In recent months Afghanistan had witnessed the rapid collapse of its military power and the subsequent resignation of the government as Taliban marched towards the national capital of Kabul in their quest of recapturing the power they had lost nearly two decades before when the United States of America led military alliance unleashed a punitive military action against the Taliban for harbouring terrorists and aiding terrorism across the world. Afghanistan holds a significant place in Indian foreign policy. India has deep economic, political and civilizational linkages with Afghanistan. In recent years, the stride of Indo-Afghan bilateral collaboration in the political, security, development and cultural areas have seen sustained acceleration. Afghanistan is significant for India’s security and economic interests. However, the seizure of Kabul by the Talibani forces have raised concerns for New Delhi as it is presuming a loss of diplomatic influence over the region. Institute of Social and Cultural Studies, for long, as a part of its endeavour to analyse the emerging socio- political, economic and cultural issues along India’s immediate neighbourhood had organised several meaningful disquisitions on Afghanistan. Thus as a part of that initiative, Institute of Social and Cultural Studies had organised a webinar to discuss the possible impacts of Taliban’s retake of Afghanistan titled “The Descend of Afghanistan and its impact on India”.

Chaired by eminent scholar and international relation expert Professor Ishani Naskar, Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University, the webinar included a host of distinguished scholars and eminent persons like Capt. Alok Bansal, Director, India Foundation and Adjunct Professor, New Delhi Institute of Management, Mr. Sultan Shahin, Founder-Editor, NewAgeIslam.com, Mr. Shreyas D. Deshmukh, Research Associate, Delhi public group.

Afghanistan is a difficult country to govern, empire after empire, nation after nation had failed to pacify what is today the modern territory of Afghanistan giving the region the nickname of “graveyard of empire”. The moderator of the webinar, in her introductory note, rightfully echoed the above notion and stated how world powers like the British empire, the mighty Soviet or more recently United States of America failed to dominate the territories of Afghanistan. Stating the geo-strategic importance of the country she pointed out how Soviet invasion of Afghanistan gave rise to radical Islam in this region. In her initial disquisition she raised a number of questions like what would be the roadmap of the radical militia as they try to seek legitimacy in the country; she also raised the issue of growing civil resistance in the country against Taliban. She also placed additional issues like the policy failure of United States in regard to Afghanistan, the implication of the Pakistan-China nexus in this present situation, approach of the Islamic countries and Russia and specially India and urged the panellists to analyse them in their disquisition thereafter requesting Captain Alok Bansal to initiate his presentation.

The distinguished speaker commenced his presentation by differing with the moderator about terming Afghanistan as the graveyard of empire which he believed to be a British colonial construct that was successfully propagated by the Americans. While addressing the current political crisis the distinguished speaker highlighted how the widespread electoral corruption of the Afghan presidential election, President Donald Trump’s decision to negotiate with the Taliban and President Biden’s decision to withdraw the U.S. military from the Afghan soil had a disastrous effect over the democratic regime of Afghanistan leading to the overtake of the country’s rule of the Talibani militia. The distinguished speaker firmly believed that the Pakistani military establishment had advised and guided the Talibani insurgents in their expedition pointing out how the Taliban, unlike the past, through a well-planned manner was able to take control of the key border posts near Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Iran cutting the supports of the rebels who had opposed the Talibans. He also stated that initial dilemma= of the Taliban leadership to enter Kabul as evident from its declaration in Doha on 15th August, 2021 and their subsequent capture of Kabul made it abundantly clear that the Pakistani military leadership had advised them to capture Kabul. He also echoed the concern that the change of regime would bring in the end of India’s diplomatic influence over the region. He added that though the Taliban leadership
seems speaking of an inclusive government; assuring women to go for work, negotiating with Afghan leadership like Hamid Karzai and Abduallah Abduallah, things in reality were different.

