 Welcome to another International Relations Capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. This edition, we would like to continue to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. This is really a second part of what we discussed last week. Soon after the Americans left unexpectedly, the situation has completely deteriorated in Afghanistan. Taliban, without giving any attention to whatever agreements they may have reached with the honey government or the United States, are advancing towards the capital. They are doing it in such a way that first they capture the surrounding cities and particularly the border areas leaving Kabul for the time being. But it is very clear that they are advancing towards Kabul and their objective is to dislodge Ashraf Khani's government and take over Afghanistan. There is really no obstacle to this because there is really nobody fighting against the Taliban except some of the Afghan national forces. So naturally, Taliban's strength outweighs the strength of the Ghani government. Now that the Americans are left because the Ghani government was being supported and encouraged and funded and financed and equipped with the American forces and the Allies. So the Ghani government is completely weak at this point and Taliban is advancing in different directions. We ourselves know that they came almost three kilometers next to the Kandahar Indian consulate general and we have withdrawn all the India-based stuff from there. In fact, three consulates have been vacated. And then we have the Taliban claiming that they have 85% of the territory is already in their hands. So the style of operation is that they are trying to block the borders like the Central Asian Republics, Tajikistan for example, because a number of groups are supposed to have gone away to Tajikistan just for safety. And supplies could come from there towards the Kabul government. So to prevent both these, they are operating on the borders. So the border towns have been occupied and they are not allowing any transfer of goods or people from the Central Asian Republics to Afghanistan. And surprisingly, they are also holding the two entry points from Pakistan and there apparently the Pakistani groups, some Mujahideen kind of groups are slowly filtering into Afghanistan. Then there is an opening near China and that border has also been protected. So it's a kind of Chakra view movement that they encircle the Kabul government and the Stakhan. What else is happening? India has not had a major role in Afghan negotiations. Very late in the day, once we knew that the Americans were definitely withdrawing and the Taliban is likely to come to power, we opened some tentative discussions with Taliban. And also we hear that we have had some discussions with Pakistan also. But last few days, the peacemaker in the region has become India, particularly our external affairs minister, Mr. Jay Shankar. He has been on a mission, almost a frantic mission moving around in the region to find out if there is any possibility of establishing peace. And the repeated hope he expresses is that Afghanistan's future should not be its past. So while everybody else thinks that history will repeat itself in Afghanistan in the sense that like the Soviet Union left, then Taliban came to power, then the United States came and ousted Taliban, now the United States has left, so Taliban comes to power. That is the presumption everywhere. But is there another alternative is what Mr. Jay Shankar is exploring? And that's why I'm calling this episode as one on Indian initiatives. As I said earlier, India was not a direct party in these negotiations, even from the beginning, even the United States started this discussion on Afghanistan many years ago. Even at that time, India was never invited on the ground that we had no common border with Afghanistan. We had the Pakistan occupation it has, but at the moment de facto there is no border and Pakistan insisted that therefore India should not be a direct party in those negotiations. But we are very much part of the building of the Afghan government. So with the Americans support militarily, India did not intervene militarily, but we did get ourselves involved in humanitarian activities. We had a lot of sympathy for what India was doing. We lost a diplomat, we lost some soldiers, but in spite of all that we persisted. Because Americans did not appreciate it very much because President Trump once said, oh, what are Indians doing in Afghanistan? Simply building some libraries or something. And he wanted India to be involved militarily in Afghanistan, which of course we are not willing to do. We have refrain from doing so under different circumstances. The Americans would have welcomed us, the Soviets would have welcomed us, but we refrain from doing so. We kept saying that what we need is an Afghanistan free of foreign forces and the government in Kabul, which is independent, which is inclusive, which is Afghan-owned and Afghan-oriented government. So in this situation now, what are the possibilities? Mr. Jaishankar went first to Iran, where he mentioned that the consensus that existed between Iran and India and partly Soviet Union in the 90s is still valid. But this did not create any response. How is that valid today? It was Soviet Union occupying and we were trying to help out a process of reconciliation in Afghanistan. And that is not the situation now. The Soviet Union had not left. They had stayed on and installed another