 Hello, welcome to another international relations capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. Today we are discussing the formation of a Taliban cabinet in Afghanistan. That seems to be the hottest subject being discussed everywhere today because the composition of the Taliban cabinet disappointed everyone. They had given signals that this is going to be a new Taliban, Taliban 2.0 rather than the old Taliban which is known as Taliban 1.0. So the expectation was that since 20 years had passed since the last Taliban government was ousted and the world had changed and Afghanistan had changed also and therefore the Taliban which has now taken over will be somewhat different from the Taliban of 20 years ago. That was the expectation and they gave reason for people to believe this because first of all it took a long time even though they could easily occupy the residential palace and take control over the whole country except for Panjshir Valley. They could have immediately appointed this cabinet and that but they gave hope to the world that this would be different. They were looking for more moderate leadership. They were also looking for an all inclusive cabinet taking not just the Pashtuns but others also and people who had even held interim offices like Abdullah Abdullah and Karzai and so on. So such expectations were there but then this when it prolonged one knew that things were not going so well and there were even reports that there was a clash among them and there was even a report that Mr you know Baradar was even the now present Deputy Prime Minister was even hurt in a clash. This is may not be true but then everything was at least suddenly when the ISI chief that is the Pakistan Pakistan spy chief arrived in Kabul and gave personal directive to quell the rebellion in Panjshir and very quickly they were able to take over Panjshir also and soon after that this new cabinet was announced. Once that we knew that this was not a new moderate government. The names were not surprising because all these are all the old names we already knew. So the Supreme Leader is Mullah Hassan Akhund. No sorry Supreme Leader is Mullah Hibatullah Akhmatsada who is the Supreme Leader. He would be the final authorities like something like the Ayatollahs in Iran but there is like similarity between the Taliban government and the Iran structure. So there is a Supreme Leader and Akhmatsada and then below that there is a Prime Minister. There was a general expectation that it would be Mr Baradar who is considered to be a moderate person but instead they have Mullah Hassan Akhund who is the Prime Minister and Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has become the Deputy Prime Minister. He was the one who was very active in the Doha discussions and he is the one who had given sub-signals to India that Taliban government would like to work with India but he did not prevail and so he has become Deputy Prime Minister not the Prime Minister but the most disturbing thing of course is that the appointment of Sirajuddin Haqqani as the Interior Minister he of course is the leader of what is called the Haqqani Network which is simply a Pakistani outfit supported by the ISI that is Pakistani in from intelligence service and Haqqani Network is one of the most feared and considered to be the most fundamentalist and terrorist organization in the pay of Pakistan. Then there is Ullama Ahmad Yaku who is the Defence Minister and the Foreign Minister is Amok Khan Motaki the Foreign Minister all known figures they were in different positions in the previous Taliban government and therefore what they are indicating is that it is continuity rather than change and the most disturbing part of this whole exercise is that it is completely Pakistan dominated the whole cabinet seems to have been put together by the ISI to make sure that the Taliban government is not different from the previous one it will be a fundamentalist government and some of the factors are very disturbing there are 33 ministers out of which 30 are Pashtuns the main group and all others other groups have been ignored so 30 out of 33 Pashtuns means it is still a Pashtun government and not an Afghan government as yet so it became very clear that this government is going to be heavily dependent on Pakistan and this is the bad news that has come particularly for India because any expectation that we would have a new dispensation in Taliban with whom we could work has been relied so and this is the impression that others have was many others have different relationship with Pakistan but as far as we are concerned this is of an important development so the Sakhani linkage is also with Al Qaeda leadership and Pakistan ISI and he was also involved in several attacks against Indians particularly the Indian Embassy in 2008 and he has a reward for those the US State Department has announced a reward of 10 million dollars if somebody helps to catch him or kill him so and this is true of several of the cabinet ministers there are some of them are declared UN terrorists others are declared terrorists by others many people are being have a price on their heads who can be punished or killed etc so it's a very very dangerous situation which has developed so the general impression is that this is not going to change very much because though they are saying that this is an internal government since the composition is entirely of one character then it cannot be much change cannot happen and this is sad because they needed we thought that they needed recognition from the international community and more than that humanitarian assistance because Afghanistan is slipping into anarchy, poverty and even starvation so the humanitarian effort of the international community is very much required and in spite of that they have taken this decision that's because they are fundamentalist Islamist profoundly anti-modern and committed to jihad so they are establishing an anti-modern medieval kind of government is what they are looking for we had thought that there was they'll be pushed to some kind of a moderate approach but there is no sign of that but there are some countries believe that they can do they can work with them China is one of them Russia and Iran and Pakistan so these are the countries which have already more or less recognized the government by keeping their embassies there and even American US government as well as British Johnson said that he could do business with this Taliban government so it is since it is not just an insurgency group but has become a government now they probably assume greater responsibility and therefore the expectation is that even though they are a fundamentalist and anti-modern government and at least medieval type of government which will be ruling the country within Sharia law and there are several indications that things will be like in the old days because women are not being allowed freedom they've announced that they can go to educational institutions provided they are segregated the institutions themselves should be segregated that's not possible at least at least the amendment women should be segregated in the classrooms but even more disturbing is that there are there are not news coming from provinces etc where women have been dealt with very cruelly and there have been deaths of women who defied the law so it's a different situation than we had expected and there is a serious possibility of a civil war even though Taliban has put down the insurrection in Panjshir valley but there were some demonstrations on the streets demonstrations and though it was immediately repressed but it took place for some time it continued because nobody is interested in Pakistan taking