Dubai is a happening place in whole of West Asia and is in news more often than other cities like Riyadh and Doha. Recently, a lot happened when Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Maulawi Amir Khan Muttaqi. A lot by way of engaging with Taliban who have been ruling Afghanistan since August 2021. Without officially recognising the Taliban, this was the most sensible way of having a dialogue with them.
Misri’s meeting with Muttaqi has opened the doors for future cooperation with Afghanistan, something very vital for guarding India’s strategic interests. The meeting comes in the backdrop of strains developing between Pakistan and Afghanistan on many issues. The aerial strikes by Pakistan in Afghanistan territory on more than one occasion has alienated it from Kabul. The retaliatory raids on Pakistani posts on the border by Afghan forces has served to raise the temperatures further.
Late in 2023, November to be precise, Pakistan started large scale deportation of Afghan nationals from its territory. By now, over 20 lakh Afghans have left Pakistan, driven out either due to highhanded raids and intimidation by Pakistani security forces, or of their own volition fearing such treatment. This is in sharp contrast to how Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) treated the Haqqani network, providing it bases and sanctuaries in and around Quetta.
At that time, Pakistan was playing a double game, getting millions of dollars from the US for ostensibly helping it the Taliban. Simultaneously, it also harmed the US interests by promoting the Haqqanis behind its back. Incidentally, Sirajuddin Haqqani is today the Interior Minister of Afghanistan and one of the most powerful figures among its rulers. The US has declared a reward of $10 million on Haqqani’s head, sanctioning him as a global terrorist.
The game-plan that Pakistan’s ISI worked on was to keep Haqqanis under the thumb and have absolute control over them. However, Haqqanis have proved to be difficult proposition for Pakistan once the Taliban had wrested control of Afghanistan in 2021. At one time, Pakistan was able to pump in a lot of Afghan fighters into Jammu & Kashmir in the name of holy jihad being waged there. No longer so as the regional security dynamics have undergone a sea change in the last few years.
The Indian aerial strikes on Balakot post-Pulwama suicide bombing of a CRPF convoy has sent a clear message to Pakistan regarding the new red lines being drawn by India. India giving 50,000 tons of wheat to Afghanistan in February 2022, some months after the Taliban had assumed control of the country helped to break the ice. This wheat was transported through Pakistan but the way our western neighbour created problems in allowing it embittered the Taliban.
Later, India sent its humanitarian aid of food, medicines and clothes etc to Afghanistan via Chahabar port of Iran. Over the past few years, now Chahabar has emerged as a port through which Afghanistan is carrying most of its trade. The emergence of Chahabar port is significant for the Afghans who were carrying out their trade through Karachi port earlier. Or to a lesser extent via Gwadar which Pakistan desperately wants to promote.
The new emerging ties between Iran, India and Afghanistan due to convergence of interests in Chahabar has helped India undermine Pakistan’s influence on Afghan Taliban. Iran filing an arbitration case of $18 billion recovery against Pakistan in a Paris court means it may face some tough times by the year-end in this case. These ties have also helped to keep the Afghan Taliban away, to an extent, from China who was trying to rope them in for promoting China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
In the past few years, Pakistan has done lip service to Afghanistan, talking about being a fraternal, brotherly Islamic nation. Then it drove out thousands of Afghans from its territory. In contrast, India has extended solid help by way of giving wheat, medicines and other materials to Afghanistan. The January 8 Misri-Muttaqi meeting is a significant milestone as it cements goodwill of the Taliban towards India further.
The Kabul-New Delhi ties are not a sudden development as the Pakistanis are trying hard to prove, but a result of deft diplomacy by India ever since the Taliban assumed power in Afghanistan. Absolute non-interference, non-judgemental manner in which India has handled and fostered its ties with Afghanistan has helped it gain their trust.
Right since 2021 takeover by the Taliban, humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan by India has been extensive. On receiving requests from Afghanistan in the recent past, India has committed to providing it further material support, helping it significantly in the health sector and for dealing with the refugees. Ties between the two nations in the sports arena are another bright spot both are trying to build on. All this has helped counter and nullify Pakistan’s influence on Afghanistan and that aligns with our short term as also long term interests and goals.
Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai is today an influential Taliban leader who once studied at the Indian Military Academy (IMA) once, just like Hamid Karzai who had also studied in India. The policymakers in Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) should weigh their options in courting Stanekzai as he can prove useful in fostering further ties with the Taliban regime. It is a bit baffling that Stanekzai has not been tapped so far by the MEA mandarins, through backchannel communication.
A couple of months ago, the Taliban appointed Dr Ikramuddin Kamil as their Acting Counsul at Mumbai, showing clearly that they were not averse to using India-friendly people. It bears mention here that Dr Kamil studied in Delhi for seven years on a scholarship completing his doctorate from South Asia University (SAU) provided by the MEA. If the Taliban leaders are ready to look for people who have connect with India, we too can reciprocate appropriately and may gain by utilising people who can connect with the Taliban leadership.
This could prove to be advantageous both for India and Afghanistan, turning into a win-win situation before long. In the bargain, undermining and countering Pakistan, not considered friendly by the Taliban now, and by no stretch of imagination a friend of India, may also be furthered.