government and we were working together to consparenter it. But now the situation is the United States has left without leaving any support or supplies to this government to survive. Many in United States feel that they owed it to Mr. Ghani to support him for some time. But as far as we know, there is no indication that the United States is going to continue to support Mr. Ghani's existence either militarily or financially. Even if they have done that, they have not understood. But Mr. Ghani is very confident. He says we will continue the discussions in Doha. There have been some understanding things on this withdrawal, like that Taliban will not engage all the militants and Al-Qaeda and others and join together against the government. And they will probably respect the authority or the central government for some time at least etc. This is the kind of understanding we hear that we made in Afghanistan. But nobody is talking about that. So Mr. Ghani is saying that we are going to talk. In Doha, continue to talk with Taliban and find a solution. And meanwhile, he expects the United States to support him. But the United States has not given any such indication. The special environment of the American Special Envoy in Afghanistan has only made one promise. He said that unless the new government is a popular government, popularly supported by government, government of all people, we will not recognize it. That is not much of a threat because the Taliban government has existed for many years in the past without the support of the recognition of the United States. There are only one or two countries who have recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan. So that is not a big threat. Russia, where Mr. Gashankar went, made some noises about the need for avoidance of terrorism and also need for peace. But they are not willing even to criticize Pakistan for what it is. The only person who is criticizing Pakistan is Mr. Ghani himself, who says that Pakistan has been allowing Mujahideen forces to enter into Afghanistan in the recent period. So he does not expect his government to form and he believes that some other process could be set in. Russia has condemned the United States for withdrawing, exactly what they did. They condemned withdrawal and saying that it was a mission failed. And the only offer that the United States is making is that if the new government is not fully representational, there will be no recognition. The situation has inevitably created some instability in Central Asian Republics. Those countries are very concerned. But as it happened, Mr. Gashankar attended two conferences, not specifically addressing Afghanistan, but generally in the context of what is happening in Afghanistan is extremely significant. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization had held a meeting of its grouping. It has very interesting composition, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and four Central Asian countries. And the fact that the meeting was held, not specifically for Afghanistan, but still they came out with a declaration or a statement which emphasized the need to avoid terrorism, avoid conflict and peaceful solution. Again, there is no action. Nothing addressed to Pakistan to do something about it. Nothing addressed to the United States to do something about it. And therefore, this is kind of a biased declaration. It has the support of our government and Mr. Gashankar made the right statements there, explaining the situation very well. Then there was in Vashkent another meeting with more or less the same people, Pakistan was there, India was there. This was all about connectivity in Central Asia. Again, another theme, but there can be no connectivity in Central Asia if Taliban is going to take over Kabul. So they urge that the Taliban should hold peace talks, Taliban should not support terrorist organizations. And Central Asia there should be peace. And talking about connectivity itself, Mr. Gashankar spoke about the economic viability being very important for connectivity and also financial responsibility. So, side by side with all this, you have the Ghani government doing something, you have the SCO doing something, you have the connectivity conference doing something. But these are all in the expectation that there will be some kind of a normal scene of Afghanistan. But all military observers stay with the same kind of conviction that all this is not going to work. So what is India trying to do? India is trying to show to the world that peace in this region is very important. And we should not allow the past of Afghanistan to prevail in the sense that it should not be Taliban government all over again with all the implications. In fact, President Bush Jr., who started the war in 2001, criticized President Biden for withdrawing from Afghanistan. And he said, you are doing a great injustice to the people of Afghanistan because the Taliban government, which will come to power, will be definitely anti-people, people of Afghanistan themselves. And he even said that it would be the women in Afghanistan who are going to suffer. There will be no gender equality, there will be persecution of women, etc. In the middle of all this, there has been a negative development, which must have surprised Mr. Jay Shankar in India, is that a new quad has been announced. We know about the quad US, India, Australia, and Japan. But out of the blue has come a new quad. It is a quad only in the sense it has four