For the latest in strategic Affairs subscribe to our YouTube channel click the Bell icon for more updates This is talking point on stat News global I’m amitabravi we’re looking at two years of the Taliban in par in its second stint and I expert analyst is Ambassador Gautam India’s ex-onvoy to Afghanistan About some good to see you after a while sir hi Amita good afternoon I know this is a wide-ranging question but how would you assess soon the second year of the Taliban Empire yesh thank you good to be with statues once again uh you know if you just flash back two
Years Afghanistan was literally all over the news you had you know highly uh you know emotive visuals coming out of Kabul people trying to grab you know plain tires to leave the country one year back already it was much quieter but there was still talk about girls education universities opening the
Possibility that girls May women May uh attend University there was still demonstrations and protests occasionally in the crowd and uh the resistance to the Taliban had not entirely vanished it had been pretty much crushed but not entirely vanished actually two years from from then uh coming today Afghanistan is simply not
In the news and the situation both within and without seems to be largely one of stasis very little happening in terms of relationships outside mostly low-key but complicated in terms of relationships inside you know stories about differences over things like girls education Colleges and Schools opening but overall what we see
As is that the Taliban has really reasserted its hard-line dogmatic interpretation of the shariath we see you have stories about musical instruments being destroyed further clampdowns on movement of girls and you know their ability to attend colleges uh uh and uh you know the stories of resistance actually still there but generally down
And we don’t really hear stories of uh you know greater acceptability of the Taliban uh internationally or nationally um within the country in other words two years down the line the Taliban don’t seem to have got greater legitimacy inside the country and outside while there’s been some talk you know about
You know de facto or even perhaps DJ recognition of the Taliban uh there is really no movement even the United States which had been maintaining some contacts you know those contacts had slackened of course the money is still coming in uh very recently there’s special Envoy did have a meeting but
There is really nothing serious there is no peace talks that we can talk about talk about inclusive government has practically disappeared so there is generally a sense of you know nothing happening uh that Afghanistan is not a part of the story so in that process of nothing at least
Recently from the outside happening India is all there has to be no not much movement there as well but it’s in terms of helping the young people would be many great suppliers and yet having a technical team on the ground so as to have your you know your ears and
Eyes in the security cauldron kind of the case hasn’t not been much change with India as not as far as I can see and not that I know in fact it’s been more of the same uh it has remained you know a kind of low level engagement the
Uh I think the main message is that the relationship continues uh but um you know we and you know continues for two reasons one is of course has the government keeps saying as the ministry of external keeps saying you know it’s part of our historical relationships and
Must continue but I think the other main concern and also the concern of the International Community has been essentially to preserve your security interests and to make sure that Afghanistan is not used as a base or as a launching pad for uh you know terrorist or radical extremist kind of
Impulses from Afghanistan and I would say the perhaps in the first instance I didn’t mention uh even internationally uh I just happen to attend an a conference hosted by Tajikistan uh on Tajikistan in Afghanistan and I think among the main messages that came through uh was concerned particularly in
Central Asia about the currents of radicalism extremism uh and the kind of cultural threat that the tariban posed you know quite apart from the terrorist threat that they posed so I would say that even the India relationship is pretty much just taking along at a very low level
We haven’t seen any forward movement on the second prong that you were talking about in this conference on on terrorism doesn’t seem to be any external in terms of the country in oh satisfied with taliban’s verbal assurances or so-called action against their parents so you know I think one of
The great concerns when the Taliban took over was that you know Taliban has always collaborated with a range of kind of extremists and terrorist outfits with their regional and local agendas you know some of them had a sectarian Nintendo agenda anticia some of them had a an agenda in Uzbekistan
Tajikistan someone in xinjiang in China someone else in Pakistan itself like the TTP those against Iran those against India and those with a wider Global reach like Al-Qaeda and Isis um so I think the worst of all that has not happened uh the general sort of story is that uh Al-Qaeda remains but
Remains subdued about a year back we were hearing much more about Isis activity of late we haven’t heard that much which is why I think Afghanistan has been less in the news uh the TTP friction with Pakistan has actually grown and despite some sort of measures being
Taken by the Taliban regime of moving some of the Taliban cars away from the borders and elsewhere to head to elsewhere we are not we don’t get the sense that Pakistan is satisfied and TTP attacks on Pakistan continue as far as India is concerned I think we have kept ourselves reasonably insulated
