Devendra Gautam

Last week, we -- a group of readers/watchers of international affairs -- had a short and engaging discussion on the evolving crisis in Afghanistan, as if our ‘land of the brave and the home of the free’ were peaceful with our warlords like politicians from the Hills, the Himalayas and the Terai putting national interest and people above all else. That impromptu session on the Afghan crisis gave us an opportunity to forget about unprecedented crises that we face, as a nation located between two superpowers of the future – China and India. Indeed, two or more heads are better than one if they do not bang against each other.
A cursory re-reading of the history of Afghanistan shows how the British Empire bit the dust during the first Anglo-Afghan War, prompting the retreat from Kabul in 1842 and marking the end of a three-year British military misadventure.

Radical land reforms
In the 1980s, the then USSR sent her troops in support of a tottering communist regime that was ruling with the iron fist of its own. This regime was riding roughshod over civil liberties, not even bothering to spare the lives of political prisoners. Moreover, radical land reform measures of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, as it was known at that time, had become deeply unpopular in rural areas of the country where a system of traditional power structures ruled.

As a result, Mujahidin fighters, Maoist groups and Shiite organisations launched a struggle in the backdrop of Cold War against the communist regime with generous support from the US, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, England and Iran. This caused the collapse of the communist regime in Afghanistan with the Soviet War launched in December 25, 1979 ending in mid-February, 1989 as the USSR announced the withdrawal of all of its troops from the war-plagued country in mid-February, 1989.

Two years later, on December 25, 1991, Soviet Union (USSR) dissolved formally, resulting in the birth of 12 independent republics – Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Georgia. Looking back, the American engagement in Afghanistan indeed helped create a force that defeated the mighty USSR. But this engagement also ended up giving birth to the Al-Qaeda network that was behind the September 9-11 terrorist attacks on Twin Towers in New York. After that attack on homeland, the United States declared a war on terror with Afghanistan as a major theatre.

Twenty years later, the United States is pulling out of Afghanistan along with NATO forces, in the wake of a Taliban takeover of almost all of Afghanistan, save the Panjshir valley where the Northern Alliance holds sway. The cakewalk-like Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, despite the presence of 3,00,000-strong, well-equipped Afghan national army, which is said to have received military assistance, including training, from the US, will go down in the military history of the world as one of the greatest riddles of all times.

But then the Soviets and the Americans can take solace in the fact that the mighty Moghuls and the Persians had also bitten the dust in Afghanistan. Of course, empires in different periods of time have paid heavy prices for their military misadventures in Afghanistan. The ‘colossal losses’ of these empires often hog the headlines, while the pain and the sufferings of the Afghans caught in these wars does not get enough space.

Concerns for Nepal
The recent turn of events in Afghanistan is a matter of serious concern for its extended neighbourhood. Afghanistan that happens to be the youngest member of the now-comatose South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) share border with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and China.
Even a surficial study of the political map of the world shows how interconnected this extended neighbourhood is. A civil war-like situation in Afghanistan is bound to push lakhs of Afghan people out of the war-ravaged country. Already, reports suggest that thousands of Afghan people are seeking refuge in Pakistan that is said to have sheltered 300,000 Afghan people. India, our next-door neighbour, is unlikely to remain immune from a serious humanitarian crisis unfolding in the neighbourhood.

Our past experiences suggest that turmoil in the extended neighbourhood and beyond ends up affecting us profoundly. Displaced populations from a number of countries like Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are already taking shelter in Nepal. The turmoil in Myanmar has resulted in the inflow of Rohingjya refugees to Nepal via Indian territories.
In the 1990’s, the Druk regime drove out more than 100,000 Bhutanese of Nepali origins from Bhutan into India by committing atrocities against them like arson and rape. On her part, India, the world’s largest democracy, drove them into Nepal through the open border instead of pressing the Thimphu regime to stop atrocities against these people. At one instance in May 1997, two protesters died while a group of Bhutanese nationals of Nepali origin were staging a protest at the Mechi bridge demanding that they be given a safe passage to return home. These people, having lived in refugee camps in Nepal for years, are still struggling to rebuild their lives in different countries as part of a third-country resettlement programme.

Taking lessons from the past, our government and policymakers need to work out ways to deal with a possible multi-pronged crisis resulting from the situation in Afghanistan, starting, of course, with marathon efforts towards safe and swift evacuation of Nepalis stranded in Afghanistan. For the officialdom, the time to change the prevailing attitude – that this crisis will have no impact on Nepal as we are not a neighbour of Afghanistan – is now.

(Gautam is a freelance journalist. devendra.raj.gautam@gmail.com)