countries. And these are US, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. So what is the logic of this? Which Pakistan, which Afghanistan, which kind of quad is it? What is its purpose? If China is accusing India, Australia, Japan, and the United States for creating a NATO in Asia, what is the meaning of this new quad? Who is it against? Who is it for? The Americans have not explained it for you, but they are talking about a kind of economic grouping which can take care of the situation in Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics. So to which nobody can object when there it goes. So these are the different strands we find at the moment. And nobody knows how long this will go on. But the most significant thing as far as I can say is the softness that Taliban is showing towards the Chinese. This is new because in the last occasion the Chinese were not involved. But this time the Chinese are much more aggressive and they have this Belt and Road Initiative which would very much fit in with the situation which is developing. So that waging through the other countries, through Pakistan, through Afghanistan, to Tajikistan, and then create a kind of sphere of influence for China. There are two theories. One is China will just take over as it were through Pakistan. But China will not directly take over the country. But using Pakistan dominates the situation and the Taliban will run the government and they will be able to influence their diet. And this is a new danger because Pakistan and Taliban together self is very anti-Indian. We have known that. Even this time they have said that they will set fire to all the facilities that India had built for Afghanistan. At the same time, they have told the Chinese that the Chinese will be free to come and help us in whatever way they want and we will reassure your security. So China, Taliban, Afghanistan, Taliban, Pakistan will likely to be the eventual situation in that. So China is just waiting in the wings and they are interacting with various countries. But China has no interest as they said to put the boot on the ground and they will not. Will China be the next empire to fail in Afghanistan? What is the true reason that Afghanistan is the grave of many empires? So we had the Soviet Union. The pattern was very clear. Soviet Union entered Afghanistan at a time when the intense situation was quite bad and as a neighbouring country, they felt responsible to take charge and so they went in and occupied. And at that time, one of the very few countries, maybe the only country outside the Soviet Empire and Soviet alliance. So India was the only country which supported the Soviet Union because Mrs. Gandhi had division to know that if Afghanistan is left alone without solid support from some country, some neighbouring country, it will certainly go to the dogs. And therefore we decided to support the Soviet Union and our relations with the United States deteriorated very much. We had very serious bilateral problems with them and they kept asking us, why are you not asking Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan? We kept on saying foreign countries should not occupy other countries etc. But we never opposed the Soviet action. And even when the Soviets started withdrawing and when they installed the Najibullah government, we supported them in whatever way we can. The United Nations was involved. The United Nations envoy was playing a role in making sure that Najibullah is not overthrown or killed but it happened. And even the UN troops were in the danger of being attacked by the Taliban. India was willing to take on Najibullah as a refugee in India but even that was considered inappropriate. And Mr. Narsimov decided that his family was already here but he would not be allowed to come in. And then Najibullah of course was killed in this garden. And of course the Soviet Union completely left and then the Taliban came in full force. And then we know the story of how terrorism developed, terrorism directed against the United States, Osama bin Laden, the bombing of 9-11 etc. Till then what happened was that the United States never felt that the terrorism threatening the world would come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia. They kept saying that this India is saying this simply to blame Pakistan for what is happening. So they thought that terrorism was on the other side in the Middle East, the Palestinians who were the terrorists. But the 9-11 proved that it was the terrorism that affected the United States came from this area. And President Bush started off his war on terrorism and he overthrew the Taliban very fast. But it cannot really control the whole region. And a point came when President Obama himself and after that President Trump and President Biden felt that they should withdraw and they withdrew rather dishonorably. Even before the date of the announcement came they withdrew. And like the Soviets, the Americans also became a disaster as far as Afghanistan is concerned. So the situation is grave and India suffers. You see that there is a stable government in Afghanistan that does not have many papers. We do not know what each one wants to do but clearly there is no action plan even after Mr Jay Shankar's meeting with all possible people involved. We probably are talking to Pakistan also. So the situation is totally uncertain. But we must take credit that India has made an effort. But whether we made an effort earlier, whether our taking this