For Others’ Sins, Ordinary Afghans Suffer | M.R. Narayan Swamy

BOOK REVIEW

Return of the Taliban: State, Society and Terror

by Apratim Mukarji

Vitasta Publishing Pvt.Ltd
2023, Pages: lii + 292
ISBN-10 †: ‎ 8119670035
ISBN-13 †: ‎ 978-8119670031

With very little hope that the Taliban may become a responsive administration, one does not know when millions of Afghans can even dream of a better tomorrow.

This is the price ordinary Afghan men, women and children are today paying for the needless aggression of the erstwhile Soviet Union, the terrible betrayal by the United States, and the crimes of Islamist fundamentalists and their backers like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Apratim Mukarji, among the few Indian journalists with deep knowledge of Afghan affairs, is right in saying that it was the Soviet occupation that did the worst damage to Afghanistan’s modern age and history, antiquity and ancient times, along with its culture, literature and music when it propped up communist regimes that came to be hated by ordinary people. The de facto Soviet rule created conditions which led to the eventual birth and growth of the Taliban.

To teach the Soviets a lesson, the United States financed and armed the Mujahideen with generous help from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, which provided invaluable sanctuary to the rebels. (The Pakistani involvement turned its own society upside down but that is another story.) By the time the Soviet invasion ended, more than one million Afghans were killed and Afghanistan was saddled with an ideology that continues to torment its helpless citizens. It was this ideology exemplified by the Taliban that led Osama bin Laden to move into Afghanistan with disastrous consequences for the Islamic world in particular.

Mukarji tells modern Afghanistan’s story with a zeal of a scholar whose heart beats for the mass of its people. He tells us about the Afghan society, the Islamic influence, the Soviet military intervention, the Mujahideen’s rise and rise, the booming drug trade, the United States’ shameful decision to pull back after 20 bruised years, the Taliban takeover of the world’s poorest country and, finally, the unending suffering of ordinary Afghans. It is a long and painful saga.

The Soviet Union did not win this war. Neither did the United States, which paid a terrible price for propping up Osama. The less said the better about Pakistan. Islamabad desired a subservient client in Kabul but ended up putting in place a regime that has turned out to be fiercely independent. The Taliban may have won the war militarily but finds itself shunned globally.

So, what does the future look like for Afghanistan and its people?

The Taliban has made it clear that it is not going to compromise on principles it holds dear (read: an extreme form of Sharia) just to gain international recognition. Despite repeated appeals, it has gone about suppressing human rights, women’s rights, trade unions, free media and a liberal educational curriculum. Worse, it brought into the cabinet 14 international terrorists and gave them key portfolios. Naturally, no country is ready to accord Kabul diplomatic recognition although the Taliban is hungry for it – besides financial aid which it desperately needs. Mukarji feels a defiant Taliban appears confident in its ability to rule the country and wait for the day when it will win the recognition it craves for.

Mukarji’s close look at the pattern of Taliban governance and its handling of international relations indicates self-contradictions, confusion or self-doubt plaguing it. There are voices of dissent within the country, including among the clergy, on the curbs on women’s education. But there is very little hope that the Taliban may become a responsive administration one day. This unfortunate state of affairs can only have one consequence: the terrible suffering of the ordinary Afghans is not going to end any time soon.

This is the price Afghans at large are paying for being one of the last laboratories of a Cold War in which the interests of Moscow and Washington reigned supreme, the people of the world be damned. Afghans may be freedom loving but most of its people, women in particular, now do not enjoy even a modicum of freedom – thanks to the Taliban and a warped ideology it upholds.