And I think one or two things are uh sort of so to say worth noting which is that of late in particular the Taliban has issued some statements that they are not really interested in spreading their ideology or certainly their their movement outside Afghanistan and so a couple of reassuring statements have
Come on that though how credible and how believable that is is difficult to establish one thing I would say is certainly true that these are all Kindred uh outfits and they are related by ideology and over a period of 20 years and more of resistance you know there are also
Kinship relations amongst them and it would be very difficult for any of them to actually break off or renounce their relationships so these this Brotherhood of the radicals remains very much in Afghanistan and I don’t see the tariban uh you know having a will if not the
Capacity of really cracking down on them because in effect they would be weakening themselves in the process so overall when you’re talking more genuinely speaking stasis whether like within or without Afghanistan you interestingly point out that the only thing that seems to have changed or is
Coming into the news is in the TDP actions against Pakistan and Pakistan nothing happy with that yeah now is there a lesson for Pakistan yes definitely uh and I’ll come to another point also Iran yeah uh with Pakistan I think definitely the sense that I get uh is that the Swagger uh
That you know uh Fez Hamid exhibited at the in you know at the uh in Kabul at the time of the Takeover that Swagger has gone uh Pakistan itself is in deep trouble and Pakistan is now facing blowback from precisely the kind of elements that they had harbored
Um in a way it was completely foreseeable because the Taliban ideology is the same and it is very difficult to argue that this is good for Afghanistan but not good for for Pakistan and I think that agenda of Pakistan Still Remains which is their whole agenda is
To be able to push Afghanistan back into the Middle Ages both ideologically and perhaps even economically with some some interesting twist coming in because of China so that their and they can control it more or less totally so I think that Swagger has gone uh the
Snake that they have reared is back to bite them they are actually the main item of their relationship the bilateral relationship relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan now centers on the TTP the Duran lined issue is not settled um Taliban spokesman still talk keep talking about the Durand Line as just a
Line so I don’t think actually Pakistan has achieved all those objectives that it’s set out to achieve at the same time I won’t say that a Pakistan influence has gone I think Pakistan continues to uh wield influence in in Afghanistan um and partly because well no other country
Really wields any other influence on uh on on Afghanistan but I’d also like to touch on Iran you know to some extent Iran had engaged with sections of the Taliban and had tried to kind of develop and maintain a working relationship with uh with the tanibar uh but increasingly water issues particularly
You know during a period of prolonged drought uh partly attributable to climate change and in Afghanistan water issues have been surfacing more and more the issue of Afghan refugees in Iran have been surfacing from time to time we also know that Iran hosts a very large
Number of uh so to say the remnants of the Republican Islamic Republican Security Forces so that remains a kind of pressure point differences over Shia and Sunni ideology remain and increasingly we are seeing the kind of tussle between Persian culture and a more kind of Pashto Afghan culture also echoing from
From time to time and so if I look at it in a sort of longer time frame um two years after the crisis we are still not in the period when things have settled down and crystallized uh remember the last time the Taliban took over which was that period when
You know after the you know after the defeat of uh it took five years and an international trigger and a still strong resistance by Emma Shah Masood which actually had territory in Afghanistan to be able to make a kind of comeback which led to 20 years of the Islamic Republic so two
Years into the thing I think in terms of that time cycle we are still very much in the you know adolescent stage and I think you know all the things that happened in the past the crystallization you know anything could happen and a lot depends on what happens uh you know outside
Afghanistan as well in particular if these radical forces are able to spread their wings are able to conduct attacks outside Afghanistan if that were to happen I think things could still start changing although I would say that there are too many other distractions in the world from Ukraine to Taiwan to many
Other things to take you know for this to take primary place at the moment the two distractions very well great but nothing seems to have the chain and neither be China or restaurants yes you see again uh in early days in the early days we saw
China taking a lot of interest uh you know they tried to convene meetings I think their foreign ministers visited more than once uh there was a lot of talk about the built-in rule that Regional connectivity I think China was looking at you know in some ways uh penetrating the centralization massives
And being able to reach out towards the gulf and West Asia uh partly to you know occupy the space that had been vacated by the United States not only in Afghanistan but also you know with the Outsourcing of uh the West Asia issues to the restoration code
I think China saw an opportunity to uh you know to extend its uh its uh fingers into that area if you recall again about two years back they entered into a 25 year old 400 billion you know geo-economic deals centered on energy with Iran and that deal also had strategic overtones
