Taliban holds peace key
As America left the Bagram air base in Afghanistan last week to signal that it had effectively withdrawn its forces much before the September 11 deadline set by President Biden, attention has turned to the immediate and mid-term future of a country ravaged by conflict and instability for over four decades. This is not unnatural, for the departure of the Americans is not proceeding, at least as yet, in circumstances they themselves, a large section of the region or the Kabul elite, had desired.
Effectively now, the choice of either war or peace, the latter however tenuous, is with the Taliban. That this crucial initiative has passed into Taliban hands shows many American and Afghan failures: global attention has focused on the military successes of the Taliban; what has escaped adequate attention is the failure of the Kabul elite to meet inter alia the social and cultural challenge posed by the group. It is necessary to examine it, especially in the context of the emphasis being given by sections of the international community, including India, of ‘preserving the gains of the past 20 years’. The very fact that it is found necessary to make such calls is indicative of the Kabul leadership’s failure in rooting these gains in firm countrywide social and cultural foundations. That can be attributed to the Kabul elite’s inability over the past two decades to deny cultural, social, ideological and even theological space to the Taliban in Afghanistan, especially in the Pashtun heartland.
At least since the middle of the 18th century, Afghanistan has been dominated by the Pashtun ethnic group. It is the largest group but its claim to constitute a clear majority of the population is contested by the other important groups which are Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek. Ethnicity is a very important fact of Afghan social and political life and the Pashtun traditionally, and today also, consider themselves as the natural leaders of Afghanistan. Whereas historically, they did not think it necessary to share power with others, now they do, but only on their terms.
At its core, the Taliban is Pashtun, though over the past two decades, it has co-opted other ethnicities. It draws its strength from the Pashtun areas in the south and the east. Significantly, it does not entirely conform to the traditional ‘mazhab’ of Sunni Afghans, though many of its leaders have been schooled in Deobandi madrasas. (Once a renowned Afghan jihadi leader, a pious Muslim himself, told me in the 1990s that he did not understand Taliban doctrines!). Its cultural practices have exhibited extreme forms of Pashtun conservatism and regressive Islamism.
American intervention in 2001 did not finish the Taliban, for its leaders, along with a considerable number of supporters, managed to cross the Durand Line into Pakistan and the rest went back to their homes in the Pashtun areas. This provided an opportunity for the Kabul-based Pashtun leaders who came into power to actively combat the Taliban ideologically and theologically in the Pashtun heartland and in Pashtun communities elsewhere in the country. These initiatives had to be led by President Hamid Karzai and his Pashtun colleagues through personal contacts with the people, not so much in Kabul as through repeated tours in the Pashtun areas. This they seldom did. Most preferred the safety of Kabul and thus left the field open to the Taliban to continue to spread and consolidate its influence. Local notables were called to Kabul to meet Karzai, and later, Ashraf Ghani too, but it is one thing for leaders to have met them in the safety of their dwellings and offices in the capital and quite another for them to spend time in the provincial capitals and even more in the villages. The Kabul Pashtun leaders should also not have allowed traditional tribal Pashtun divisions to stand in their way.
Security considerations and the weakening of Pashtunwali—the code of the Pashtuns—perhaps contributed to many of them, especially the Presidents, seldom undertaking tours of the country. These were essential to demonstrate that they had the courage to move among their own people even amidst the violence. Many Kabul-based post 2001 Pashtun leaders belonged to the Afghan diaspora. They had weak roots in the countryside and lacked the credibility which would have enabled them to counter Taliban ideology. In this respect, the non-Pashtun Kabul-based leaders maintained a better connect with their ethnicities through travel and tours of their areas, though they, too, faced charges that they did not do so sufficiently. Over the years, the capital rootedness of the Kabul elite helped the Taliban narrative that they were foreign puppets and birds of passage.
A new generation has come of age in Afghanistan over the past two decades. It is connected with the world through social media and is aware of the systems and values of the present times. Afghan women in the capital and in the non-Pashtun areas are asserting that they would not accept the rigid and violent codes which the Taliban had adopted on gender issues. The ethnic minorities would also not willingly submit to the Taliban; the fact that militias under local commanders are forming are a manifestation of this unease. The problem, though, is that it is not fully known the extent to which the Taliban has succeeded in developing a constituency among non-Pashtuns. In this respect, the Taliban’s recent swift moves in north-eastern Afghanistan are worrying. Amidst all this, the key lies in the prevailing social and cultural attitudes of the Pashtuns in their heartland, for it is from there that the Taliban draws strength. And there is no evidence that Talibanism is being actively shunned there—where it matters.
The international community should never accept the gender policies pursued by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the 1990s. It should also find unacceptable its reprehensible approaches towards religious minorities, including Shia Muslims. Will it show the required unity to shun the Taliban if it captures power in the country and policy-wise gives up the gains of the past 20 years? It does not seem so.
