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GS Paper: India & Its Neighborhood – Relations

  • India must bet on patience in Afghanistan

    Context

    Notwithstanding the current triumphalism in Pakistan at “overthrowing” the US-backed order in Kabul and “pushing” India out of Afghanistan, India can afford to step back and signal that it can wait.

    Uncertainties about the future

    Two interconnected political negotiations unfolding are likely to determine Afghanistan’s immediate future.

    1) Setting up political order

    • One is focused on building a new political order within Afghanistan.
    • More than a week after President Ghani fled Kabul, there is no government, let alone an inclusive and internationally acceptable one, in sight.
    • Before Pakistan can get the Taliban to share power with other groups, it has to facilitate an acceptable accommodation between different factions of the Taliban.
    • Then there is the problem of including the non-Taliban formations in the new government.

    2) Gaining international recognition

    • The international community has set some broad conditions for the recognition of the Taliban-led government.
    • Besides an inclusive government at home, the world wants to see respect for human rights, especially women’s rights, ending support for international terrorism, and stopping opium production.
    • Pakistan will hope to get some of its traditional friends like China and Turkey or new partners like Russia to break the current international consensus.
    • Pakistan and the Taliban, however, know Chinese and Russian support is welcome but not enough.
    • They need an understanding of the US and its allies to gain political legitimacy as well as sustained international economic assistance.
    • The West, too, needs the Taliban to facilitate the evacuation of its citizens from Kabul and, sooner rather than later, deliver humanitarian assistance.

    How India differs from Pakistan in its approach towards Afghanistan?

    • India has never been in strategic competition with Pakistan in Afghanistan. India’s lack of direct geographic access to Afghanistan has ensured that.
    • Both their strategies have roots in the 19th-century policies of the Raj.
    • Forward policy: The Pakistan Army’s quest for strategic depth in Afghanistan harks back to the “forward policy” school that sought to actively control the territories beyond the Indus.
    • The forward policy seeks political dominance over Afghanistan in the name of a “friendly government” in Kabul.
    • Masterly inactivity: India, in contrast, stayed with a rival school in the Raj that called for “masterly inactivity” — a prudent approach to the badlands beyond the Indus.
    • India’s strategy seeks to strengthen Kabul’s autonomy vis-à-vis Rawalpindi and facilitate Afghanistan’s economic modernisation.
    • The Afghan values that India supports — nationalism, sovereignty, and autonomy — will endure in Kabul, irrespective of the nature of the regime.

    Consider the question “What are the implications of the return of Taliban in Afghanistan for India? What should be India’s approach in dealing with the Taliban controlled Afghanistan?” 

    Conclusion

    Strategic patience coupled with political empathy for Afghan people, and an active engagement will continue to keep India relevant in Kabul’s internal and external evolution.

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  • What is Shariah Law?

    The Taliban have pledged that women in Afghanistan will have rights “within the bounds of Islamic law,” or Shariah, under their newly established rule.

    What is Shariah?

    • Shariah is based on the Quran, stories of the Prophet Muhammad’s life, and the rulings of religious scholars, forming the moral and legal framework of Islam.
    • The Quran details a path to a moral life, but not a specific set of laws.

    Interpreting Shariah

    • The interpretations of Shariah are a matter of debate across the Muslim world, and all groups and governments that base their legal systems on Shariah have done so differently.
    • One interpretation of Shariah could afford women extensive rights, while another could leave women with few.
    • Critics have said that some of the Taliban restrictions on women under the guise of Islamic law actually went beyond the bounds of Shariah.
    • When the Taliban say they are instituting Shariah law, that does not mean they are doing so in ways that Islamic scholars or other Islamic authorities would agree with.

    What does Shariah prescribe?

    • Shariah lists some specific crimes, such as theft and adultery, and punishments if accusations meet a standard of proof.
    • It also offers moral and spiritual guidance, such as when and how to pray, or how to marry and divorce.
    • It does not forbid women to leave home without a male escort or bar them from working in most jobs.

    How has the Taliban previously interpreted Shariah?

    • When the Taliban controlled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, they banned television and most musical instruments.
    • They established a department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice based on a Saudi model.

