Page 1 of 2 India caught in the Taliban myth
By M K Bhadrakumar
The horrendous terrorist attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul on Monday has no
precedents. Never has the mission there been attacked in this fashion - not
even during the darkest periods of the civil war in the 1980s and 1990. Nor has
any other diplomatic mission in Kabul been so targeted in the current phase of
the civil war that began with the United States invasion in 2001.
The suicide attack claimed the lives of 41 people, with more than 140 injured.
Among the dead were Indian Defense Attache Brigadier R D Mehta, diplomat
Venkateswara Rao and two Indian paramilitary guards.
Unsurprisingly, Indian opinion makers have been swift in depicting
the terrorist act as a moral evil, which it probably is. All the same, it is
necessary to draw a line while presenting what happened as a kind of morality
play of good versus evil. The danger is when the narrative begins depicting a
moral universe where we are hated solely on account of our altruistic motives
and intrinsic goodness.
Whereas, the reality is that we live in savage times where realpolitik and not
morality often enough happens to be the guiding force inciting our monstrous
enemies. A need arises, therefore, to take a more honest look at any hidden
sewers that may exist. Such an exercise cannot and should not in any way
detract from the total condemnation that the terrorists deserve. But it will
serve an important purpose in so far as we do not fall into a false sense of
innocence.
Even the death of a sparrow is a tragedy. Too many Indian lives are being lost
in Afghanistan. The death of a brigadier, certainly, is a huge loss to India's
armed forces. It is about time to ask questions why this is happening. First
and foremost, do we comprehend the complexities of the Afghan situation?
The primary responsibility for this task lies with the Indian mission in Kabul,
which should assess the situation correctly and report to Delhi. The Ministry
of External Affairs will be the best judge to decide whether there have been
any lacunae in putting in place the underpinnings of India's Afghan policy.
After all, a distinct pattern is emerging in the recent past. Is it mere
coincidence?
Each time an Indian life was lost, top officials in Delhi reiterated their
resolve not to be deterred by terrorists. A high-level meeting of officials
ensued to take stock of the security of Indian personnel in Afghanistan. Apart
from diplomatic and other staff, several thousand Indians are involved in
reconstruction work in the country.
We then moved on. But does that approach suffice? Is anyone listening out there
in the Hindu Kush? Isn't a comprehensive re-look of policy warranted? Something
has gone very wrong somewhere. The government owes an explanation.
One thing is clear. The Taliban are a highly motivated movement. They are not
in the business of exhibitionism. Their actions are invariably pinpointed,
conveying some distinguishable political message or the other. This has been so
all along during the past decade. Anyone who interacted with the Taliban would
agree.
Even on the eve of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, they were prepared
to deal, but by then the Gorge W Bush administration was bent on the military
path. In the present case of India's embassy, the terrorist attack was
carefully targeted. Equally, its timing must also bear scrutiny. The overall
fragility of the security situation or the prevailing climate of violence in
Afghanistan alone cannot account for it. India is not part of the tens of
thousands of coalition forces stationed in Afghanistan. But why is India being
singled out? After all, Iran has been no less an "enemy" for the Taliban or
al-Qaeda - or Russia and Uzbekistan for that matter.
The first point is that the Taliban have once again chosen to target Indian
interests, which are located on Afghan soil. They haven't stretched their long
arm to act on Indian soil. Even though India's army chief recently speculated
that Kashmiri militants could have tie-ups with the Taliban or al-Qaeda, such a
link seems highly improbable. (Why there should have been such a speculative
statement at all on a sensitive issue at such a responsible level, we do not
know). The Taliban message is that they have a score to settle with India's
Afghan policy; that it is best settled on Afghan soil; and that they do not
have any hostility toward India as such.
Two, the Taliban have ratcheted up the level of their attacks on Indian
interests. Targeting the Indian chancery makes it a very serious message. It is
unclear whether the Indian defense attache was specifically the target.
Conceivably, he was. If so, the timing of the attack is relevant. India has
sharply stepped up its military-to-military cooperation with Afghanistan. Media
reports indicate that India is training Afghan military personnel and possibly
supplying military hardware to the Afghan armed forces. The Indian authorities
have not cared to deny these reports.
