23 June 2021
As always, I would like to discount, pretty much the article hosted on Vice which makes a nauseating narrative of gender regression and female ostracisation inevitable in a Taliban ruled Afghanistan. What is so cringe worthy is how the destruction of a Islamic shrine by a drone strike and the issue of freedom and liberty of women is juxtaposed, almost placing the religious sanctity of Afghani mosques and madrases as being ensured only by the regression in gender equality, as if patriarchy, tribalism and religious fundamentalism would ensure piety at the cost of emancipation of women in these areas!
Yet, the ground reality, if one has gone through the record of Afghanistan post Soviet withdrawal is how much like Islamic Revolution in Iran, women in Afghani society disappeared altogether until the US led International Coalition that threw out the Taliban and we had first Youssef Karzai and now Ashraf Ghani as Presidents, backed by American presence of nearly two decades in this country. When Pakistan had backed the Taliban and promoted it as a student revolution, I wondered if the Taliban could actually provide Afghanistan with a modern government. If it could disarm tribal chieftains and dismantle ethnic militia and create a government that would be modelled on their Westward neighbour-Iran. However that would mean ISI control over the Taliban would get diminished, so too, the cover the Taliban regime offered for bin Laden’s Al Aqsa Brigade and Al Qaeda. So, if Taliban were to enjoy a similar untrammelled run now, would the ISI allow it to do what it failed the first time around? Especially since bin Laden is not there and the ISIS threat has been resounding quashed?
After all, America is allied with some of the most religiously strict Islamic countries, including its Ally in Chief in West Asia- Saudi Arabia. The Sauds led by Prince Muhammad Bin Sultan got away with the murder and dismemberment of journalist and US resident Jamal Kashoggi in the Saudi Embassy precincts in Istanbul, after all. While President Biden may take cognisance of this later, it is an indication of how far the US is willing to allow an ally state to flout its much espoused democratic values and respect for human rights! So may be, Secretary Blinken and Pentagon have got Rawalpindi GHQ with a broad set of parameters which they are willing to cede in return for some strategic ears and eyes on China’s restive Western regions? I am aware that India is part of the Quad, that Pakistan is an ally or client state now of CCP China, yet, given the core national architecture, I would not rule out Pakistan surreptitiously aiding the Americans in covert operations in Xinjiang Uighur and Tibet, particularly when New Delhi would want to project a clear docile neighbouring face to China, burdened as it is with the crushing pandemic wave, the economy out of gas, and an increasing less cohesive majority in the polity under PM Modi. By virtue of geography, India is not a natural ally of China, even those who watch Taiwan will accept that until recently, the ROC has stated aim of pretty much the same Westward expansion of Chinese influence as the CCP Chinese have. It is only now under President Tsai and after the severe circumstances of CCP animosity, even trying to scuttle vaccine deals by Taipei, that Taiwan has exchanged her legacy status for a more island view, attempting to carve for herself a delineating franchise apart from the mainland. I wager, that while the pandemic may be proximate cause, the greater thrust for such determination has come about with the treatment of Hong Kong by the CCP and the abrupt change in status, which is signalled by the possible closure of East Asia’s most vocal and liberal newspaper-the Apple Daily!
Is human liberalism a project possible without gender equality? Is social transformation into participative democracy possible without the emancipation of women? The history of democratic franchise in the West itself offers several clues, including that of the Leader of the Free World- USA! From severely restricting adult franchise by class, gender and race, to opening up gradually, and even now using a clearly violative provision of ‘filibuster’ to ensure increasing grade separation for minority community voters to register and vote, the USA remains arguably the world’s biggest example of a promise, whose delivery is largely one of disputes. We know that as a country, USA was fortunate to allow Barrack Obama to become the first Black President but was not ready for Hillary Clinton to replace him as the First Woman President! Even Obama is not the typical African American slave descended black, half White American and Kenyan in descent. We see how SCOTUS candidates were filled up in Trump’s term, and we know that standards for public office of the gravity that SCOTUS justices carry have different yardsticks when it comes to gender-Brett Kavannaugh and race-Amy Coney Barrett as a White Christian Conservative, who became the youngest ever associate justice!
So can Secretary Blinken assure President Ghani of protecting the gains Afghan women made in the last two decades? Of Taliban allowing schools for girls after their attempts to bomb such centres? Is the OSINT input that Indian officials recently met with Taliban delegates in Doha an inkling of India’s own acceptance of the fait accompli? Even in the first NDA government under Mr Vajpayee, the National Security apparatus under Mr Brajesh Mishra including Mr Ajit Doval, whose hold now is much visible and more complete that in 1999 Kandahar hijack hostage negotiations. It is not that India abjured talks with Taliban, it is just that India wanted ISI to be punished for 9/11 and other excesses in Western soil as well as Indian soil, for legitimising the use of Islamic non state actors as an arm of Pakistan, and hence was unrelenting till 2014 to deal with ISI or any of its proteges. This truth was borne out when Parliament was ambushed which caused a border mobilisation called Operation Parakram, the 26/11 Mumbai Attacks which now India equates with the WTC bombing of 9/11. Yet we could see India defer by roping in ISI to investigate the Pathankot IAF Base attack. We can see investigations into Uri, Pulwama and other attacks, become secondary to ‘surgical strike’ and Balakot Air Strike. So the global analyst community must not be surprised if India were to now engage fully with Taliban to protect her considerable investments in Pakistan and neighbouring Iran. Even after the 25 year investment deal with China, Iran has allowed India to bid for Oil and Gas exploration in the area near Chabahar besides strategic presence in Bandar e Jask at the mouth of the Hormuz. This after India’s hesitation to commit further in Chabahar forced Iran to cancel Indian operations there and cede them to China which is not restrained by US posture toward Iran at all, unlike India!
While many look at Iran’s current President elect as an act of regime hardening, I would consider this as a retaliation for capital strike on General Qasem Soleimani and bracing for the greater role Taliban will have in neighbouring Afghanistan after the American withdrawal. Justice Ibrahim Raisi was the Chief Justice of the Iranian Judicial system, before becoming a candidate to run for office, in an election that was fraudulent in how so many pro reform candidates were screened and eliminated and forced Iranians to turn out in very low numbers as an act of defiance to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. From within the Islamic Republic itself, the choice of Raisi is clearly in what the regime perceives as its best interests. Raisi is likely to open up to Turkey, embellish his public anti American stance, while parleying in secret, and hoping for American concessions against trade sanctions crippling Iran as well as Western Afghanistan, particularly Herat. The Shite community in Afghanistan and the Northern Alliance whole charismatic founder Ahmad Shah Masood was assassinated by Taliban-Al Qaeda and whose successor Marshal Mohammed Qasim died of natural causes in 2014 after serving as Afghan VP, is now led by Ahmad Massoud the son of its founder. At its heart is Panjshir ( Five Lions Valley) which never fell to either Soviets or Taliban, which is crucial support for the Massoud Junior. So the chances are equally bright that Dostums and Haqqanis are around as well, recasting Afghanistan into a warlord based power sharing province specific country, where one expects naturally that Dostum and Massoud dominated areas would be more gender equal than others.
So where India has opened up to the Taliban, I hope fervently that she has opened committed channels and resources to her pre Taliban tribal Allies in Afghanistan of Tajik, Uzbek and Farsi denominations and some of the non radicalised Pashtuns. The reality of Taliban as a group that failed to muster an all Afghan rank and file, restricted to Sunni and largely Pashtun recruits, is not lost on the Americans, Pakistans and Indians. The way I started with the Vice article that was coloured from a modern western liberal perspective and now the twain meeting with a recall of Indic epic roles that make me hope the Kaikeyis and Gandharis of 21st Century Afghanistan will demand a seat at the high table of their land, reveal a unique truth about our world at large and Afghanistan in particular. For restive regions, strife torn polities, for societies consumed by religious and identity based fundamentalism, the true beacon of humanism emerges from the wombs of our women! It is they as arbiters, as enablers and as partners can usher an epoch of realism and liberalism that can rescue us from this vortex of violence that civilisational clashes have set upon us! Another important economic and globally relevant factor is our response to Climate Challenge and exit of fossil fuels from the energy matrix! Much of the fundamentalist funding that West Asia offers comes from OPEC and a world that is addicted to crude! Thus gender and gas are the twin prisms from where not just Afghanistan, but the larger Afroasiatic arc sweeping from Magreb to Mongolia, could write new bold strokes of humanism and liberalism, strokes that could end internecine and turbulent tribalism that threatens to consume it!
I hope Afghans get a Madam President in our life times! I also hope America gets one into the White House too! It’s not vain symbolism, the transfer of power and prejudice from exclusive male preserve is at the core of much that beguiles humanity now…
indiarubberman.com 