    Restrictions imposed on Women

    • Restrictions on behavior, dress, and movement were enforced by morality police officers, who drove around in pickup trucks, publicly humiliating and whipping women who did not adhere to their rules.
    • In 1996, a woman in Kabul, Afghanistan, had the end of her thumb cut off for wearing nail polish, according to Amnesty International.
    • Other restrictions include a ban on schooling for girls, and publicly bashing people who violated the group’s morality code.
    • Women accused of adultery are stoned to death.

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  • Places in news: Panjshir Valley

    The Taliban has sent hundreds of its fighters to the Panjshir Valley, one of the few parts of Afghanistan not yet controlled by the group.

    Panjshir Valley

    • Located 150 km north of Kabul, the Valley is near the Hindu Kush Mountain range.
    • It’s divided by the Panjshir river and ringed by the Panjshir mountains in the north and the Kuhestan mountains in the south.
    • The mountain tops are covered by snow throughout the year.
    • This difficult terrain makes the Valley a nightmare for invaders.

    Why is it significant?

    • The Valley has repeatedly played a decisive role in Afghanistan’s military history, as its geographical position almost completely closes it off from the rest of the country.
    • The only access point to the region is through a narrow passage created by the Panjshir River, which can be easily defended militarily.
    • Famed for its natural defenses, the region tucked into the Hindu Kush mountains never fell to the Taliban during the civil war of the 1990s, nor was it conquered by the Soviets a decade earlier.
    • Panjshir Valley was among the safest regions in the country during the time of the NATO-backed government from 2001 to 2021.
    • The valley is also known for its emeralds, which were used in the past to finance the resistance movements against those in power.

    Answer this PYQ:

    Consider the following pairs

    Towns: Country in news        

    1. Aleppo: Syria
    2. Kirkuk: Yemen
    3. Mosul: Palestine
    4. Mazar-i-sharif: Afghanistan

    Which of the pairs given above are correctly matched? (CSP 2018)

    (a) 1 and 2

    (b) 1 and 4

    (c) 2 and 3

    (d) 3 and 4

     

    [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”y9iww5wevm” question=”Please leave a feedback on this” opened=”1″]Post your answers here.[/wpdiscuz-feedback]

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  • Understanding the anxieties behind Chinese aggression towards India

    Context

    Chinese President Xi Jinping made a surprise visit to Tibet on July 21, signalling the seriousness with which China continues to take its Himalayan border dispute with India.

    Understanding China’s strategic challenges and intensions

    • Demonstration of political confidence through aggression: More than a year after the clash at Galwan Valley, efforts to resolve the border crisis continue to move slowly.
    • The Chinese side has previously failed to complete troop withdrawals and revert to the status quo that the Indian side believed China agreed to.
    • China’s behaviour has been calculated to demonstrate political confidence.
    • Worsening strategic environment for China: Seen from Beijing, the strategic environment for China is beginning to worsen in South and Central Asia.
    • As the US withdraws and the Taliban advances in Afghanistan, China fears the prospect of instability and an emerging haven for terrorism directed against its policies in Xinjiang.
    • Even as China seeks to scale back the debt-laden BRI, such instability may also result in Beijing increasing its already overstretched external commitments — particularly in the security domain.
    • Re-emergence of Quad: China is deeply worried by the re-emergence and strengthening of multilateral opposition to China, and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or “Quad”) between the US, Japan, Australia and India.
    • For China, this represents a persistent threat not only economically and in foreign policy, but also militarily along its maritime periphery in the South and East China Seas, as well as the Taiwan Strait.
    • As US multilateral cooperation with its partners has increased, Beijing has come to increasingly see itself as beset by threats on all sides.

    China’s 2 possible responses to strategic challenges and its implications for India

    • 1) Wolf warrier diplomacy: So far, the response from China’s new class of “wolf warrior” diplomats to this emerging strategic challenge has been to only grow more assertive in rhetoric and behaviour.
    • China’s domestic politics: Response of wolf warrior diplomats may seem perplexing, given that it has served only to alienate other countries and isolate China further.
    •  China’s domestic politics in the lead up to the 20th Congress will mean that its leaders, diplomats and generals will be displaying maximum nationalistic fervour.
    • Implications for India: This may well mean China taking political and policy decisions, which in a normal season they would not because doing so could compromise Beijing’s longstanding diplomatic and strategic goals, including in dealings with India.
    • 2) Moderate approach to improve strategic position: But if instead of aggressive posture, China decided that it was better domestic politics to improve China’s strategic position in Asia amid its competition with Washington, Beijing’s diplomats may yet adopt a more moderate approach, including with India.
    • Implications for India: If stability can be restored to the China-India strategic relationship, this could provide a window for Asia’s two mega-economies to reopen their markets to each other.

