The reasons for the change in India’s stance towards the Taliban are all tactical. In the absence of strategic engagement, they raise serious questions about New Delhi’s long-term goals.
Such is the state of poverty and hunger in Afghanistan that parents are giving their hungry children tranquilizers and sleeping pills to help them sleep. In their desperate quest for survival, others have sold their daughters and their own organs, the BBC reported last month. The country is in the grip of a full-blown humanitarian crisis in the second winter since the Taliban took over following the sudden exit of US-led NATO forces. The Indian government’s claim, first made last year as it engaged with the Taliban, that it is providing humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people thus makes sense. …
Sushant Singh is a lecturer at Yale University. Previously, he was a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and deputy editor of The Indian Express. A winner of the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards in 2017 and 2018, he had earlier served in the Indian Army for two decades. He is also the author of Mission Overseas and co-author of Note by Note: The India Story.
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