NEW DELHI: India is coming to terms with the fact that notwithstanding Pakistan’s role in supporting the Taliban and ensuring a strategic failure for the US in Afghanistan, the US could be re-engaging Pakistan — perhaps shorn of illusions — once again, after a gap.
Foreign minister S. Jaishankar pointed to the “tactical compromises” the US might be making in Af-Pak — both vis a vis the Taliban and Pakistan. Acknowledging for the first time, mildly reproachfully, that India had been kept in the dark about the details of the US-Taliban deal, Jaishankar told an event in Washington, “I think to some degree, we’ll all be justified in having levels of concern. And to some degree, the jury is still out.”
Jaishankar’s reference was to the classified portions of the US-Taliban peace agreement in Doha, two annexures of which were not shared — not only with India but will the US’ partners as well. According to sources, these secret portions included military actions that the US committed to in Afghanistan. There is deep disquiet in India about the details of the secret portions of the agreement that could have an impact on India.
“When I say levels of concern, there were commitments which were made by the Taliban at Doha…The US knows that best, we were not taken into confidence on various aspects of that.” The upshot of this was that US actions threw Afghan civil society and the Ashraf Ghani government under the bus, as the Taliban swept into Kabul in mid-August. “We have been victims of cross-border terrorism from that region and…that has shaped in many ways our view of some of the neighbours of Afghanistan. How much the US shares that view and where is it that the US makes its tactical compromises, that is for the Americans to figure out.”
India faces a challenging diplomatic-security situation post the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. This relates not only to the legitimacy of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, it also relates to Pakistan’s relative positioning vis a vis Afghanistan, China and now, the US, that could have a bearing on India’s security space.
This week, US deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will visit India followed by Pakistan, a script that hasn’t been followed in the recent past. She follows a similar path struck by CIA chief Bill Burns who was here a few days ago. For the present, US officials have indicated this would involve evacuations, but sections in the Indian establishment feel that given US’ intelligence vulnerabilities in Af-Pak, the US-Pak engagement may grow. However, there is a growing clamour in Washington to call Pakistan out for its role, with a new Bill introduced in the US Congress that directly mentions Pakistan and calls for an “assessment of support by state and non-state actors, including the government of Pakistan, for the Taliban between 2001 and 2020.”
Top security sources in the Indian government are convinced the Afghanistan situation will get considerably worse — certainly for Afghan civil society. These are already signs of abuse of women, removing them from employment and education, suffering of minorities etc. This is directly related to how the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.
This is already playing out badly in the internal politics of the Democrats in Washington. First, a realisation that the main reason the Afghan government folded as it did was that there was virtually no space for it in the Doha deal. Officials said one escape clause for the US could have been reneging on the deal if the Taliban-Afghan talks failed. They did, largely because the Taliban was not interested. But the Biden administration stayed in the deal, which, an increasing number of security experts now describe as a “weak” deal.
A second point of concern in India is the number of weapons left behind by the departing US troops for the Taliban to use. Given their parlous control and an economic crisis, India is worried that these weapons could find their way to armed criminals and terror groups, potentially causing havoc.
However, unlike the last time, the India-US relationship has evolved to a place that now sees both countries at least exchanging notes on Afghanistan, though there are many areas where India does not agree with the US. Those concerns, sources said, have been made clear to the Biden administration as well.
The UN’s credentials committee is expected to meet in November to take a call on giving the UN seat to the Taliban. The Taliban have already named their spokesperson, Suhail Shaheen to the job. The other check to wholesale acceptance of the Taliban has been the UNSC resolution 2593, which sets down conditions for Taliban’s acceptability and committed the international community to it. Even if the UN decides to grant the UN seat to the Taliban, there will be other hurdles, particularly their international travel. India chairs the Taliban sanctions committee in the UNSC — since many members of the Taliban government are under UN sanctions, these would have to be lifted before they can travel.