In the concluding part of his presentation he stated that regime change in Afghanistan would have a long standing security implication over India as Taliban’s patronage for the global terrorist groups would not only increase recruitment of terrorists from India but under the patronage of Pakistani military and ISI, Taliban foot soldiers would now turn their eyes to Kashmir and India as a whole which they presumed to be part of Kohurestan.number of Tajik and Uzbek soldiers. This was not only helping the militia to draw local support but also successfully block the logistic support opposition forces received from these neighbouring nations in the past. He concluded his discussion by stating that the problem in Afghanistan had unfolded a serious crisis for India which the leadership would require to negotiate successfully. He was followed by Mr. Sultan Shahin who believed that the situation was not alarming despite Taliban’s capture of power. Describing the Talibani militia as an undisciplined force having a sole aim to loot and plunder, he also pointed out how the Talibani leadership was negotiating with the section of the present leadership of Afghanistan to gain legitimacy in the nation. The speaker in his discussion denied accepting the similarity between ISIS and Taliban as propagated by a section of political commenters.

Subsequently he pointed out how large scale protest against Taliban by ordinary citizens specially women this time is in sharp contrast from 1996 when Taliban was welcomed by citizens as they took control of Kabul. In the due course of his discussion he regretted the approach of the radical Ulema of India who came in support of Taliban rather than criticising it. The distinguished speaker also opined that Talibani take-over of Kabul would unleash serious damage to the Pakistani army as terror outfits like TTP might gain power in the Northwest Frontier
Province of Pakistan. The Deobandi movement became the most popular school of Islamic thought among Pashtuns living on both sides of the Durand Line. The Deobandi school of thought had a pronounced influence over the Talibani thought process which the distinguished panellist discussed vividly in the concluding part of his deliberation.

The last speaker of the webinar Mr. Shreyas D. Deshmukh started his discussion by presenting a brief chronology of events that took place a few days before the Taliban took over the political control of Afghanistan. The distinguished speaker stated that though Pakistan had been a victim of home grown terrorism yet its influence on the Taliban and assisting them in their mission to successfully overtake the country could not be denied. He added that the leading world powers like China, United Kingdom and Germany maintaining close contact with the Pakistani leadership after the recent Afghan crisis showed the credible influence they had over the Talibani leadership. In his précise deliberation, he discussed the impact of the Afghan crisis on Pakistan and its close associate China. The speaker stated that the present crisis had created a situation where Pakistan remained the primary contact between various nations in the world and Taliban. He added that this crisis created a political sphere where the nations in a desperate need to evacuate its diplomats and citizens had to rely solely on Pakistan. He opined that the Pakistani leadership due to their cordial relationship with the Talibans might ask their help to exert pressure to curb the PTM movement in the Kyber-Pakhtunkhwa region and also try to stabilise the long standing Durand Line dispute. The regime change had also triggereda major refugee crisis; the speaker presumed that Pakistan would use the Afghan refugee crisis as a  diplomatic tool to gather economic and political support from the international community.

The distinguished scholar also discussed how the present crisis would impact Chinese interest in this region by assessing its impact on the Belt and Road initiative. He also addressed the possibility of China filling up the vacuum as the U.S. footprint got substantially reduced in the region. He also threw light on how China’s close proximity with Pakistan and the Taliban would affect the East Turkmenistan secessionist movement in China. He opined that though the regional countries bordering Afghanistan were in favour of a politically stable Afghan nation and had, to a limited extent, negotiated with the Talibani leadership, yet there was high possibilities that the regional countries would not support Taliban’s radical notion of establishing an Islamic emirate.

Subsequently, in the disquisition he commented that the effort of Taliban to engage the existing bureaucracy and a section of the national leadership together to form a government exhibit its incapability to govern a nation. He ended his deliberation with a concern that the Talibani takeover of Afghanistan would in the long run transform the country into a pivot of terrorism jeopardising the security and peace of the entire world. Soon after the deliberation came to an end, the moderator opened the session for the audience to raise their questions and comments from the panellists. A series of questions were raised like the emerging implication of the refugee crisis due to this regime change, the situation of the women and their right under this radical regime and the geo-strategic implication of the regime change over India. The questions were adequately answered by the distinguished scholars. The programme ended with the vote of thanks from Kankana Roy on behalf of Institute of Social and Cultural Studies, where she thanked the moderator and the speakers for their deliberations and the audience for their comments and questions on this issue.