    Conclusion

    Indeed, the choice China makes between these two alternatives will have implications for India and the rest of the world in their dealing with China.

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  • Visualizing the Himalaya with other coordinates

    A conceptual audit of questions related to geopolitics and security concerns while talking or thinking about the Himalaya is perhaps long overdue.

    About the Himalayas

    • The Himalayas are a mountain range in South and East Asia separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau.
    • The range has many of Earth’s highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest, at the border between Nepal and China.
    • Lifted by the subduction of the Indian tectonic plate under the Eurasian Plate, the Himalayan Mountain range runs west-northwest to east-southeast in an arc 2,400 km.
    • It consists of parallel mountain ranges: the Sivalik Hills on the south; the Lower Himalayan Range; the Great Himalayas, which is the highest and central range; and the Tibetan Himalayas on the north.
    • The Karakoram are generally considered separate from the Himalayas.

    Identity of Himalayas: Only as a frontier

    • We have been examining the Himalaya mainly through the coordinates of geopolitics and security while relegating others as either irrelevant or incompatible.
    • In a certain sense, our intellectual concerns over the Himalaya have been largely shaped by the assumption of fear, suspicion, rivalry, invasion, encroachment and pugnacity.
    • If during colonial times it was Russophobia, then now it is Sinophobia or Pakistan phobia that in fact determines our concerns over the Himalayas.
    • Ironically it is the Delhi-Beijing-Islamabad triad, and not the mountain per se, that defines our concerns about the Himalayas.

    A national Himalaya

    • Border issues has given birth to the political compulsion of territorializing the Himalaya on a par with the imperatives of nationalism.
    • Thus the attempt to create a national Himalaya by each of the five nations (Nepal, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, and Tibet/China) fall within this transnational landmass called the Himalaya.

    India and the Himalayas

    • India’s understanding of the Himalayas is informed by a certain kind of realism, as it continues to remain as space largely defined in terms of sovereign territoriality.
    • It may be perceived that such an alternative conceptualization of Himalayas is not only possible but also necessary.

    Various initiatives

    • National Mission on Himalayan Studies: It is a classic case in point that provides funds for research and technological innovations, but creating policies only for the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR).

    A historical logjam of territorialization

    • The Himalayas territorialization bears a colonial legacy which also sets up its post-colonial destiny as played out within the dynamics of nation-states.
    • The arbitration of relationships between and among the five nation-states falling within the Himalayan landmass has failed to transcend.
    • The lines of peoplehood and the national border never coincided; thus, it was bound to give birth to tensions while working out projects predicated upon national sovereignty.
    • Given this historical logjam, what we can only expect is the escalation of territorial disputes as the immediate fallout.

    Borders and their differences

    • It needs to be recognized that political borders and cultural borders are not the same things.
    • Political borders are to be considered as space-making strategies of modern nation-states that do not necessarily coincide with cultural borders.
    • It needs to be realized that the domain of non-traditional security (cases of ecological devastation, climate change) is equally important.

    Conclusion

    • The Himalaya is a naturally evolved phenomenon should be understood through frameworks that have grown from within the Himalaya.
    • Viewing the Himalayas as a space of political power is a violent choice, which actually enriched ultra-sensitivity towards territorial claims and border management.

  • ‘Open talks’ with the Taliban is India’s strategic necessity

    Context

    With over a third of Afghanistan’s more than 400 districts under Taliban control, the talk-to-the-Taliban option is indeed the best of the many less than perfect options available to India.

    India need a reset in its Afghanistan policy

    • India has ‘temporarily’ closed its consulate in Kandahar.
    • This follows the decision to suspend operations in the Indian consulates in Jalalabad and Herat.
    • India’s decision to partially “withdraw” from Afghanistan shows that betting only on the government in Kabul was a big mistake,
    • It also shows that India realises the threat the Taliban poses to Indian assets and presence in Afghanistan.
    • To safeguard its civilian assets there as well as to stay relevant in the unfolding ‘great game’ in and around Afghanistan, India must fundamentally reset its Afghanistan policy.
    • India must, in its own national interest, begin ‘open talks’ with the Taliban before it is too late.
    • Open dialogue with the Taliban should no longer be a taboo; it is a strategic necessity.

