Afghanistan: Situation “Critical,” India has Adopted “Wait and Watch Policy:” Jaishankar

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Aug 26: Even as the centre described the current situation in Afghanistan to be “critical” and evacuating Indian personnel from the war-torn country its “top priority,” the Indian World Forum (IWF) president reported on Thursday that at least 140 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus have been stopped by the Taliban from going to the Kabul airport for evacuation.

At the all-party meeting on the unfolding crisis in Afghanistan on Thursday, the external affairs minister S Jaishankar said evacuating Indian personnel from the country was its “top priority” as the situation remained “critical” since the Taliban takeover.

Following the meet, which was attended by 37 leaders from 31 parties, Jaishankar tweeted that he had briefed the floor leaders of all political parties regarding the situation in Afghanistan.

“There is longstanding national sentiment on Afghanistan. Therefore, there is national concern now at developments,” Jaishankar said. “All parties have similar views, we approached the issue with a spirit of national unity,” the minister said following the meeting.

The IWF chief Puneet Singh, who was coordinating evacuation with the Indian external affairs ministry and the Indian Air Force, said at least 140 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus and others have been stopped by the Taliban from going to the Kabul airport. “The Taliban turned back the passengers from outside the airport on Wednesday night,” he said. It was reported earlier that around 200 Hindus and Sikhs of Afghanistan, including other citizens of the country, were scheduled to arrive in the Hindon airbase by Thursday morning. But the movement has been stopped, as the Taliban reportedly blocked those approaching the airport. The development has forced a delay in the departure of a special IAF aircraft, which has been waiting at the Kabul airport since Wednesday.

The Taliban has been urging Afghan nationals not to leave the country and work with the Islamic Emirate that it aims to set up in the coming weeks.

Media reports said multiple checkpoints by various armed militant groups, over flight clearances from different countries, and delay in landing permissions have been the major problems posing a challenge to the evacuation process. The biggest challenge, however, came from the frequent firing near the airport and inside.

Regarding evacuations, Jaishankar elaborated at the all-party meet, “We have under operation Devi Shakti made six flights for evacuation of Indians, one of which took off this morning. We have brought back most Indians, but not all of them. There are still a few out there… We have also brought out some Afghan citizens, who wanted to come to India. We have tried addressing other issues by instituting an e-visa policy.”

According to reports, a document shared in the meeting showed that the Indian government has evacuated 175 Embassy personnel, 263 other Indian nationals, 112 Afghan nationals including Hindus and Sikhs, and 15 third country nationals. The total figure stood at 565.

The minister also stated, “Our strong friendship with the people of Afghanistan is reflected in the more than 500 projects we have there. This friendship will continue to guide us. India’s footprint and activities naturally keep in mind the ongoing changes.”

However, he stressed that “Our immediate concern and task is evacuation and long term interest is the friendship for the Afghan people.”

During the meet, the government noted that the Taliban has broken the promises made in the February 2020 Doha agreement with the US, which “envisaged religious freedom and democracy, with a government in Kabul that represented all sections of Afghan society.”

Union minister and Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi were also present at the meeting.

From the Opposition, NCP leader Sharad Pawar, Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of Congress party in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, DMK’s T R Baalu, former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, and Apna Dal’s Anupriya Patel were also in attendance.

Jaishankar said India had only invested in friendship of Afghan people and was sure that it would get full value of its investment in Afghanistan.

Replying robustly on behalf of the Narendra Modi government, Jaishankar made it amply clear that India was very much at the centre of the global diplomacy post capture of Kabul by the Taliban and the ground situation was too fluid to take a call on future ties with present regime.

After patiently hearing out 26 speakers for over 200 minutes, the Minister lucidly replied to each question and observation posed by the Members of Parliament. Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla briefed the Parliamentarians for 45 minutes before Jaishankar intervened.