over Afghanistan so the nationalistic tendencies were also there but it did not continue so the differences remain and there is a very good possibility of a civil war with the involvement of al-Qaeda and many other terrorist groups which are there ISIS etc so the hope and expectation is that since these are all diverse people you know when you have a revolution you are just operating on your own causing husband's destruction as possible but if they have to be a functioning government they need to have some kind of a common program so whether the Haqqani network will accommodate the other ideas and let it be a composite government with a minimum program minimum program is something which is not not sure but people like Baradar and others hopefully will try to bring about some kind of a proper agenda a common agenda for the government but the fact is that Taliban has maintained the Pakistan has maintained Taliban and therefore it is quite possible that these anti-Pakistan sentiments might be controlled and it may not come out again even though it is true that there were demonstrations and Taliban had to shoot in the air in order to discharge the crowd so whether they are willing to sacrifice nationalism in order to make adjustment is the question so a serious setback is of course for the US we have discussed it before but the United States has not expressed great concern over this because they had signed an agreement with Taliban earlier even though that agreement is not in force so the United States is pretending that this was a minor and things will get better so whether the so the United States is hoping that they will be able to have a workable arrangement so there is no question of immediate recognition of by the United States so as long as it doesn't hurt United States interests there would be United States will be working with them that is the signals that we are getting and if it is just a jihad group without creating terrorist incidents from their territory and managing things without violating human rights so many people are trying to get reconcile to the idea of a Taliban government and with hopes but India is the most affected by this as we have discussed before we have had some conversations in Doha with the Taliban and there have been some you know promises given that if the Indian embassy continued they would ensure its protection but we did not take up the offer and we moved the embassy out so we are dealing with this situation with characteristic caution so if we had started a premature dialogue with Taliban that would have given a wrong signal to the previous Afghan government that was one of the reasons why India did not appear did not want to appear to be defecting from the Ghani government so India is really the most disadvantaged also because of the possibility of what is called the China Pakistan Taliban linkage so we are continuing to wait and watch we have expressed concern over the lack of change in the approach so India has been given some assurances but we would certainly not take any action at the moment but there is going to be in fact today a conference of countries who are interested in providing humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan so probably we'll participate in a modest way but we may not certainly go for a huge humanitarian program which might amount to recognition and so we'll probably as a gesture give some humanitarian assistance but not a fully political engagement like we had before the investments that we had maybe those investments might be wasted but still our priority is to make sure that the right message goes to the Taliban and our government so we really do not need anything from them as long as they do not encourage terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and they do not wage terrorist wars against any other country in the region we can relax and watch and we do not have an immediate requirement for us to do some business with them so we are sitting back and waiting for the right messages of course the United States has been a big setback but as I explained in an article which I wrote for the Hindu so this setback cannot be permanent because the United States is still the world's largest power, military power, economic power etc so this and also the reason why the United States people generally were in favor of US withdrawal only the withdrawal was haphazardly handled and that is the only complaint that people have and therefore President Biden will be able to continue the rest of his term without being seriously affected by the present setback of course China's role would be the major factor as well as the United States is concerned so the United States would like to ensure that the Chinese influence does not become too overwhelming in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the region as a whole and there India is their best bet to control that so even though we are not exactly following the US steps with regard to the Taliban government we are in tune because of the common issue of China so we would still be consulting the Prime Minister is going to Washington for the Quad meeting he is going to address the UN General Assembly he already spoke to the BRICS leaders we discussed BRICS and the outcome of the BRICS meeting was not bad about Afghanistan because the all the BRICS leaders including China and Russia made some statements against any terrorist activities etc so those five countries were able to come to some kind of a common block which looks encouraging but China is keeping its cards close to a test and they are really trying to look around and see how they can exploit the situation basically by working with Pakistan rather than directly so after the Washington visit perhaps there will be greater clarity as far as the attitude of many of the major countries is concerned so at the moment we have no office in in the Kabul and we are trying to quietly bring back all those people who want to bring back including Afghan friends who want to go to Vizars and are willing to come back to India so that process is going on quietly without much noise and we will wait and see what kind of policies the Taliban government adopt at the moment there is no hope of it becoming a modern government but you cannot imagine the kind of pressures that will come on them because of the 20 years as a new generation of Afghans whose aspirations are different who will need liberty and freedom so immediately after the takeover by the Taliban they may not express those things publicly but it must be and also the women's issues are very very significant so if they have to continue without any external interference and try and manage whatever system they want to do they need to give some positive signals to their own people and also to the rest of the world so we so far the signals are not helpful and the Pakistani domination is really the big question mark for us in what kind of way will they try to use their influence in Afghanistan and Jammu and Kashmir so otherwise the signals are very clear what they want is a traditional Islamic Sharia government and as long as they remain within their internal sphere do not export revolution to other countries a concern may be a little less but it is too early to say what the consequences will be what more they will be in because they are better received in putting out any kind of rebellion that they are very particular but in their words at least they are a little more recent and so that is all that we can we can say at the moment we hope that this will be a transient situation and things may improve but otherwise we'll have to find some way of coexistence with Pakistan and Afghanistan in a new form thank you very much