launch pad for fundamentalist forces. Drones and the vast array of other options available to the US preclude this. Moreover, the Taliban leadership would also have learnt some lessons from the events of the past few years and may be less keen to act as the crucible of jihad in the future, even if it is able to achieve complete control of the country, which appears unlikely. Moreover, large scale induction of jihadis is not feasible keeping in view distances and terrain constraints, own military reaction capability and political fallout of such an act on Pakistan.
Finally, the belief that Afghanistan provides strategic depth to Pakistan is a fallacy that needs to be corrected. The concept of strategic depth applies to a situation where a nation requires to trade space for time to enable it to be able to counter an offensive against itself, as was the case during the German offensive on the Soviet Union in the Second World War. However, in our context of both being nuclear weapon states, such a scenario is irrelevant as the Pakistani likely nuclear threshold precludes a deep thrust into the hinterland. So, one can conclude that regardless of the circumstances we may continue to engage with Afghanistan and have little to fear if the Taliban come back into power.
By Special Arrangement with : Observer Research Foundation (www.orfonline.org)