Uh but two years down the line we are not seeing much Headway on Regional connectivity we are not seeing much Headway in terms of Chinese Investments small Investments yes possible Chinese investments in Pakistan in Afghanistan uh you know that kind of somewhat upbeat talk about Afghanistan has receded
Um and we’re really really not seeing any movement from any quarters you talked about Russia I think Russia is still talking about the Moscow format still talking about inclusive government but their early overtures and hopes and expectations that they would find a collaborative partner in the Taliban
With presumably you know to be used against the United States also does not seem to have worked out if anything the United States seems to have a reasonably close under the table relationship with the Taliban uh with you know with their monthly installments of funds presumably for humanitarian
Purposes and the occasional talks still continuing so overall in the sense there is nothing that any individual country or group of countries together unless there are these major triggers that you’re talking about that could happen in the future yeah I think the Taliban right and the Taliban I’ve also learned from
The Republic in terms of standing United whether their voices that are saying different things from the top leadership yes but you’re right uh so actually this gives me a an opportunity to say something else the Taliban has always been very good at maintaining that unit right through the
You know right through the Doha talks and Beyond the Doha talks I think they have been very focused on uh you know the amirul Momin as their figurehead and as the main sort of uh authority figure and regardless of the larger than life you know kind of stature of people like
Sirajuddin haqani and even amullah yakub and many other heavyweights heavyweights in the Taliban uh I think the authority of uh the I mean it has never really been questioned and I think they’ve been very good at that but you know even if you look at internationally uh essentially uh
The West has lost its appetite to support Democratic movements or democracy outside Europe when it came to Ukraine they uh you know they responded or at least they feel that they are responding to you know Democratic impulses in Ukraine uh but whether it is Myanmar or it is
Afghanistan not only have they more or less you know distance themselves from the project of democracy in these countries uh but in the case of Afghanistan they’ve even really confined their support for women’s rights which are under tremendous pressure in Afghanistan entirely to rhetoric and the kind of lip service in
The 1990s when the Taliban was Taliban 1.0 was around there was actually a very robust movement in the west amongst women’s groups and women’s organizations not to cave in to for example oil interests in Afghanistan and in fact I think the women’s movements in the west deserve some credit for to
Prevent the legitimization of the Taliban in that period when there were certain you know kind of corporate forces that were pushing for some degree of recognition uh even that we see missing so even culturally what we see is internationally you know the values of the French Revolution of Freedom uh
Liberty equality fraternity which you know came through the American war of independence and the colonial struggle for Independence for the developing World also we are not seeing that kind of international solidarity for causes for Freedom causes for democracy causes for human rights regionally we are not seeing the kind of partnership that we
Had in the 90s between Iran Russia and India and whatever little low level kind of consultations are taking place through the National Security advisors Network and through the SEO it’s just that in fact there is no other international format whether to discuss peace you know there’s no U.N process to discuss peace
There is not even any uh Regional process to discuss you know peace or for that matter you know inclusive government or anything so really nothing is happening and in a way you know it’s tempting to think whether this is a lull and something may come happen because the humanitarian
Situation has not improved if anything a humanitarian situation of humanitarian concern two years back and at that time it was talked about much more has become worse International funding for Afghanistan has dropped the reach of U.N humanitarian organizations including the wfp their coverage in Afghanistan has dropped so the people of Afghanistan are
Worse off than ever and even the people in Afghanistan all they are looking for is an opportunity to get out it’s just that their Avenues to get out and they’re welcome anywhere else in the world including India unfortunately is not there and in India we are not even being able to help the
Indian students who were studying uh I mean those who are here we have helped but those who went back have not been able to come back and this is a very emotive issue amongst the Indians amongst Afghan students who have been uh effectively left and it is still
Something that is echoing in you know the social media and the Twitter World completely I mean I mean in real life is when thousands of Afghans appreciate you giving us time and helping us to keep alive Afghanistan in the news at least yes thank you Avita for doing at least that much for
Afghanistan pleasure I’m talking to your master campaign and do send in your feedback to this interview with a master Gotham you can also our social media handles to get the latest on whether you put up articles on our website or interviews like this on our YouTube
Channel this is a talking point on stat News global I’m Amit arbi
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