Indian Investments Cannot be Wasted
As the Taliban cemented their total victory in Afghanistan, messages of conciliation came out from their leaders. One of their top leaders, Sher Mohammed Stanikzai, confirmed the Taliban’s commitment of not allowing their territory to be used against any country in the world. Specifically, he said they would not allow India and Pakistan to play out their rivalry in Afghanistan.
Taliban leaders Zabiullah Mujahid, Suhail Shaheen and Stanikzai spoke of their expectations that India would continue to maintain its ‘cultural, economic and trade ties’ with the new Emirate of Afghanistan and retain its invaluable ‘air freight corridor’ with it.
Under the circumstances, India is in no hurry to take a position on Taliban even if the US is looking for an excuse of a negotiated settlement to recognise the radicalised Sunni force. For the Indian government, the parameters of engaging the Taliban are based on its relationship with Pakistan and Pakistan-based Deobandi terrorist groups with India in their cross-hairs.
Strategic Implications
India does not share a border with Afghanistan, except in the Northern Areas under Pakistan’s occupation. A friendly Iran and hostile China and Pakistan share frontiers with Afghanistan. That explains India’s weak Afghan card.
India started talking to the Taliban only three years ago, when it became clear that they would play a part in a future political dispensation in Kabul.
But with America determined to quit, India has found it difficult to gain ground after nearly 20 years.
Deficiencies in India’s economic and diplomatic strategies have resulted in China gaining ground in its vicinity by attracting India’s neighbours — all members of SAARC, of which India is the largest country — to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
In July 2020, Iran cancelled an Indian rail project, aimed at connecting the Chabahar port to Zahedan on its Afghan border. And last May, Tehran showed India the door in the Farzad gas project. In both cases, Iran accused India of delaying the projects.
America’s retreat leaves a power vacuum which the Taliban and their terrorist friends could exploit.
Indian Investments
India was the first country that Afghanistan signed a strategic partnership with, the only country that undertook perilous but ambitious projects such as a new Parliament building, the Zaranj-Delaram Highway, and the Chabahar port project in Iran, the infrastructure for transit trade. As a consequence, India by far is the one country that polled consistently highest among countries that Afghan people trusted.
India committed significant sums of money as part of the project of building modern Afghanistan. India was able to make a niche among Afghans with its humanitarian aid and $3 billion investments since 2001 for rebuilding a devastated country.
At the Afghanistan Conference in Geneva in 2020, India announced several fresh development commitments including the construction of the Shahtoot Dam in Kabul, as well as several restoration and community development projects.
Indian companies have invested on socio-economic overhead capital worth $3 billion. In 2015, the Prime Minister inaugurated the new Afghan Parliament house built at a cost of $90 million. A slew of ongoing projects including the Aga Khan heritage project to restore Bala Hissar Fort south of Kabul are raising concerns. India’s health infrastructure including Indira Gandhi Institute for Child Health and various clinics in several Afghan provinces are hanging in balance.
Thousands of Afghans are in India for work, training, re-skilling, education and medical treatment. Over 2,200 students of Afghan-origin studying in India on scholarship stare at an uncertain future.
Indians in Afghanistan have been an employment and revenue model for India. The Indian embassy in Kabul estimates that 1,710 Indians were employed in banks, hospitals, NGOs, telecom, IT, and universities. On the other hand, import restrictions may force India to seek alternative partners which may not be viable in the near future.
India’s business and trade also comprises the education sector, in which scores of Afghan students throng Indian universities and colleges. The Indian Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) claims that 4,504 student admissions from Afghanistan took place in 2019-20, the second highest flow of students from any country into India. With the current crisis, Afghan students have requested India to continue their course from within the campus and expedite the paperwork on a war footing.
Bilateral Trade
India may not be able to fund projects in Afghanistan, but it could, and should, promote trade which currently stands at around $1.5 billion. This will be a more sustainable way of helping the country. Though Chabahar is there, more could be gained if Islamabad removed its blockade of overland Indian exports to the country.
