Understanding Taliban 2.0

Context: The rise of the Taliban has been different from its previous rise in the 1990s. The upheaval in Kabul needs to be seen in the context of radical realignments in the region and the transformations within the Taliban.

Regime changes in Afghanistan: The latest one in Afghanistan is the third in the past two decades. 

• The Mujahideen takeover in 1992 was a preordained event choreographed by the United Nations, which slipped out of its hands. 
• The 1996 Taliban takeover was like a slow-motion talkie with Ahmad Shah Massoud simply disappearing from Kabul without a fight. 
• Recently,  dramatic development leads to a sense of deja vu.

How is the present takeover by the Taliban different from the previous attempts->

• The Afghan state structures are largely intact, unlike previous occasions.
• The regime change is still playing out sedately, and it may take days or even weeks before its final contours emerge in the form of a transitional government. There are signs of consensual agreements in the future.
• Global help: Unlike the previous two occasions, the international community, especially regional states, is midwifing the transition.
• Setting aside great-game impulses in new Cold War big powers are constructively engaging the Taliban.

Positive elements about Taliban 2.0

• Diversified external relations: Compared to the 1990s, the Taliban today is unrecognisable. The vacation of their Kabul embassies by Saudi Arabia and the UAE bears eloquent testimony to it.
• Talibs are wiser now about the ways of the world, exposed to the metropolis and have diversified external relations in the West and East alike, and are hankering for legitimacy.
• Afghan-centric agenda: The Taliban has an exclusively Afghan-centric agenda. They are old-fashioned “nation-alists”. Taliban’s “Afghan-ness” will inevitably surge as a robust sense of independence and “strategic autonomy” in statecraft. They will be interested in friendly relations with India.

Issues with Indian narrative: The Indian narrative is deeply flawed. 

• It is based on archaic notions of “strategic depth” and regards the Taliban as a plaything of the Pakistani establishment.
• This erroneous assumptions leave no scope to accommodate the compelling ground reality that the Taliban today is largely an indigenous movement with roots running extensively in Afghan society.

Conclusion: The paranoia in certain circles in India about the “spillover” from Afghanistan is unwarranted. India should reopen the embassy and launch a conversation with the new ruling elites and contribute to regional efforts to stabilise Afghanistan in the long-term interests of regional security and stability