Women in the front row | Setting precedent for future India-Taliban engagements

The Modi government’s failure to object to gender apartheid contradicted its public celebration of Naari Shakti

On October 12, journalists, men and women, walked into the Afghanistan embassy in New Delhi, which looked ghost-like over the last couple of years. The globally recognised flag of the democratically elected government, overthrown violently on August 15, 2021, still fluttered in the wind outside.

The press interaction that followed marked a major climb down for the Taliban — one for the history books. Within 48 hours, Taliban Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi was forced to address a second press conference — this time with women journalists seated on the front row along with their male colleagues.

Barring the exception of two, none of the women were in headscarves. A volley of hard-hitting questions about the rights of young girls and women of Afghanistan to be educated and be a part of the workforce was asked. A scale and tone of questions at a press event that no Taliban leader has faced in the past four years of controlling power.

It was very unlike the October 10 presser, where Muttaqi addressed a select men-only club, with women counterparts excluded, and barely one or two questions were asked about Afghan women’s rights. The exclusion of women journalists led to a huge furore and political storm. Ironically, the Taliban does give interviews to foreign women journalists in Kabul.

Asked about the exclusion of women from his first press conference in India, Muttaqi called it "an inadvertent technical issue with a short list of journalists prepared in a short time". A statement as unconvincing as the note put out by the Ministry of External Affairs earlier that "it had no role to play" in the October 10 press conference, which, in a first, brought gender discrimination to a press conference organised in India by a foreign delegation infamous for the gender apartheid it practices back home.

Are we to believe that a vertically split and hardly staffed embassy with its Charge D’Affaires (CDA) Sayed Mohammed Ibhrahimkhil in New Delhi, aligned with the ousted Afghan government and a Taliban-appointed consul general in Mumbai did the ‘male only’ media selection process by themselves?

Even if that were the case, how could the Narendra Modi government be keen to simply wash its hands off the entire incident by bending to the discrimination against female journalists without raising objections? The same government enthusiastically projects Naari Shakti whether it is in India’s Right of Reply to Pakistan in the United Nations by a young woman diplomat or women officers of the armed forces briefing on Operation Sindoor.

The pro-government ecosystem that has suddenly discovered its love for a globally-sanctioned terror regime, citing ‘national security interests’, kept harping on the Vienna conventions to justify the discrimination against women, arguing that what happened in the Afghan embassy was beyond the control of the Indian government, as it was technically Afghan territory. But they chose to ignore the guiding principles of the convention that include respect for human rights and freedoms, and stress on both international law and the law of the land to prevent abuse of diplomatic immunity.

The host countries can always request certain protocols or make their objections known to visiting delegations. Even Modi, who has not addressed a press conference in India since 2014, has taken questions from the press in Washington DC because the US administration insisted.

Not to forget, the Taliban is yet to be officially recognised. India only gave a nod to upgrade its technical mission in Kabul back to an embassy following the talks between Muttaqi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, where, in another avoidable terrible optics, the Indian flag was missing in the conference hall, and so were any women officials on the Indian side. The display of the flag with the Shahada in black and white of the de facto rulers of Afghanistan, yet to be formally recognised, can be diplomatically withheld at events without compromising on the tricolour of the bigger, powerful host nation. Türkiye has done so in the past.

Oddly enough, Muttaqi was seen with women in the room at the Vivekananda International Foundation event, but on the last benches and reportedly no questions were taken from them. The Right-wing ecosystem has abused and viciously trolled women journalists who questioned and spoke out against the Taliban regime’s discrimination. The same ecosystem also hurls abuses at Indian Muslims using ‘Talibani’ as a slur. For them as well, the October 12 press conference was a befitting reply.

It importantly sets the precedent right for future engagements when Taliban leaders come visiting India more frequently. India takes pride in its women leaders and achievers. When women journalists spoke out against the discrimination, they also stood up in solidarity with Afghan girls and women who must not be made invisible, who need to go back to educational institutions. In response to a question by this author and others, Muttaqi said education for girls is not ‘haram’, and cited incorrect data.

Taliban 2.0 must be held accountable for the rights of women if it wants to join the global conversation. Women are educated even in other extremely conservative Islamic nations, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. So does the Deoband, where huge crowds turned up to give Muttaqi a celebrity welcome. National security must drive India’s strategic realignments, but New Delhi can engage with the Taliban without caving in.

However, it must also find the voice to speak up for the dignity of its women, and seek accountability from the Taliban for the terror attacks on its embassy and killing of staff or the brutal killing of Pulitzer Prize-winning photo-journalist Danish Siddiqui in the line of duty. Let’s not forget that the Taliban needs India much more today than ever before.

Smita Sharma is a journalist and Visiting Faculty, Kautilya School of Public Policy. Twitter: @smita_sharma. 

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)