    Reason for avoiding open talks with Taliban

    • There are at least five possible reasons why India appears to want to keep the Taliban engagement slow and behind closed doors.
    • First, if India chooses to engage the Taliban directly, it could make Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, to look towards China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) for national security and personal political survival.
    • Second, India is also faced with the dilemma of who to talk to within the Taliban given that it is hardly a monolith.
    • Third, given the global opprobrium that Taliban faced in its earlier avatar and the lack of evidence about whether the outfit is a changed lot today, New Delhi might not want to court the Taliban so soon.
    • Fourth, there is little clarity about what the Taliban’s real intentions are going forward and what they would do after ascending to power in Kabul.
    • Fifth, it would not be totally unreasonable to consider the possibility of Pakistan acting out against India in Kashmir if India were to establish deeper links with the Taliban.

    Reasons India should engage with the Taliban openly

    • Wide international recognition: Whether we like it or not, the Taliban, is going to be part of the political scheme of things in Afghanistan, and unlike in 1996, a large number of players in the international community are going to recognise/negotiate/do business with the Taliban.
    • Countering Pakistan: The Taliban today is looking for regional and global partners for recognition and legitimacy especially in the neighbourhood.
    • So the less proactive the Indian engagement with the Taliban, the stronger Pakistan-Taliban relations would become.
    • A worldly-wise and internationally-exposed Taliban 2.0 would develop its own agency and sovereign claims including perhaps calling into question the legitimacy of the Durand Line separating Pakistan and Afghanistan, something Pakistan was always concerned about. T
    • The Taliban would want to hedge their bets on how far to listen to Pakistan.
    • That is precisely when New Delhi should engage the Taliban.
    • Security of civilian assets: India needs to court all parties in Afghanistan, including the Taliban if it wants to ensure its security of its civilian assets there.
    • It makes neither strategic nor economic sense to withdraw from Afghanistan after spending over $3 billion, something the Government seems to be prepared to do
    • Being a part of Afghanistan’s future course: If India is not proactive in Afghanistan at least now, late as it is, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and China will emerge as the shapers of Afghanistan’s political and geopolitical destiny, which for sure will be detrimental to Indian interests there.
    • Continental grand strategy:  Backchannel talks with Pakistan and a consequent ceasefire on the Line of Control, political dialogue with the mainstream Kashmiri leadership, secret parleys with Taliban all indicate that India is opening up its congested north-western frontier.
    •  Except for the strategic foray into the Indo-Pacific, India today is strategically boxed in the region and it must break out of it. Afghanistan could provide, if not immediately, India with such a way out.

    Consider the question ” India’s Afghan policy is at a major crossroads; to safeguard its civilian assets there as well as to stay relevant in the unfolding ‘great game’ in and around Afghanistan, New Delhi must fundamentally reset its Afghanistan policy. Comment.” 

    Conclusion

    In the end, India’s engagement with the Taliban may or may not achieve much, but non-engagement will definitely hurt Indian interests.

    Back2Basics: Durand Line

    • Durand Line, boundary established in the Hindu Kush in 1893 running through the tribal lands between Afghanistan and British India, marking their respective spheres of influence.
    • In modern times it has marked the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
    • The acceptance of this line—which was named for Sir Mortimer Durand, who induced ʿAbdor Raḥmān Khān, amir of Afghanistan, to agree to a boundary—may be said to have settled the Indo-Afghan frontier problem for the rest of the British period.

  • China’s role in stabilising Afghanistan

    Context

    Amid the gloom that has enveloped Afghanistan, one hope for many countries has been China’s potential role in stabilising it.

    Factors that call for China to play role in Afghanistan

    • Scope for India-China cooperation: In the past, even India thought that Afghanistan would be a natural area for India and China to work together.
    • But little came out of the understanding after the Wuhan summit in 2018.
    • Northern neighbours: Afghanistan’s northern neighbours, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan all have expanding political and economic ties with China but have traditionally relied on Russia for their security.
    • They might support a larger role for Beijing in Afghanistan in partnership with Russia.
    • Iran, Kabul’s western neighbour, also has deepening ties with China.
    • Bilateral cooperation with the U.S.: Washington, now locked in an escalating confrontation with Beijing, sees Afghanistan as a potential area of bilateral cooperation. 
    • Role of Pakistan: Beijing is indeed critical in Pakistan’s plans for Afghanistan.
    • Afghan leaders have also been eager to draw China’s BRI into their plans for economic modernisation.
    • China was also important for Kabul’s political calculus in limiting Pakistan’s quest for dominance.

    Two challenges in China playing role in stabilising Afghanistan

    1) Caution in Chinese policy

    • The first relates to the deep sources of caution in Chinese policy.
    • Neither the prospect of mining Afghanistan’s natural resources nor the vanity of being the newest superpower will compel China to rush into the Afghan vacuum.
    • China has deep concerns about Taliban’s ideology and its potential role in fomenting instability in its restive Muslim-majority province, Xinjiang. 
    • Beijing cannot depend on its special relationship with the Pakistan army to ensure the security of China’s frontiers as well as its investments in Afghanistan.
    •  The growing attacks on CPEC projects in Pakistan, underline the difficulty of pursuing economic development amid endemic violence.

    2) Priorities of Taliban

    • The second set of problems relate to the priorities of Taliban.
    • It remains to be seen whether the economic development of Afghanistan is a top priority for the Taliban or not.
    • Also, is it open to let in foreign capital and all the baggage that comes with it?
    • More fundamentally, there is no clarity on the role of economic modernisation in Taliban’s fierce insistence on the creation of an Islamic emirate in Afghanistan.

    Conclusion

    It is against this backdrop that the chances of China playing a major role in stabilising Afghanistan remain slim.

  • Explained: India’s Afghan investment

    As the Taliban push ahead with military offensives across Afghanistan, preparing to take over after the exit of US and NATO forces, India faces a situation in which it may lose all its stakes.

    India-Afghan ties

    • After a break between 1996 and 2001, when India joined the world in shunning the previous Taliban regime (only Pakistan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia kept ties).
    • One-way New Delhi re-established ties with the country in the two decades after the 9/11 attacks was to pour in development assistance, under the protective umbrella of the US presence.
    • India built vital roads, dams, electricity transmission lines and substations, schools and hospitals, etc. India’s development assistance is now estimated to be worth well over $3 billion.
    • And unlike in other countries where India’s infrastructure projects have barely got off the ground or are mired in the host nation’s politics, it has delivered in Afghanistan.

    A soft corner

    • Afghanistan is vital to India’s strategic interests in the region.
    • It is also perhaps the only SAARC nation whose people have much affection for India.
    • Taliban takeover would mean a reversal of nearly 20 years of rebuilding a relationship that goes back centuries.

    Projects across the country

    [1] SALMA DAM

    • Already, there has been fighting in the area where one of India’s high-visibility projects is located — the 42MW Salma Dam in Herat province.
    • The hydropower and irrigation project, completed against many odds and inaugurated in 2016, is known as the Afghan-India Friendship Dam.
    • In the past few weeks, the Taliban have mounted attacks in nearby places, killing several security personnel.
    • The Taliban claim the area around the dam is now under their control.

    [2] ZARANJ-DELARAM HIGHWAY

    • The other high-profile project was the 218-km Zaranj-Delaram highway built by the Border Roads Organisation. Zaranj is located close to Afghanistan’s border with Iran.
    • With Pakistan denying India overland access for trade with Afghanistan, the highway is of strategic importance to New Delhi, as it provides an alternative route into landlocked Afghanistan through Iran’s Chabahar port.

    [3] AFGHAN PARLIAMENT

    • The Afghan Parliament in Kabul was built by India at $90 million.
    • It was opened in 2015; PM Modi inaugurated the building.
    • A block in the building is named after former PM AB Vajpayee.

    [4] STOR PALACE

    • In 2016, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and PM Modi inaugurated the restored Stor Palace in Kabul, originally built in the late 19th century.
    • It is famous for the 1919 Rawalpindi Agreement by which Afghanistan became an independent country.

    [5] POWER INFRA

    • Other Indian projects in Afghanistan include the rebuilding of power infrastructure such as the 220kV DC transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province to the north of Kabul.
    • Indian contractors and workers also restored telecommunications infrastructure in many provinces.

    [6] HEALTH INFRA

    • India has reconstructed a children’s hospital it had helped build in Kabul in 1972 —named Indira Gandhi Institute for Child Health in 1985 — that was in shambles after the war.
    • ‘Indian Medical Missions’ have held free consultation camps in several areas.
    • Thousands who lost their limbs after stepping on mines left over from the war have been fitted with the Jaipur Foot.
    • India has also built clinics in the border provinces of Badakhshan, Balkh, Kandahar, Khost, Kunar, Nangarhar, Nimruz, Nooristan, Paktia and Paktika.

    [7] TRANSPORTATION

    • According to the MEA, India gifted 400 buses and 200 mini-buses for urban transportation, 105 utility vehicles for municipalities, 285 military vehicles for the Afghan Army.
    • It also gave three Air India aircraft to Ariana, the Afghan national carrier, when it was restarting operations.

    [8] OTHER PROJECTS

    • India has contributed desks and benches for schools, and built solar panels in remote villages, and Sulabh toilet blocks in Kabul.
    • New Delhi has also played a role in building capacity, with vocational training institutes, scholarships to Afghan students, mentoring programmes in the civil service, and training for doctors and others.

    Various ongoing project

    • India had concluded with Afghanistan an agreement for the construction of the Shatoot Dam in Kabul district, which would provide safe drinking water to 2 million residents.
    • Last year, India pledged $1 million for another Aga Khan heritage project, the restoration of the Bala Hissar Fort south of Kabul, whose origins go back to the 6th century.
    • Bala Hissar went on to become a significant Mughal fort, parts of it were rebuilt by Jahangir, and it was used as a residence by Shah Jahan.

    Bilateral trade

    • Despite the denial of an overland route by Pakistan, the India-Afghanistan trade has grown with the establishment in 2017 of an air freight corridor.
    • In 2019-20, bilateral trade crossed $1.3 billion.
    • The balance of trade is heavily tilted — exports from India are worth approximately $900 million, while Afghanistan’s exports to India are about $500 million.
    • Afghan exports are mainly fresh and dried fruit.
    • Some of this comes overland through the Wagah border; Pakistan has permitted Afghan trade with India through its territory.
    • Indian exports to Afghanistan take place mainly through government-to-government contracts with Indian companies.
    • Exports include pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, computers and related materials, cement, and sugar.
    • Trade through Chabahar started in 2017 but is restricted by the absence of connectivity from the port to the Afghan border.

  • India-Turkey relations

    As a new round of geopolitical jousting begins on India’s north-western frontiers, Delhi must deal with a number of new actors that have carved out a role for themselves in the region.

    Overambitious Turkey

    • Our focus today is on Turkey’s regional ambitions (particularly in Afghanistan) and their implications for India.
    • Ankara is in negotiations with the US on taking charge of the Kabul airport which is critical for an international presence in Afghanistan that is coming under the Taliban’s control.
    • Turkey has been running Kabul airport security for a while, but doing so after the US pullout will be quite demanding.
    • Taking a longer view, though, Turkey is not a new regional actor in India’s northwest.

    Turkey and Afghanistan

    • Ankara and Kabul have recently celebrated the centennial of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
    • Through this century, Turkey has engaged purposefully with Afghanistan over a wide domain.
    • While it joined the NATO military mission in Afghanistan after the ouster of the Taliban at the end of 2001, Turkey avoided any combat role and differentiated itself from the Western powers.
    • Ankara has contributed to the training of the Afghan military and police forces.
    • It has also undertaken much independent humanitarian and developmental work.

    Affinity with Pakistan

    • Turkey’s good relations with both Afghanistan and Pakistan have also given space for Ankara to present itself as a mediator between the warring South Asian neighbours.
    • Turkey’s “Heart of Asia” conference or the Istanbul Process has been a major diplomatic vehicle for attempted Afghan reconciliation in the last few years.
    • Widespread goodwill for Turkey in Afghanistan has now come in handy for the US in managing some elements of the post-withdrawal phase.
    • In Pakistan, PM Imran Khan has rallied behind Erdogan’s ambition to seize the leadership of the Islamic world from Saudi Arabia.
    • Pakistan’s Army Chief had to step in to limit the damage with Saudi Arabia, which has long been Pakistan’s major economic benefactor.