effort at this time will help us, all these we do not know. If the anti-Indian feeling among the Taliban is still very strong as it appears to be, a dam was bombed by India and they are talking about destroying all the Indian institutions. But what Mr Jay Shankar is saying is a lot of sense that today's Afghanistan is not the Afghanistan of 1996. It should be given, we should be fair to the future generations of Afghanistan. But when we say all this, the whole world knows what we want. We do not want a Taliban dominated government further dominated by the Pakistanis and then by the Chinese. So that would be disaster number one. And this is something which is known to the world. So they are polite to us. They recognize what we are saying is right. And it is all very appropriate words that ministers has used, no aggressive statements, but simply saying that we need cooperation in this area. And particularly at this context of the COVID-19 as well as Chinese aggression in Ladakh. All these are complicated matters and therefore we need peace and so we are willing to work with whether it is Iran. Iran has now good relations with China. Russia is also more Indian towards China. So Russia is a candidate for supporting us or supporting peace. Iran is one of them and the United States of course does not want to get involved, but might play a helpful role by not recognizing the Taliban government. So whether Mr. Yashankar's initiatives or India's initiative in this regard will be a success or not is an open question. But most people believe that this won't have much of an impact because the lines are already drawn and it may be difficult to make any country intervene in a particular way. But the option of the Shanghai Corporation Organization, the conference in Tashkent on connectivity, these are all things which show the imperative need for peace. But unfortunately the people of Afghanistan were divided into tribes in any case. They seem to have supported the Taliban and even if the Taliban goes slow, eventually they will take the government. So Indian initiatives certainly will be welcomed by the world, but will indeed be a success or not will not. The possibility is that we may have to deal with Taliban, we'll have to deal with Pakistan and deal with China also and that's a huge responsibility that India has. But India will, India cannot behave any differently and they always be pleading and arguing for peace, arguing for development, arguing for economic cooperation. So we have considerable influence in the Central Asian region, Central Asian countries and we can probably get some help from them, but otherwise we need to see how the situation develops. So that's what I wanted to say about the Indian initiatives. These are significant, this may have an impact, but not to the extent that not as fast as we would expect. So at least we have heard it for trying something which is in the interest of Africa. Thank you very much. Yes, Pakistan is intruded in the part and this is very surprising. Americans agreeing to a quad with Pakistan in it and Afghanistan in it. So this has surprised everybody that Pakistan has been intruded. Well, first of all, they could have remained without been drawing without a proper agreement. The Doha agreement should have been properly negotiated. So the United States could have waited, that's one option. Second option if they wanted to leave, they could have established some system like the Soviets did in the case of Najibullah, have some kind of arrangement for the Kabul government to continue with financial and some military support. So that also they could have done. They have done none of those and they are simply offering that they will not recognize the Taliban government unless it is lawfully established. Well, who is betraying whom? They are not betraying Afghanistan, they are trying to take over Afghanistan and run it away, they want it. So and there is considerable support for Pakistan. Many people don't think that even the Durand line is a border. Some people think that these are tribal areas, people go in and go out and therefore it is not such a respected international border. Such a question has also been also been raised. The principle of non-alignment is not pulling us back from any of these adjustments or instruments necessary. As long as we are doing it under our own wisdom, non-alignment is not violated in any way like we aligned ourselves in the Soviet Union at one point. So if we work with the United States in this particular context, nobody will accuse you of giving up non-alignment. But the important thing is in this changing environment, whether it will be wise for us to completely identify ourselves with the United States. Interact with the Taliban already happened. Now the Quad has happened and it is a reality and everybody knows that India is on the side of the United States. There's no question about that. But what we are doing, trying to do is to not provoke a confrontation with China because we are the only country with a long border, a land border with China and all these countries. So on that we are being very careful. In fact, you suggested that we could go with the United States. There are some people who are suggesting why not go with China? Yes, go and make friends with China and work out an arrangement. There we know the Chinese will accept you provided you are willing to accept a secondary position in Asia, which I don't think India is willing to do. That is really the