Page 2 of 2 India caught in the Taliban myth
By M K Bhadrakumar
make precisely such a point about trends toward Sri Lanka's expansion of ties
with China and Pakistan.)
Call it "sphere of influence", call it the "Monroe Doctrine" [1], but there are
geopolitical realities that cannot be overlooked. Afghanistan poses fundamental
challenges to Pakistan's territorial integrity and sovereignty. Therefore,
Pakistan is highly sensitive about Afghanistan's external relations. It is
inconceivable that Pakistan would take in its stride any Indian activities in
Afghanistan, which it perceives as threatening its security interests.
(Sophistries apart, Delhi's calculated political decision to maintain
consulates in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif is a case in
point.) A futile cycle of tit-for-tat will ensue
whereby India and Pakistan would end up bleeding each other.
From the Indian perspective at least, its national priorities at the present
crucial juncture of economic growth and development should be very obvious. It
can do without mindless distractions and extravaganzas. It needs a peaceful
external environment. China's fascinating example of national priorities is in
front of India - almost mocking it.
The biggest danger is that in the present climate of euphoria over India's
so-called strategic partnership with the US, Washington may egg Delhi on to a
"proactive" role in Afghanistan. Indeed, this may be happening already to some
extent. India (and China) has been approached by the Bush administration to
send troops to Afghanistan. Understandably, with the Afghan war posing such a
profound dilemma to the US, Washington would be immensely pleased if India,
with its surplus manpower, geared up for a bit of load-sharing in the "war on
terror".
Nothing would be more foolhardy on India's part than to be drawn into the US
stratagem. There cannot be any two opinions that when the chips are down, the
US would know that Pakistan is a fundamentally more valuable ally in
Afghanistan than India ever could aspire to be. Simply put, geography favors
Pakistan, and geography delimits a direct Indian role in Afghanistan.
India can only end up as a doormat for US regional policy. However, there are
disturbing signs that sections of the Indian strategic community, egged on by
the armchair cheerleaders in its media, are raring to go for a bit of action in
the great game. Indeed, the great game in the Hindu Kush is a heady,
exhilarating game. But it is also a high-risk one. It can even end up
tragically, which was what happened to imperial Britain and the Soviet Union -
and quite probably will happen to the US.
It is understandable if India were to retaliate against the Taliban for its
hostile activities towards India. But that is not the case here. The case is
more of the powerful pro-American lobby in India's security community hoping
against hope that somehow or the other a justification could be found for a
raison d'etre for India to get involved in the Afghan war. The easy route is to
cast the Taliban as inimical to India's national security.
Part of the problem is also India's lack of understanding about the phenomenon
of political Islam and its manifestations in its neighborhood. Carnegie scholar
and author of Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy, Fawaz A
Gerges, has tackled the intellectual challenge of disentangling myth from the
reality of Islamism. He came up with some facts to consider: a) Islamism is
highly complex and diverse; the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates which
form the overwhelming majority (over 90%) of religiously political groups
embrace democratic principles and oppose violence; b) Mainstream Islamists have
become unwitting harbingers of democratic transformation in Muslim societies,
learning to make compromises and even rethink some of their absolute positions;
c) Mainstream militants serve as a counterweight to ultra-militants like
al-Qaeda; d) Islamists, like their secular counterparts, are deeply divided
among themselves and the intensity of the fault lines are very real.
Interestingly, Gerges had this to say about the Taliban: "There is nothing
uniquely 'Islamic' about their internal governing style except the rhetoric and
the symbolism. They have not offered up an original model of Islamic
governance." Thus, once in power in the late 1990s, the Taliban did face a
Herculean task of coping with political reality. If not for their cynical
manipulation in the 1990s by outsiders - the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia -
the Taliban would not have been driven into the welcoming arms of al-Qaeda.
Much of the currently perceived threat to regional stability from the Taliban
is a dark illusion that has been exaggerated and distorted. But then India
became trapped by a fear and adversarial perceptions had crystallized by the
late 1990s. India promptly, unconditionally, surrendered the right to question
the myth about the Taliban. Indeed, Taliban functionaries kept conveying to
India directly and through intermediaries that they didn't harbor ill will
toward India to provoke such vehement Indian support for the anti-Taliban
Northern Alliance.
Maybe India overreacted; maybe the searing pain of the blood-letting in Jammu
and Kashmir in the late 1980s and early 1990s percolated into India's thinking;
maybe the specter of Islamic extremism genuinely haunted the country; maybe
Pakistan's hostile manner prompted India to retaliate; maybe the hijack of the
Indian Airlines aircraft to Kandahar in Afghanistan in 1999 and the humiliation
that followed was too much to accept; maybe the destruction of the famed Bamyan
statues in Afghanistan in 2001 was already an affront to India's civilization.
Certainly, one thing led to another.
But 2001 was a cut-off point. India should have stopped in its tracks and
reassessed. The Bonn conference in the winter of 2001 following the invasion of
Afghanistan was the occasion for an ancient country like India to have pointed
out to the world community that there could be no durable peace unless the
vanquished and the defeated party was also brought into the settlement. The
Europeans would have understood. But India's political leadership let the
country down. Instead, India revived belief in its role to battle evil. On the
other hand, if India had plodded through, the myth might have easily fallen
away. And that might have offered a permanent solution to India's Taliban
problem.
Note
1. The Monroe Doctrine is a US doctrine which, on December 2, 1823, said that
European powers were no longer to colonize or interfere with the affairs of the
newly independent nations of the Americas. The United States planned to stay
neutral in wars between European powers and their colonies. However, if later
on, these types of wars were to occur in the Americas, the United States would
view such action as hostile. President James Monroe first stated the doctrine
during his seventh annual State of the Union Address to Congress, a defining
moment in the foreign policy of the United States. Most recently, during the
Cold War, the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (added during the
presidency of Theodore Roosevelt) was invoked as a reason to intervene
militarily in Latin America to stop the spread of communism. - Wikipedia
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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