Unsubstantiated conflation of Taliban and India

Today that rote obsession of unsubstantiated blaming India has crossed all known levels of plausibility and absurdity. It has reached a stage where even their "own" are not just questioning the Pakistani State about their India-fixation, but are also taking on the Pakistani State for persisting with instincts that disallow thinking beyond India when reflecting on the crippling woes that beset their narrative. The most recent act of Pakistan consistently disowning its own acts of commission and omission, is the violent regression in its relations with its own creation, i.e., Taliban, onto Delhi.   

In a surreal accusation, Pakistan suggests that somehow the radicalised, supremacist, and ultra-nativist phenomenon of the Taliban is actually working hand-in-glove with India! Such a baseless accusation is counterintuitive from so many lenses, most importantly from the prism of foundational and ideological facts. It is clearly established that the Taliban are a product of the deliberately incubated force in the religious schools (madrasas), along

the Durand Line in the townships of Pakistan. Historically, they were carefully nurtured, financed, trained, armed, and given safe havens by Pakistan's infamous spy agency, i.e., Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to its bidding in Afghanistan towards ensuring Islamabad's "Strategic Depth" with a beholden Afghan government.   

However, Pakistan mistook the tactical support accepted by the Afghans during the anti-Soviet Mujaheddin movement of the 1980's for allowing permanent control. Culturally and historically, the Afghans could never be a proxy force as they saw themselves as a Afghan nationalist movement. Their past as the "Graveyard of Empires" is instructive as they could never be controlled by any foreign power and would inevitably seek independent decision-making, and never accept a vassal status.

This tension of fundamental dissonance between Pakistanis and Afghans became more pronounced post the Taliban re-takeover in 2021. Since then, the gradual assertion by the Aghan Taliban and the patronage of its co-ideological brethren (albeit Pakistan-facing) Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) became a strong lever in the hands of Kabul, which was otherwise conventionally (militarily) inferior to the Pakistanis. Soon, the Afghan-based forces started resorting to the same asymmetric ways which had been taught by the Pakistani Military for so long - but only this time, the tables had turned, and the Taliban and its co-ideological affiliates started striking at Pakistan, with deadly consequences.

However, to be fair to the Afghan Taliban, they weren't initially trying to spite Pakistan unwarrantedly. They only reacted after they imagined Pakistan trying to "control" the narrative and diminish their sovereign pride. Islamabad also wrongly underestimated the resilience and determination of its own creation in taking on its progenitor.

Today, there is a no-holds-barred "war" (Operation Ghazab lil-Haq) with both sides openly hitting the weak spot of the other. Obviously, the militarily superior Pakistanis are striking from the safety of skies with sheer impunity, disdain and recklessness.

All this is further fueling the Aghan animus and sense of vengeance against Pakistan. They are ironing their resolve by knowingly harbouring terror groups that could be Balochi secessionists or Pashtun secessionists, or of any other ideological and tribal/ethnic composition.

The most barbaric and deadliest attack by the Pakistanis was the recent bombing of a drug rehabilitation centre that killed an unprecedented 410-odd Afghans. Unbelievably, the Pakistanis designated the air strike as "precision, deliberate and professional", no Afghan or right-thinking person can believe that this site would have had any militaristic value, but for a sheer attempt to bludgeon the Afghan resolve and spirit. But the bizarreness continued with the further Pakistani suggestion that a clearly radicalized and extremist force like the Afghan Taliban was acting at the behest of a secular India! Pakistani Foreign Office noted, "India's active sponsorship of terrorism directed at Pakistan from Afghan soil, as well as its historical role as a spoiler". This Pakistani disingenuity of conflating Taliban and India aside, the mood on the streets of Kabul against the Pakistanis is at an all-time low. No amount of fraternal spiel a la "brother Muslim nation" will cut ice with the unforgiving Taliban ranks, going forward.

Situation has deteriorated to such an extent for the Pakistanis that their own preferred faction with the larger Taliban community, i.e., Haqqani faction, too has virtually slammed the door on Islamabad. With that snapping, the Pakistanis have lost their most powerful pivot in Afghanistan.

Haqqani faction leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who was once pitched by the ISI as Afghanistan's Interior Minister when Islamabad had sway with the Afghan Taliban called the recent attackers (read, Pakistan) as "criminals". Sirajuddin Haqqani coldly warned, "We will take revenge," and added, "We are not weak and helpless. You will see the consequences of your crimes."

With the inevitable impact of the global energy crisis crippling the already wounded Pakistani economy, the ability of Pakistan to brace against the dangerously asymmetric ways of the forces from across the unrecognised Durand Line will be very limited. Pakistan has invited Afghan fury, and the Afghans will pay with interest. No untoward conjoining of the issue with India will establish credibility or save Pakistan.

The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry ; views are personal