question. There is no equal relationship as far as China is concerned with India. They think that they have defeated India and India must accept that position and become some kind of a supplicant to China and that is all that they will accept and they will not accept a situation where the two countries are equal. But in any case, we are not equal. China is five times bigger than India in terms of economic strength, technology, finance, everything. So what we have is only the two cultural giants of Asia and we are equal. And that was true in 1962. They were not very superior to us, but they still defeated us. So there is some inevitability of adversarial relationship with China, which is difficult to demolish in my view. So we will have to be somewhere be non-aligned between US and China and maybe non-aligned between US, China and Russia. All these are options are there where we retain our identity and retain our sovereign power but may not be able to influence events entirely in our direction. And that's what diplomacy is all about. They could just go and join somebody and fight and win and come back and join somebody. That is not diplomacy. So here there's a situation which we have to use according to our best lights and that's what we are doing now. If we fail, if we fail, then we allow other options. So all these options are open and all these options were open for the last 70 years. So we have not given up the Dalai Lama, definitely not. And we have repeatedly said that the Lama will have to find his own successor, it should be a Tibetan leader and the Chinese must keep off and all those things we have already said. But at the same time we don't want to play the China card as we are often told to do because that will be a point of no return. Even the Dalai Lama himself did not want India to have a confrontation with China. He was willing to talk to the Chinese but he did not insist that India should talk to the Chinese. Taiwan is an option, Hong Kong is an option but all these are games in which we are not normally involved because we have not been an expansionist power and we deal with our neighbors with respect and then of course with strength if it is required to be. But we are not a superpower which goes about fixing Taiwan or fixing Hong Kong that kind of ambition we don't have. As long as we they leave us to have an independent and peaceful life, India will be quite happy and whatever we will do otherwise it would be only for our own sake of our own peace and development. These options are there but whether we will exercise in one way or the other we don't know. But if we are looking at India's history we will find that we will not do anything such drastic things. We will abide by the international law, abide by the claims etc. So we are not necessarily interfered in these matters and that is because of our own interest in remaining independent. So we are in troubled waters but I wrote somewhere that Afghanistan is the last flank like Abhimanyu's Patma view. So that's also close. Now what do we do? So which means we may have to think of, so when Mr. Jayashankar I know he has come back when he comes back I'm sure he'll sit down with the Prime Minister and see what our options are. You know the SEO now that the Chinese have taken it over as it assumes some importance. But this was a group of former Soviet Socialist Republics that is how the SEO originally was formed. But now India is there, Pakistan is there and all that and it has become a mix of many things. But the Chinese have completely taken charge of it. Whatever the SEO does will be done on the basis of the Chinese. So the republics or these countries, circulation countries have their own agenda, their own relationship with each other. So that our foreign minister went to Georgia. People raised questions as to why Georgia now because Georgia is wanting to join the European Union. So we are giving a signal to Russia that we can also support Georgia to go to the European Union. So such options we sometimes exercise, but certainly not in any manner which should affect their sovereignty. So they may have their own politics as Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, etc. And they may be playing in different forms which we do not know. Just I do not know where exactly the lines are drawn among that. Apart from peace talks, what India can do? Well, that's what I was discussing. Not many things we can do. So we are trying to do our best to save the situation in the interest of not only of India, but also of the region. There's nothing else we can do. We cannot go and fight in Afghanistan. That's out of the question. Then what more can we do except to push these countries forward? And get them to act in a rational manner, Pakistan and China and Taliban themselves. But they are now in a winning mood and therefore they are likely to not listen to such advice. So only if they lose for some reason, then they might look around for support. But at the moment, Pakistan has no reason to hold their horses and try and see something can be done in their Pakistan relations. But their objective is completely Jammu and Kashmir. And this will be a godsend opportunity for them to direct the Taliban into Jammu and Kashmir. So that is their prime, what they call the core issue. And they can get some satisfaction on the core issue. And then that will be a matter of India's territorial integrity and so on. So thank you very much, everyone. We'll meet again next week. Thank you.