On Sunday, 15 August, 2021, India celebrated the 75th Independence Day as ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’. Making his eighth speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, PM Modi touched upon many aspects of India’s future development, from new commitments to infrastructure development to climate change, and from the Covid 19 pandemic to the Tokyo Olympics.
As we were digesting the messages contained in the speech of the Prime Minister, news started coming in that the Taliban had entered Kabul, thus completing the near-total takeover of Afghanistan twenty years after they were driven out of power by the American military. The scenes that followed have stunned the world. Visuals of the chaotic and frenzied evacuation of U.S. diplomats and civilians have been all over the media, even as vulnerable Afghans made a frantic dash to banks, their homes, buying food or the airport. President Ashraf Ghani and his Vice President made a hasty departure from Afghanistan, just in time to avoid the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban.
Stories soon emerged of mobs at the airport as civilians tried hopelessly to find some means of escaping Kabul and life under the Taliban. Pictures and videos of desperate people falling off the wheels of an aircraft taking off from Kabul airport have gone viral, instilling dread in the hearts of all civilised people.
Given the situation in Kabul, India too has evacuated its diplomats and a number of civilians from Kabul. The first batch of people returned on Sunday onboard an Air India flight. The evacuation of the next group could not take place immediately due to the prevailing chaos at Kabul airport. To start with, local staff at the Air Traffic Control (ATC) apparently abandoned the airport due to fear of the Taliban. With the Taliban lacking the education and skills to run the airport, operations could only start once US personnel took charge of the ATC. Thereafter, more than 100 diplomats, including India’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Rudrendra Tandon, officials and journalists evacuated from Kabul on Tuesday, 17 August, and reached New Delhi after a stopover at Gujarat’s Jamnagar. Their evacuation could take place only after 24-hour-long negotiations. Arrangements had to be tied up with sundry Taliban and other sundry groups manning the 15 check posts from the Indian mission in Kabul to the International Airport. India is waiting for US forces to allow civilian flights to Kabul for further evacuation. Other Indians will be evacuated from Afghanistan after the civilian airport is opened to civilian flights. Other western countries also scrambled to evacuate their citizens and local staff. Russia meanwhile said that it did not plan to evacuate its embassy in Kabul, while Beijing said that China's embassy in Kabul remains operational.
Amidst this cloud of uncertainty hanging over Kabul, with desperate civilians looking for safety and fearful of their lives, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan appeared to make an effort to endorse the Taliban takeover of Kabul. His statement that the Taliban had broken “the shackles of slavery”, seems to have earned the ire of Kabul’s distressed civilians. Perhaps he had not seen visuals of desperate Afghans dying as they fell off an aircraft taking off from Kabul airport, or the desperate bid of civilians trying to flee Afghanistan to escape life under the Taliban. Possibly, he does not care about the “shackles” that will bind Afghan women under the Taliban.
There is much that is being said about what is in store for India and what can be India’s policy options. Much of what is being said is speculative at this stage. Analysts either base their assessments on past Taliban behaviour, their close links with Pakistan or speculate that the differences between the Taliban and Pakistan would soon emerge. The optimistic analysis envisages that the faultlines between the two will soon emerge, especially the differences over the Durand line between the two countries. Others argue that the Taliban would benefit from the infrastructure developed with Indian assistance, as it benefits the people of Afghanistan. There is also much debate over whether India made a mistake by not having a formal dialogue with the Taliban in the past.
At this stage, India’s priority has to be to ensure the safety and security of Indian nationals and friends in Afghanistan, apart from the small minority Hindu and Sikh communities. Expediting the next round of evacuation would have to be the first priority. Working with the international community to ensure the safety and security of the Afghan people and ensuring that the Taliban live up to their promise of a dignified life for the Afghan women under their rule must also be of the highest priority.
A semblance of normality seems to have returned to Kabul for now. It is our fervent hope that the harried people of Afghanistan can survive with safety and dignity. They should know that the uncertain times they face, fill us all with a lot of disquiet.