    Challenges for India

    • Turkey’s growing role in Afghanistan opens a more difficult phase in relations between Delhi and Ankara.
    • India’s opposition to alliances and Turkey’s alignments reflected divergent international orientations of Delhi and Ankara after the Second World War.
    • And Turkey’s deepening bilateral military-security cooperation with Pakistan made it even harder for Delhi to take a positive view of Ankara.
    • Turkey and Pakistan were part of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) that was set up in 1955 by the British.
    • Although CENTO eventually wound up in 1979, Turkey and Pakistan remained close partners in a number of regional organizations and international forums like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

    Pre-Erdogan era Turkey

    • The shared secular values between Delhi and Ankara in the pre-Erdogan era were not enough to overcome the strategic differences between the two in the Cold War.
    • To make matters more complicated, the positive legacy of the Subcontinent’s solidarity with the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, emerged out of its ruins in the early 20th century, accrued mostly to Pakistan.
    • There were moments — during the tenures of PM Rajiv Gandhi and Mr Vajpayee, when India and Turkey seemed poised for a more productive relationship.
    • But those have been rather few and far between.

    Turkey’s departure from Secularism

    • Meanwhile, Turkey’s Islamist internationalism under Recep Tayyip Erdogan has inevitably led to its deeper alliance with Pakistan, greater meddling in South Asia, and a sharper contraction with India.
    • The Pakistani prism through which Delhi has long seen Ankara, however, has prevented it from fully appreciating the growing strategic salience of Turkey.
    • Erdogan’s active claim for leadership of the Islamic world has seen a more intensive Turkish political, religious, and cultural outreach to the Subcontinent’s 600 million Muslims.

    Self-goals on Kashmir

    • Turkey has become the most active international supporter of Pakistan on the Kashmir question.
    • Delhi is aware of Erdogan’s hypocrisy on minority rights.
    • While pitching for self-determination in Kashmir, Erdogan actively tramples on the rights of its Kurdish minority at home and confronts them across Turkey’s border in Syria and Iraq.

    Other ambitions in Asia

    • Erdogan was quick to condemn the Bangladesh government’s hanging of a senior extremist leader in 2016.
    • But in a reflection of his strategic suppleness, Erdogan also offered strong political support for Dhaka on the Rohingya refugee crisis.
    • As Bangladesh emerges as an attractive economy, Ankara is now stepping up its commercial cooperation with Dhaka.
    • Turkey, which hosted the Caliphate in the Ottoman era, had natural spiritual resonance among the South Asian Muslims.

    Riving the Caliphate

    • With the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924, Turkey’s Westernization under Ataturk reduced its religious significance.
    • Erdogan’s Islamist politics are about regaining that salience.
    • Erdogan’s strategy marks the declining relevance of the old antinomies — between alliances and autonomy, East and West, North and South, Islam and the West, Arabs and the Jews — that so resonate with the traditional Indian foreign policy discourse.

    Stance on Israel

    • Turkey was the first Muslim-majority nation that established full diplomatic relations with Israel.
    • Erdogan now actively mobilizes the Arab and Islamic world against Israel without breaking relations with Tel Aviv.
    • Erdogan’s outrage on Israel is about presenting himself as a better champion of Palestine than his Arab rivals.

    India’s option against Turkey

    • India, which has been at the receiving end of Erdogan’s internationalism, has multiple options in pushing back.
    • The recent naval exercise between India and Greece in the Mediterranean offers a small hint of India’s possibilities in Turkey’s neighbourhood.
    • Many Arab leaders reject Erdogan’s policies that remind them of Ottoman imperialism.
    • They resent Erdogan’s support of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood that seek to overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East.
    • There is much that India can do to up its game in the Arab world.

    Lessons for India

    • The new fluidity in geopolitics in India’s extended neighbourhood to the west.
    • Agency for regional powers is growing as the influence of great power weakens.
    • Religious ideology, like the more secular ones, is a cover for the pursuit of power.
    • Finally, Erdogan has carefully modulated his confrontation with major powers by avoiding a breakdown in relations.

    Conclusion

    • For Erdogan, the choices are not between black and white. That should be a good guide for India’s own relations with Turkey.
    • Delhi needs to vigorously challenge Turkey’s positions where it must, seize the opportunities opened by regional resentments against Erdogan’s adventurism, and at the same time prepare for a more intensive bilateral engagement with Ankara.

  • What lies ahead for Afghanistan after US exit?

    The US troops are departing away after coordinating the 20-year-long war in Afghanistan, effectively ending their military operations in the country.

    Why did the US invade Afghanistan?

    • Weeks after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the US declared war on Afghanistan.
    • It was then ruled by the Taliban.

