India getting edged out in Kabul: Experts

Ajay Banerjee 

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 8

India faces a tough challenge in Afghanistan as the Taliban, backed by Russia and China, gets mainstreamed. It could soon get control over some parts of the strife-torn country. 

Discussing what is, in strategic circles, termed the “new great game”, leading strategic thinkers from the Intelligence-gathering community, military and diplomacy — speaking at the Military Literature Festival here on Saturday — warned how India is being edged out. 

The original phrase “great game” (1813-1907) stems from the expansionist policies of the British empire and the Czar-led Russia.

Maj Gen BK Sharma (retd), who heads the Centre for Strategic Studies and Simulation at the United Services Institution (CS3), said: “We are in the new Cold War. The strategic embrace of Russia and China is to push out the US from Afghanistan.” 

The General cited the “reconciliation talks” at Moscow where the Taliban came up with an irreconcilable list of demands like the release of 30,000 prisoners, rewriting of Afghanistan’s Constitution  and asking the US to leave. “India is getting isolated. Russia is playing a game to avenge the US-forced withdrawal of the erstwhile USSR (from Afghanistan) in 1989. China is playing a subtle game.” 

An anti-US alliance has emerged, forcing the US to open a direct channel with the Taliban. “India should try and bring the US to become a forerunner of any reconciliation process,” said the General, who has just returned from the India-Afghan security dialogue in Kabul. India had a principled stance that it would not talk to the Taliban, he added.

Suggesting a more realistic approach, former Ambassador Gurjit Singh suggested: “We tend to lose friends quickly. The need is to make more friends without trying being to be the ‘Vatican’ or moralistic about it.” He said new rules of the game were emerging and “we have to be ready to play by the new rules”. 

“In the 1970s, we wanted the US out of Indian Ocean, now we want the US to remain there and keep the Chinese out. Our worry is China’s move into southern Indian Ocean and the US may not do much about it.”

China-watcher and officer of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) Jayant Ranade said: “The US has allowed China to grow. Today we are witnessing a scramble between the US and China to grab more authority or retaining what they have.”

“The suspicion Moscow and Beijing have of each other will show up soon,” asserted Ranade. Tilak Devasher, former director of the Intelligence Bureau, who has authored ‘Pakistan: At the Helm’, moderated the discussion.