As the United States of America continues to pull out its troops out of Afghanistan, there has been wide discussions as to who would fill that vacuum
Biden’s decision to remove all US soldiers from Afghanistan has fueled domestic unrest in the nation, where violence is on the rise as the Taliban scores more combat successes against the Afghan government and foreign forces disengage. However, Washington’s decision to withdraw has prompted a regional struggle for power, with many parties ranging from China to Turkey, Russia to India, trying to capitalise on the diplomatic power vacuum in Afghanistan.
India, which has long provided diplomatic and financial assistance to the Afghan government, has allegedly altered its long-held policy of not interacting with the Taliban and is now engaging in direct discussions with the rebel group’s leadership. However, India’s presence in Afghanistan has long been balanced by the presence of the one nation that, whether it wants to or not, will have to pick up the majority of the pieces America leaves behind: Pakistan.
India is engaging with the Taliban because the Taliban are winning. Conservative, largely rural, and illiterate Afghans defeated the Soviet Union at its peak as the Mujahideen. They achieved it with enormous support from the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, and others. The same group has now vanquished the world’s sole superpower. They’ve done it with only Pakistan’s aid.
Before delving into the risks and advantages of dealing with the Taliban, it is important to reaffirm the primary objective of India’s Afghanistan policy, which is to maintain a strategic balance between Kabul and Islamabad. Despite the disparity of strength between two nations, India wants to guarantee that nationalist Afghan thought, which is critical of Pakistan’s interventionism, stays active and aggressive. This is why New Delhi has maintained its support for a “Afghan-owned, Afghan-led” peace process. Engaging with the Taliban is an exercise in averting harm to India’s interests as it is in determining the extent of the group’s nationalism.
The advantages of this successful outreach are obvious. The Taliban recognises India’s beneficial role in Afghanistan and does not want its diplomatic presence to be reduced.The outreach in Doha has given Indian authorities cautious hope that the Taliban will not be openly antagonistic and may even want deeper ties in the medium term.
However, the outreach is not without danger. One possibility is that the Taliban would break its pledges and, with a shove from Pakistan, will strike Indian interests. If this does not happen, the Taliban interlocutors with whom India is negotiating may be marginalised, or worse, replaced by pro-Pakistan supporters such as the Haqqanis. Second, reaching out to the Taliban might hasten the fall of Kabul while complicating India’s ties with existing allies.
Despite these concerns, India has solid reasons to engage the Taliban. For one thing, these worries would persist regardless of India’s approach. If nothing else, undoubtedly India’s absence from the Taliban’s calculus makes it much more vulnerable if the Islamic republic falls apart. For India, the only way to achieve long-term peace in Afghanistan is for there to be peace within Afghanistan and peace around Afghanistan, which will need aligning the interests of everybody, both inside and outside that country.
Eduindex News 