Needless to say, the Taliban would be keeping a close tab. The Taliban have
infiltrated Afghan security agencies and would know the nature of the
India-Afghanistan military cooperation. In any case, in the Kabul bazaar,
nothing remains secret for long. The Taliban seem to have sized up that the
Afghan-Indian "mil-to-mil" cooperation is assuming a cutting edge, and the
resent it, seeing it as unwarranted Indian interference in their country's
internal affairs.
Arguably, India's cooperation is within legitimate parameters. Delhi is dealing
with the duly elected Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai, which enjoys
international legitimacy. But such things are never quite that simple in war
zones. It took all the persuasiveness on the part of India's envoys to get the
mujahideen to accept, with the benefit of hindsight, that India's erstwhile
ties with president Mohammad Najibullah's regime in the 1980s were history and
were not directed against the mujahideen but merely signified
government-to-government relations, which were usual.
Again, as India learned at enormous cost, in the ultimate analysis, it became
completely irrelevant that the Indian Peace Keeping Force saga in the mid-1980s
in Sri Lanka began at the insistence of the established government in Colombo
under the leadership at the highest level. The dividing line between the
judicious and injudicious becomes thin when an outsider becomes involved in a
fratricidal strife.
In this particular case, there is an added factor. The Afghan army has
pronounced ethnic fault lines. Ethnic Tajiks account for close to 70% of the
officer corps of the army. So, when India trains Afghan army officers in its
military academies to fight the Taliban - who are a predominantly Pashtun
movement - India is needlessly stepping into a political minefield of explosive
sensitivity. Either India does not comprehend these vicious undercurrents in
Afghan politics or it chooses to deliberately overlook them. In any case, it
demands some serious explanation.
Three, the United Progressive Alliance government in Delhi has incrementally
harmonized its Afghan policy with the US's "war on terror". This is most
unfortunate. India ought to keep a safe distance from the Bush administration's
war against militant Islam. Besides, the US has complicated motives behind its
intervention in Afghanistan - its geostrategy toward Russia and Central Asia,
its agenda of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's expansion as a global
political organization, its crusade against "Islamofascism", etc.
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh recently revealed in the New Yorker
magazine what was an open secret - Washington has been using Afghanistan as a
base for training and equipping terrorists and planning and executing
subversive activities directed against Iran with a view to speeding up "regime
change" in that country.
India does not share these diabolical US policy objectives and hare-brained
dogmas. But unfortunately, influential sections within the India security
community have labored under the notion that acquiring a sort of frontline
status in the US's "war on terror" in Afghanistan would have tangential gains
with regard to Pakistan. The temptation to harmonize with the US is all the
greater when we see that US-Pakistan security cooperation has come under strain
on account of Islamabad's growing resistance to the American attempt to shift
the locus of the war into the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and the tribal areas
within Pakistan that border Afghanistan.
Again, some others in India's strategic community hold a belief that it is time
India began to flex its muscles in its region. Indeed, US think-tankers
routinely encourage their counterparts to believe that India is far too shy and
reticent for a serious regional power in the exercise of its muscle power.
At any rate, there is a widespread perception in the international community -
including former US officials who held responsible positions and even British
statesmen - that Afghanistan is the theater of a proxy war between Pakistan and
India. But we can certainly do without such a proxy war. There are five good
reasons for saying so.
First, it is tragic, immoral and contemptible if India indeed is cynical enough
to overlook the suffering that it would be inflicting on the friendly Afghan
people - who barely eke out a living as it is - by making them pawns in India's
"low intensity" wars with Pakistan. Second, such a proxy war is contrary to
India's broader regional policy, which is to make Pakistan a stakeholder in
friendly relations with India. Third, India would be annoying or alienating the
Pakistani military, which is a crucial segment of the Pakistani establishment.
Fourth, it undercuts the climate of trust and confidence, which is gathering
slowly but steadily in the overall relationship with Pakistan.
Finally, it is plain unrealistic to overlook Pakistan's legitimate interests in
Afghanistan. It would be as unrealistic as to expect that India would sit back
and take with equanimity if it perceived creeping Pakistani influence in the
Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal or Bhutan. (Three top Indian officials recently
visited Colombo to
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