AFGHANISTAN IS TURNING INTO TALIBANISTAN
V.S.Gopalakrishnan Ph.D., IAS Retd.
typed on 24 July 2021
Afghanistan has always been deadly for India down the ages, and India has been naively and foolishly seeking its friendship by spending 3 billion dollars in that country as development assistance from its own tax-payers’ money. How did we ignore the gory Taliban factor when it was amply clear that when the US forces and NATO forces left that country, the avaricious Taliban would try to gobble up the country?
In the remote Vedic times, that region (presently Afghanistan) along with the area covered by Saptasindhu was the land of the Vedic Aryans. The Afghan rivers named Kabul, Swat, Kurram and Gumal are mentioned in the Vedas along with the Saptasindhu names. And in the Itihasic time, that region was called Gandhara. The Gandhari of Mahabharata was from there. The Gandhar in the seven surs is derived from Gandhara. Buddhism, from Ashoka’s time, became an important factor in that region in addition to Hinduism.
It all changed when the Afghan land was attacked by Muslim Arab conquerors and Herat was captured in 652 AD. In the following three centuries, the whole region came under Muslims. Mahmud of Ghazni (Ghazni is in Afghanistan) invaded India 17 times starting from 1001 AD. The 16th trip was to Somnath temple in 1025 AD to plunder the gold. The main purpose of his attacks was to loot our wealth and convert us to Islam.
And then we remember Muhammad Ghori (Ghor is in Afghanistan) who invaded India 7 times starting from 1175 AD. He eventually occupied the Delhi throne in 1192 AD by defeating Prithviraj Chauhan, and established the very long Muslim rule in India. The bloodshed suffered by Hindus and the wealth looted cannot be imagined.
Ahmad Shah Durrani invaded India eight times between 1748 and 1767. After the assassination of Nadir Shah, Ahmad Shah Durrani succeeded the throne of Afghanistan and started plundering wealth from nearby regions. Emperor Nadir Shah of Persia had invaded Delhi in March 1739 and stolen the Peacock throne and also slaughtered up to 30,000 residents of Delhi..
Historically, India remained a target of attack by the fierce Afghans, for gaining wealth and for effecting conversion.
THE TALIBAN PROBLEM:
Afghanistan today has only 3.8 crores of population compared to Pakistan’s 22 crore population. The Pashtuns (also called Pathans, an Iranian ethnic group) in Afghanistan make for about 1.6 cr, and the Pashtuns in Pakistan make for nearly 4.4 crores of population. Thus more than 40 percent of Afghans are Pashtuns and nearly 20 percent of Pakistanis are Pashtuns. Thus the Pathans live in both countries, in the area called Pashtunistan. These Pashtuns or Pathans make for the Taliban (Talib means student or religious study).
In the 1990 s, Taliban had captured Afghanistan and introduced brutal, religious, fundamentalist rule. The arrival of the US troops in 2001 was a setback to Taliban. Now, with the withdrawal of the US and NATO troops, Taliban in Afghanistan has gained ascendancy. Despite the Doha Agreement, the Afghan Taliban has been indulging in violence, terrorism etc. The Taliban says it has captured 85 percent area in Afghanistan. It is just a matter of time before Taliban captures Kabul and the country with their ruthlessness and military power contrary to its promises of non violence. Taliban cannot just be trusted. It is bound to introduce Sharia law in Afghanistan and curb the freedom of women. Girls will be denied education. Women will have to quit jobs, stay at home and wear black burka. Most of the Sikh and Hindu families at Jalalabad and other cities have recently sold their properties and businesses to local Muslims and fled to India. That shows how friendly Taliban will be towards India. We hope that the Museums in Afghanistan are not destroyed the way the Taliban destroyed the Bamian Buddhas in February 2001.
The Americans should have insisted on full surrender of arms by Taliban when they signed the peace agreement with them in Dubai. Why this was not done is not clear. It may be remembered that at the end of the Second World War, the Americans asked every Japanese citizen to surrender his weapon, even a sword! Secondly, the U.N. was never in Afghanistan and it was the Western forces that were maintaining the country in some peace and balance. Now, a bloody civil war likely to see the killing of thousands of civilians by the Taliban, is very much on the horizon. In such cases, there should be a provision evolved, for the U.N. to enter the country with its forces in order to prevent bloodshed of the common people at the hands of some militaristic forces. The U.N.forces should ensure disarming of citizens (like the Pashtuns) armed to the teeth.
If Taliban comes to power, the threat to India cannot be under-estimated. We now have to rue we went to assist Afghanistan with 3 billion dollars in developmental projects.
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