Afghanistan crisis: India should have adopted pragamatic route, say experts

By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Afghanistan watchers feel India should have adapted its Kabul strategy in tune withthe rapid changing scenario ever since the resurgence of the Taliban.

“India’s policy has been counterproductive ever since the US announced its withdrawal plans. Delhi should have entered into talks with the Taliban once it began offensive and showed signs of success. Even if such talks might have already happened, they shouldn’t have been denied but proudly embraced as the type of flexible pragmatism characteristic of a rising power like India,” Russia-based analyst Andrew Korybko said.

A former diplomat said India has missed a trick. “It was not expected that the Taliban resurgence would be so rapid but New Delhi should have adapted to the fast-changing scenario. Now, they stand the risk of becoming irrelevant and also due to India’s historical stand.” It was on Thursday that the MEA said India is in touch with all stakeholders in

Afghanistan, a departure from its previous stand of not establishing contacts with terrorist organisations like the Taliban. This, Korybko asserted,  has led to India isolating itself from the Extended Troika,which in turn greatly diminished whatever remaining influence it had there.

“As the Taliban sweeps through Afghanistan, India has now surprisingly become practically irrelevant. The Afghan government and military are rapidly collapsing while Delhi has zero influence over the rising Taliban. Even if India and most of the international community doesn’t recognise a Taliban government, they’ll still need to have pragmatic interactions with it.”

India also stands a risk of losing around $3 billion of its assisted projects with local media suggesting that the Taliban is targeting individuals and projects having links to New Delhi.”India’s strategists need to think long and hard about why they didn’t seize the diplomatic opportunity to talk to the Taliban over the past few months. That mistake is responsible for India losing almost everything it gained in Afghanistan over the past two decades and in less than a month’s time,” Korybko said.