The all-party meeting appreciated the ministry of external affairs for handling the Afghan situation after two clips of scenes in Kabul streets were shown with Taliban firing and general chaos. To the questions from the MPs as to what steps were India taking towards engagement with the Taliban and the recognition of the new regime in Kabul, Jaishankar replied that India was in a wait and watch mode as there was no certainty either on the ground in Kabul or within the international community over the new rulers of Afghanistan.

He said due to divisions with the Taliban, there was no certainty about the government in Kabul, the Doha Process was in a stalemate, there was no consensus over sanctions against Afghanistan if any, law and order situation in the entire country was critical and there was no final decision on till when the US will stay in that country. Under the circumstances, Jaishankar said, it would be foolhardy to take a policy call on Kabul and India should avoid the path where events force it to take a decision and that too without full assimilating the facts on ground.

To the allegation that India had been isolated, Jaishankar shot back that Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, UK Foreign Minister Dominic Raab, Saudi Arabian State Foreign Minister Adel Aljubeir have all been in touch with India. The Qatar government wants to keep in touch with India over Afghanistan and India as president of UNSC called a special session on Afghanistan on August 16. India is also playing a role as the chairman of the UN 1988 sanctions committee for listing and delisting of terror entities and individuals. The EAM fully defended the e-visa step as he said that national security was of paramount importance and all evacuees from Afghanistan were being screened.

Acutely aware that the Indian mission in Kabul had been attacked thrice and consulates multiple times by terrorists, the Modi government observed deterioration of security situation in Kabul since April 2020 and took preemptive steps from time to time to ensure safety of its diplomats and citizens. Given the deterioration of situation, India based personnel were withdrawn from Herat and Jalalabad consulates in April 2020. In June 2021, India scaled down its presence in Kabul, closed down its old chancery and moved all personnel to new chancery in the most protected Green Zone of Kabul. The Indian personnel in Kandahar mission were evacuated on July 10-11, 2021 in a special flight and the Mazar-e-Sharif mission was shut on August 10-11, 2021. In the past three months, India issued no less than four advisories asking Indian citizens to leave Afghanistan, he said.

Post the meeting, Kharge stated that the situation was the “entire country’s problem” and “all parties have taken the same view.”

“We raised the issue of a female (Afghan) diplomat who was deported. They said that they made a mistake, it won’t be repeated and they will look into the matter,” the Congress leader was quoted as saying.

The woman member of the Afghan parliament had earlier stated that she was deported from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on August 20, five days after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. Rangina Kargar, member of the Wolesi Jirga where she represents the Faryab province, said she arrived at the IGI Airport early August 20 from Istanbul on a Fly Dubai flight. She holds a diplomatic/official passport which facilitates visa-free travel under a reciprocal arrangement with India.

A day earlier, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had underlined that India’s focus would be to preserve its historical relationship with Afghanistan and its people.

Kargar, who has been a parliamentarian since 2010, said she had travelled many times to India on the same passport in the past. She said she used to be waved through earlier, but this time, immigration officials asked her to wait. She said they told her they had to consult their superiors.

After two hours, she was sent back by the same airline to Istanbul via Dubai. “They deported me, I was treated as a criminal. I was not given my passport in Dubai. It was given back to me only in Istanbul,” 36-year-old Kargar said. “It was not good what they did to me. The situation has changed in Kabul and I hope the Indian government helps Afghan women,” she said.

She said no reason was given for the deportation, but “it was probably related to the changed political situation in Kabul, maybe security.”

“I never expected this from Gandhiji’s India. We are always friends with India, we have strategic relations with India, we have historic relations with India. But in this situation, they have treated a woman and a member of Parliament like this. They told me at the airport, ‘sorry, we cannot do anything for you’,” Kargar said.

A source in the Ministry of External Affairs said they were not aware of the incident involving Kargar.

Two days after she was deported, India welcomed two Afghan Sikh MPs, Narinder Singh Khalsa and Anarkali Kaur Honaryar — Honaryar is the first Sikh woman to have entered the Afghan parliament. Unlike Kargar, they arrived on evacuation flights arranged by Delhi. “Those flights were meant for Indians and Afghan Indians, not Afghans,” Kargar said.