    Terror then gets safe heaven

    • Al-Qaeda’s leaders and key operatives fled to safe havens in Pakistan.
    • The US rejected an offer from the Taliban to surrender and vowed to defeat the insurgents in every corner of Afghanistan.
    • In 2003, US announced that major military operations in the country were over.
    • The US focus shifted to the Iraq invasion, while in Afghanistan, western powers helped build a centralized democratic system and institutions.
    • But that neither ended the war nor stabilised the country.

    Why is the US pulling back?

    • The US had reached the conclusion long ago that the war was unwinnable.
    • It wanted a face-saving exit.

    What are the terms of US exit?

    • Before the Doha talks started, the Taliban had maintained that they would hold direct talks only with the US, and not with the Kabul government, which they did not recognize.
    • The US effectively accepted this demand when they cut the Afghan government off the process and entered direct talks with the insurgents.
    • The deal dealt with four aspects of the conflict — violence, foreign troops, intra-Afghan peace talks and the use of Afghan soil by terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the IS.
    • According to the agreement, the Taliban promised to reduce violence, join intra-Afghan peace talks and cut all ties with foreign terrorist groups, while the US pledged to withdraw all its troops.

    Present situation in Afghanistan

    • After the agreement was signed, the US put pressure on the Afghan government to release thousands of Taliban prisoners — a key Taliban precondition for starting intra-Afghan talks.
    • Talks between Taliban representatives and the Afghan government began in Doha in September 2020 but did not reach any breakthrough.
    • At present, the peace process is frozen. And the US is hurrying for the exit.
    • The Taliban reduced hostilities against foreign troops but continued to attack Afghan forces even after the agreement was signed.
    • Kabul maintains that the Pakistan support for the Taliban is allowing the insurgents to overcome military pressure and carry forward with their agenda.

    Pakistani role in reviving Taliban

    • Pakistan was one of the three countries that had recognized the Taliban regime in the 1990s.
    • The Taliban captured much of the country with help from Pakistan’s ISI.
    • After the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan’s military dictator Musharraf, under pressure from the Bush administration, cut formal ties with the Taliban and joined America’s war on terror.
    • But Pakistan played a double game. It provided shelter to the Talabani leaders and regrouped their organization which helped them make a staged comeback in Afghanistan.
    • Pakistan successfully expected these groups to launch terror activities against India.

    Again in the spotlight

    • A violent military takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban may not serve Pakistan’s core interests.
    • It wants to check India’s influence in Afghanistan and bring the Taliban to Kabul.
    • But a violent takeover, like in the 1990s, would lack international acceptability, leaving Afghanistan unstable for a foreseeable future.
    • In such a scenario, Pakistan could face another influx of refugees from Afghanistan and strengthening of anti-Pakistan terror groups, such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban.
    • From a strategic point of view, Pakistan would prefer the Taliban being accommodated in power through negotiations and a peaceful settlement.
    • But it’s not clear whether Pakistan has the capacity to shape the post-American outcome in Afghanistan.

    Why is India reaching out to the Taliban?

    • India had made contacts with the Taliban in Doha. New Delhi has not denied reports of its outreach to the Taliban.
    • India has three critical areas in dealing with the Taliban:
    1. One, protecting its investments, which run into billions of rupees, in Afghanistan;
    2. Two, preventing a future Taliban regime from being a pawn of the ISI;
    3. Three, making sure that the Pakistan-backed anti-India terrorist groups do not get support from the Taliban.

    Is the Afghanistan government doomed?

    • The American intelligence community has concluded that Kabul could fall within six months.
    • None of the global leaders are certain about the survival of the Afghan government.

    Taliban is pacing its action

    • One thing is certain — the American withdrawal has turned the balance of power in the battleground in favour of the Taliban.
    • They are already making rapid advances, and could launch a major offensive targeting the city centers and provincial capitals once the last American leaves.

    Future of Afghanistan

    There seems three possibilities:

    1. One, there could be a political settlement in which the Taliban and the government agree to some power-sharing mechanism and jointly shape the future of Afghanistan. As of now, this looks like a remote possibility.
    2. Two, an all-out civil war may be possible, in which the government, economically backed and militarily trained by the West, holds on to its positions in key cities. This is already unfolding.
    3. A third scenario would be of the Taliban taking over the country.

    Any nation planning to deal with Afghanistan should be prepared for all three scenarios.