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Why Gen Rawat is right on talks with Taliban

Gen Bipin Rawat has a penchant for hitting the bull’s eye, making headlines and retaining the spotlight.

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Maj Gen Ashok Mehta (Retd)
Former GOC, IPKF, Sri Lanka

Gen Bipin Rawat has a penchant for hitting the bull’s eye, making headlines and retaining the spotlight. It’s one of the avoidable hazards of his job where he can, like most of his predecessors, choose to remain mum. But Rawat — one of the most fearlessly articulate Army Chiefs in recent memory — is made of sterner stuff, which he demonstrated at the 4th edition of the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi recently. A disparate session alliteratively titled ‘Amoebic, Asymmetric and Anarchic: Counter Terrorism as it evolves’ saw the heavily bemedalled General seated among three senior counter terrorism experts being quizzed by BBC’s blue-blooded Afghan Yalda Hakim. Afghanistan, the regional hotspot, dominated the Raisina discourse, given the surfeit of Afghanistan experts and Afghan luminaries — former President Hamid Karzai, Gen David Petraeus (retd) and the latest American (Afghan Pashtun) to have a crack at the peace process with Taliban, the firebrand former envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad.

Answering the question from Hakim on whether India should talk to the Taliban, Rawat — contradicting the official stand of the Indian Government — replied in the affirmative with the proviso that the Taliban do not place pre-conditions. He cited the example of Pakistan, which considers Afghanistan as its backyard, adding: “they would want a situation in Afghanistan that is more favourable to them even if it means speaking to the devil.” Rawat’s stand was perfectly valid, but it stirred a hornet’s nest. India’s position on Taliban has waxed and waned. To start with, New Delhi rejected the reintegration and reconciliation policy of US/Afghanistan after the ouster of the Taliban from Kabul in 2001. Subsequently, reintegration was accepted, though the distinction between good and bad Taliban was rejected. Later, India found the reconciliation process kosher as long as it was within the parameters of the Afghan constitution, the Taliban shunned violence, and the peace process was Afghan-owned and Afghan-led. To this, India has now added ‘Afghan-controlled’.

Rawat’s advocacy of a dialogue with the Taliban has not come a day too soon. The ‘talking to Taliban’ analogy to Kashmir, though, is not acceptable to him. He rejected unconditional talks with militants and separatists, emphasising that any talks on the Valley would be ‘on our terms’. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Still, his justification for contact with the Taliban is perfectly valid, though former Army Chief Gen VK Singh, now a junior minister in the Ministry of External Affairs, on the sidelines of the Raisina, passed off his comments as a ‘personal view’. India has inexplicably tied itself in knots over engaging the Taliban even as two retired government officials joined the Moscow format of the peace process as observers. At least three countries attending the Raisina dialogue unequivocally asserted that India should engage with the Taliban and offered to facilitate a conversation. 

Karzai advised India to talk to the Taliban, saying that it should have done this a long time ago. Unlike the Americans, New Delhi has not fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban have appreciated India’s developmental assistance which US President Donald Trump comically compared with “building a library and like five hours of what we spend”. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergev Ryabkov said it was Moscow that invited India to the peace talks. He said, “We are ready to help India start direct talks with the Taliban.” Not to be left behind, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javed Zarif admitted that his country has influence over the Taliban and would be happy to facilitate engagement with India. It is a mystery, therefore, that when all regional and extra-regional players have direct or back-channel contact with the Taliban, India has persisted with the policy of maunvrat (vow of silence).

Under CinC Trump’s watch, Khalilzad is engaged in the most comprehensive direct talks with the Taliban without any signs that he would persuade the latter to talk with Kabul any time soon. India should firm up its contingency plans in the event of a sudden and accelerated exit of the US and foreign forces before 2020 just as then President Barack Obama did before the elections in 2016. Protection of its strategic assets, including 5,000 Indian citizens, prevention of destabilisation of the Kabul regime and conversion of its goodwill into influence are key Indian missions. Any large-scale law and public order problem could lead to spillover of the Taliban into Jammu and Kashmir, which would be a nightmarish situation. Along with regional partners and members of the international community, notably the US and EU/NATO, financial commitments of $12-15 billion annually will be required for the Afghan government and security forces to keep their heads above water. An increase in India’s security assistance package will need to be adjusted against developmental assistance. Additional ITBP personnel for the protection of strategic assets at Chabahar and the consulates at Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif (after maybe closing down Jalalabad and Kandahar) will be needed. Further, India could establish a training depot and a military field hospital in nearby Tajikistan which will please Trump more than India building another library.

In the event of a deal, the Taliban will be a key component of any future Kabul government and hugely indebted to Pakistan. Either way, it is imperative that India, to start with, opens a back channel with the Taliban, followed by joining the official Peace and Reconciliation Process, in its national interest. Rawat is spot on in recommending India engage the Taliban in unconditional talks.

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