India has mutual concerns with Pakistan over Taliban’s irredentism

India has mutual concerns with Pakistan over Taliban’s irredentism

The 13-hour talks between Pakistan and Taliban at the defence ministers' level in Doha under the mediation of Qatar and Turkiye resulted in an agreement on October 19 to cease hostilities on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and establish a mechanism for lasting peace. The agreement also made a wide range of important commitments to resolve bilateral disputes, including border issues. The talks are to resume in Turkiye on October 25 where the focus would be on the proposed ‘mechanism’ agreed upon in Doha. Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has described the development as ‘the first step in the right direction’.

Notwithstanding the apocalyptic scenario in the Indian media reports, there is cautious hope after the Doha talks. Taliban’s willingness to rein in the terrorist groups operating out of Afghan soil is in doubt, especially the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) with which Taliban is ideologically, ethnically, and strategically linked. The Doha deal’s effectiveness will depend crucially on Taliban’s sincerity.

Evidently, the root causes of the conflict are ‘over-determined’. India’s support for the Taliban, in all probability, will remain tactical, due to reservations. Taliban’s Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada is a hardcore Islamist who traces his roots to the Indian Deobandi tradition, and blends Deobandi thought with Pashtunwali and Wahhabi influences, and his growing assertiveness would possibly have various domestic considerations within India. 

The retaliatory Pakistani military operations turned the Afghan border regions over time into grey zones where neither the Taliban nor the Pakistani State holds total sway over the tribes. This has turned the border regions into transit routes for arms, militants, and human trafficking, creating trans-regional repercussions. No doubt, the dramatic surge in TTP militancy has become a national security threat facing Pakistan. As many as 600 TTP attacks have been reported so far this year — the worst in a decade. 

Dialogue offers the best solution, but Pakistan’s fragmented political landscape does not allow that to happen. The overthrow of Imran Khan, who hails from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and his exclusion from political life on trumped-up charges also led to a widespread loss of trust in the region vis-à-vis the authorities. The resentment and alienation are now being exploited by the TTP to gain support and fuel recruitment. Nonetheless, support for the TTP in the province appears so far to be limited.

Taliban’s internal rift

Any estimation that Taliban is a cohesive entity will be off the mark. The Durrani (southern Kandahari) domination of Pashtun has had a counterpoint historically in the Ghilzay (inhabiting southeastern Afghanistan and extending into the Indus Valley). Anti-Pakistan sentiments are on the rise in the Taliban’s Kandahari leadership, whereas the Haqqanis are Ghilzay (numerically the biggest Pashtun) and share many common interests and kinship with Pakistan. Some of the Ghilzay had long been nomadic merchants, buying goods in India, where they wintered, and in summer transporting these by camel caravan for sale or barter in Afghanistan.

While Sirajuddin Haqqani remains in control of the powerful interior ministry in Kabul, the Kandahar leadership has reportedly pushed the Haqqanis and other political rivals out of key positions in recent years. There is historical evidence suggesting that non-Durani resentment against Durrani domination in Afghanistan contributed to civil wars in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Conceivably, the Taliban leaders in Kandahar may feel emboldened by the recent foreign policy successes. But these successes are anything but built on antipathy towards Pakistan. Pakistan has many options, too. There is no question that Pakistan will regard it as unacceptable if inimical forces emerge in Kabul and act as proxies, claiming to represent the Afghan nation. The analogy of the proxy war in Ukraine must be kept in mind.

Strategic realignment

There is no ‘great game’ in Afghanistan. While two decades ago, the US was still capitalising on the outcomes of the Cold War, its current interest lies in containing Chinese economic expansion, maintaining leverage over an increasingly assertive India, and counter-terrorism agenda. That said, it also has a different compass today to manipulate militant Islam as an instrument of geopolitics, as evident in its mentorship of the Syrian transition last December.

Notably, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA)’s designation as a terrorist group by Washington and the inclusion of the TTP in the Pakistan-US counterterrorism dialogue show that Islamabad has been able to convince the Donald Trump administration that these are terrorist groups and are a mutual security concern. Trump publicly thanked Islamabad for arresting ISIS leader Mohammad Sharifullah, who orchestrated the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport during the US withdrawal in August 2021 that killed 13 US service personnel.

Derek Grossman at the Rand Corporation (who previously served as an intelligence adviser at the Pentagon) wrote recently, ‘One common misconception is that Washington's ties to Pakistan are somehow about countering Chinese influence there. In reality, this ship has long sailed… Islamabad and Beijing have been close allies for decades, and the trend has only intensified in recent years.’

Moscow’s pragmatism

As for Russia, it is not anymore in a direct and intense confrontation with the US. Russia strongly advocates a ‘neutral’ Afghanistan with independent foreign policies. It stresses economic content in dealings with the Taliban (as with the regime in Syria) in a pragmatic way to serve its interests.

Being stakeholders in Afghanistan’s stabilisation, Russia, China, and Iran have called for a peaceful resolution of the Pakistan-Taliban differences. The big question is whether they will work towards a strategy that pairs urgent de-escalation with structural fixes. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation can provide a useful platform.

Long-term peace depends on more inclusive governance inside Afghanistan. An opening of the political space can reduce the stimulus for cross-border adventurism, and shift the focus towards development. Without credible steps on sovereignty, militant sanctuaries, and economic interdependence, the chances of escalation will remain high.

The priority today is about extending the ceasefire and creating a verification mechanism, which will necessitate neutral patrolling by third parties acceptable to both Pakistan and the Taliban. Turkiye, perhaps, foots the bill to establish basic guardrails such as joint patrolling and intelligence-sharing on TTP movements. Ankara has rich previous experience in the Afghan landscape with the Taliban.

The Durand Line dispute will continue to be a medium-term concern, but here too, the time has come for some movement towards managing the dispute. The OIC, which has been actively engaged in terrorism-related concerns since its inception in 1969 and is the second largest inter-governmental organisation after the United Nations, could help pursue delimitation and technical demarcation —without reopening sovereignty claims.

These are, of course, stray thoughts to break the vicious cycle of a colonial border fuelling irredentist sentiments, which inevitably breeds the politics of atavism and grievance, real or imagined, and leads to militancy, and may eventually morph into yet another asymmetrical war shaping the sad fate of South Asia.

The security climate has taken a turn for the worse for India following the cataclysmic events in Bangladesh and Nepal — and the raging civil war in Myanmar — all of it having some degree or other of external support. India, as a responsible regional power, is obligated to tread warily on Taliban’s march into the current history of the subcontinent. The mutual concern with Pakistan is all too obvious. 

M K Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat.