The recall of Indian citizens from Afghanistan, as it emerges now, comes in the context of the heavy fighting by Taliban militants, who are seizing territory after territory there. It’s only a matter of time before the fundamentalists target Kabul and send the Ashraf Ghani government packing. The elected government there is tottering and does not have the wherewithal to challenge the heavily armed Taliban, which has been given full backing by the Pakistan military in terms of weapons and ammunition. The Taliban fight in Afghanistan is today led from the rear by Pakistan and its implications on India are bound to be grim in multiple ways.
The US is still in the picture but it is not clear as to how far it would go to hold the Ghani government erect. In fact, a land army or ground-level support matters little in warfare as was proven since the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Warfare has eminent emphasis now on air power and use of missiles. The US can do what it did in Iraq and the Afghan ground forces can take care of the rest. The moot point is how President Joe Biden and his administration are sizing up the scenario.
India on its own cannot do much. If it enters the fight, it would swiftly turn into a fight between India and Pakistan; and a full-scale war in the subcontinent will be the result. China can be expected to back both the Pakistanis and the Taliban with a sense of camaraderie. Foreign minister S Jaishankar was in Iran this week to attend the inauguration of a new head of state there and Afghanistan figured prominently in the Indian minister’s discussions there. He is also heading for another visit to the Americas, touching down in the US as well. Indian diplomacy is active vis-à-vis developments in Afghanistan, where India had put in a lot of efforts in the past two decades. It did so by building on the previous strengths of bilateral relations from the time of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and carried forward in the years of Hamid Karzai as the head of state there in recent years. Yet, the only hope now is based on how much leeway Ghani would get from the US in facing the present situation. One can only hope the US would continue taking adequate interest in checking the drift in Afghanistan, which could otherwise mean a resurgence of the terrorist outfits in the subcontinent. This will also have grave implications on the Indian side of Kashmir.