The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan will bear an adverse impact on India’s bilateral trade with it. Trade between the two nations amounted to $1.4 billion in 2020-21 and $1.52 billion in 2019-20. It has hit Afghan traders also. Their exports for now are thawed and restoration depends on how situations normalize. Afghans sell dry fruits like dried raisin, walnut, fig, pine nut, almond dried apricot, pistachios and medicinal herbs.
Prices of some commodities may also go up in the Indian markets due to uncertainty over bilateral trade and relations with Afghanistan. Exports from India stood at $826 million whereas imports amounted to $510 million in 2020-21. The not-so-large volume of trade may not look monetarily important but strategically, they help both the countries.
Connectivity
India’s significant contribution in its rebuilding and investments in Afghanistan too would be missed there. India had an ambitious plan with the initiative of International North-South Corridor spanning Iran, central Asia and Eurasia. It is supposed to emerge as a major connector with Modi’s concept linking the corridor to Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran rail link, now operational. It is also supposed to be linked to Chabahar and dedicated freight corridor having special economic zones on its fland being built by India. The Chabahar-Sistan-Baluchistan-Central Asia/Afghanistan route till recently was considered less risky than the high-risk provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan. With the changing political scenario this too is likely to become a challenge.
It seems inconceivable and incomprehensible that the Government can choose to simply walk away from such capital invested and nurtured, regardless of the developments in Afghanistan, the domestic political considerations in India and geopolitical sensitivities of some neighbours. Therefore, it would be abdication of responsibility. The Government must instead consider all its options in remaining engaged with Afghanistan for its future and of the ordinary people of Afghanistan who boldly placed their faith in Indian leadership.
Extension of Terrorist Activities
There is a serious incoming internal security threat to India as the victorious Taliban will be the galvanizing force for the Ummah, leading to increased global radicalisation as witnessed when the so-called Islamic State captured Mosul in 2014. Today, the Taliban have become the beacon of political Islam and will attract followers from all over the world.
While the Taliban have traditionally maintained that they have no interest in Kashmir issue and has always rejected the Durand Line, India is waiting on whether the Sunni Islamist force, which draws inspiration from Wahhabism as Deoband does, cuts a deal with TTP in favour of Pakistan Army. TTP leader Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud has already made it clear that it will continue to fight Pakistan Army while thanking Haibatullah Akundzada for releasing their deputy leader Maulvi Faqir Mohammed from Bagram highest security prison. No less than 7,000 hardcore and most brutal terrorists were let go by the Taliban from Bagram prison and the US will have to answer for future terror attacks. It will become clear to India on Pakistan’s leverage on the Afghan Taliban if they try to get their Pakistan namesake on the peace table for Rawalpindi GHQ.
The other issue being watched by Indian counter-terrorism experts is the relationship between the Taliban and Bhawalpur based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) group, which has vowed to target India on Kashmir. One must remember that Jaish Emir Maulana Masood Azhar was taken directly to Emir-ul-Momeen Mullah Omar after he was freed by India in the 1999 IC-814 hijacking at Kandahar. The Taliban have no love lost for Ahle-Hadith Lashkar-e-Tayebba group and are now low on priority of the Pakistani ISI.
If Taliban have no overt interest in Kashmir, then they will not supply top of the line US made weapons, drones and military vehicles or provide terror training camps to Azhar gang in Afghanistan for targeting India. If India is targeted under the umbrella of Taliban despite their public and private assurances, then the next Balakot will be in Afghanistan.
Anas Haqqani, youngest son of the founder of the anti-India Haqqani network, Jalaludin Haqqani, told a news channel that Kashmir was beyond its jurisdiction. But Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen said they had the right to raise their voice for Muslims in Kashmir. Most major attacks against the Indian assets in Afghanistan have been executed by the Haqqanis, who were described by former US Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, as a veritable arm of the ISI. Some Taliban statements are in sync with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s (also called Taliban Khan) who has described the Taliban victory as breaking the shackles of slavery. He has used a similar language to incite revolt in Kashmir. Neelam Irshad Sheikh, a leader from Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf party, has even said she hoped the Taliban will help us in Kashmir.
