This story first appeared in India News Stream
India quietly re-entered Afghanistan to “assist” United Nations agencies to provide “food security” and “emergency and medical aid” to the Afghan population, ravaged by privation particularly brought on since the Taliban regime took power almost two years ago. Having sent 40,000 metric tons of wheat via the WFP last year, India committed another 20,000 tons of wheat aid, of which 2,000 tons have reached Herat. It is routing medical supplies to hospitals in Kabul through a “technical team” headed by mid-level diplomat Bharat Kumar, which has re-established an Indian diplomatic presence in that devastated country. Sources said India was also helping to restore some administrative and educational facilities and assisting UN efforts to control the drugs problem.
Like every other country, India also has not given diplomatic recognition to the Taliban, but realised that its complete absence from the Afghan space was damaging its own interests. The devastating earthquake in Afghanistan last June provided New Delhi with the cover to quietly return to the country it had been forced to flee after the diplomatic debacle of the Taliban’s military takeover of that country. Since then, it has been working under the radar to try and restore its severely frayed linkages with the people of Afghanistan. Having invested over US$ 3 billion in people-oriented development projects in all 34 districts of Afghanistan, India had harvested enormous goodwill and affection in those two decades of work in Afghanistan.
“With the passage of time, we have sent back a technical team to the embassy. They have been there for some time; their job is essentially, in a sense, to monitor the situation and see how we can support,” said External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
However, India’s recent policy positions towards Afghanistan, since even before the takeover of that country by the Taliban in 2021, has been a case study in how best to lose friends and influence in a country where, for decades, India led the popularity stakes as Afghanistan’s best friend. From being the country of choice for visiting Afghans, India does not figure in any of their lists of popular destinations any more.
The slide started with provisions in the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019, which singled out Afghanistan, along with Bangladesh and Pakistan, as nations which persecute their minorities. This raised serious concern, not only within the former Ashraf Ghani – led Afghan government, but also among the ordinary people of Afghanistan. Infusing a communal flavour into a close people-to-people relationship came as a shock to the Afghans, who looked upon India and Indians as good friends. Despite the CAA being shifted to the back burner, the damage to relations had begun.
That, however, was nothing compared to what happened when, blindsided by the speed of the Taliban armed advance and takeover of Kabul on August 15, 2021, India appeared shell-shocked and, in a blanket effort to save its human assets, blocked off routes for Afghans to come to India. It compounded its major diplomatic setback by hitting out at the Afghan populace, the very constituency in which it was most invested.
On August 25, 2021, the Home Ministry issued a statement saying, “previously issued visas to all Afghan nationals, who are presently not in India, stand invalidated with immediate effect.” It directed Afghan nationals to apply under a special “Emergency e-visa” (Em-X-Misc e-visa) – valid for six months and grudgingly granted. Of the tens of thousands of applications received in 2022, e-visas were issued to less than 300 Afghans, mostly Hindus and Sikhs, leaving thousands of other Afghans, including former parliamentarians, diplomats, students and patients who regularly visited India to work, study or for medical treatment, in the lurch.
India was the first country with which Afghanistan ever signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement, in October 2011, a defence and security arrangement which it didn’t even have then with the USA. Though India did not have boots on the ground, the SPA considerably enhanced India’s security credentials in a region where Pakistan had persistently tried to expand its footprint.
Even former Afghanistan intelligence chief Rahmatullah Nabil who, as Director of the National Directorate of Security under Presidents Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani, very closely cooperated with India during his tenure (2010-2015), was denied a visa. Nabil told The Hindu he had been denied a visa by India after the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021.
“Even those who were friends of India, and those who had diplomatic passports and visas, were turned away,” Nabil said. He was among many former senior officials the Taliban targeted for their links with India.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi travels Thursday to France, India’s first strategic partner country, ways to salvage the situation in Afghanistan will feature in his discussions with President Emmanuel Macron.
Japan recently announced visas for Afghans to study in Japan. In stark contrast, India continues to disappoint even Afghan students who were already studying on Indian government scholarships. Afghan students traditionally were major beneficiaries of ICCR and ITEC scholarships. No exception was made for them. Indian policies have caused many couples who married across borders to stay apart.
Mohammad Karim Dastagir, ran a travel agency in Kabul and managed visas for the Indian Embassy since 2002. He had thought of India was a “second home,” where he visited, often, and where he met his wife. But with the closure of the Indian Embassy after Kabul fell to the Taliban, his was among the many visas cancelled. Karim fled to Turkey to be reunited with his family.
With the Taliban takeover, India went from being “Kabul’s closest regional partner to one of the region’s most disadvantaged players in an Afghanistan context,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia programme at the US-based Wilson Center.
While India was obviously aware of the deadlines approaching for US troops to withdraw from beleaguered Afghanistan, it largely relied on the US to do its diplomatic legwork and refrained, until after US troops withdrew, from even admitting any contact with the Taliban. New Delhi made a quiet re-entry into Kabul a year ago, when the earthquake struck. However, sources said, relations between Afghanistan and Afghans and India will never be the same.
“India is no longer where we choose to come,” said a woman journalist who managed to flee from the clutches of the Taliban. “We had hoped they would stand by us, but they let us down.”
That appears to have become the common refrain for Afghans.