From the Indian perspective, rise of Taliban will not only pose an internal security challenge to the Modi government with large scale radicalisation as a first step, it will also embolden Pakistan based terrorist groups to attack India. Jaish has operated with the Taliban in Afghanistan but it was the ISI that forced Haqqani Network to help LeT cadre to attack Indian embassy and consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar in the past. Lashkar on its own has limited influence in Kunar province of Afghanistan
India Taliban Qatar Meet
Indian Ambassador to Qatar, Deepak Mittal met Taliban leader Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the Head of Taliban’s Political Office in Doha, on 31 August, at the request of the Taliban in Doha to discuss the “safety, security and early return of Indian nationals stranded in Afghanistan” among other things. This appears to be a shift from India’s ‘wait and watch’ policy, and rightly so. The policy has got its own set of limitations.
The meeting between Mittal and Stanekzai, the first time any contact has been made public, took place after prime minister Narendra Modi, noting the evolving situation in Afghanistan, directed that a high-level group comprising external affairs minister S Jaishankar, NSA Ajit Doval and senior officials focus on India’s immediate priorities.
The meeting in Doha followed Stanekzai’s statements over the previous three days. He said India is “very important for this subcontinent” and his group wants to continue Afghanistan’s “cultural”, “economic”, “political” and “trade ties” with India “like in the past.
India’s dilemma was understandable as it has historically abstained from providing legitimacy to the Taliban and had an appreciable degree of rapport with Ashraf Ghani government.
India’s Options
For India, a victim for decades of cross-border terrorism from Pakistan, 9/11 was a marker. With the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and in many the global war on terror no longer being the central focus of American attention, India will have to fight many of its battles alone — as it did before 9/11. Hopefully, the lessons of the need for making independent decisions and fighting “your own battles” will not be lost to decision-makers who had hoped that the US would not abandon the cause so soon.
Ironically, though, the emergence of the Islamic State and a reinvigorated Muslim Brotherhood has had the collateral effect of drawing the Gulf states such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, concerned about the danger posed to their polities by these ideologies, closer to India. America’s draconian sanctions on Iran, including for its alleged terrorist activities, have adversely affected our strategic as well as energy interests in Iran.
As against all these negative realities, India-US counter-terrorism cooperation has productively expanded in important areas. The US recognition of the LeT, JeM, HuM as terrorist groups, and its references to “cross-border terrorism” have been diplomatically helpful, but this has not balanced the far larger unpunished space given to Pakistan despite its terrorist affiliations.
India supported “an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned” peace and reconciliation process. But while other countries did not let this prevent their contacts with the Taliban in Doha and elsewhere, India followed it in letter and spirit. With the US out and Ashraf Ghani gone, there was no option except to withdraw all diplomatic presence, closing the embassy for all practical purposes.
India continues to “wait and watch” Afghan developments. While it does so, many new terms are being added to the Indian diplomatic lexicon by supporters of such an approach. These include “strategic patience” and not granting “legitimacy”. While some members of the Indian foreign policy and strategic community now seem willing to accept the need for open contact with the Taliban by the government, others are not willing to go so far.
The Taliban should first guarantee that they will not allow themselves to be used by Pakistan in any jihadi activity in our country. This would be a huge win for India, but it is also to be noted that the Taliban has no interest in Kashmir. In return for this guarantee, India must recognize the Taliban and establish full diplomatic relations with them.
It is in India’s interest to help the emergence of a stable Taliban regime. They have never sought to export their medieval version of Islam; their fault was in allowing others to use their territory to train terrorists. If they are committed to prevent this, the world would be ready to do business with them.
