How India’s Taliban move will upset Pakistan, China will also lose sleep, understand the whole thing.

New Delhi : Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and Afghanistan’s acting Foreign Minister Aamir Khan Muttaki have met in Dubai. Many big messages emerge from this high level meeting between India and Taliban. Why is this so? What is the meaning of this meeting? Why is this meeting very important? After all, why is this a big move by India to counter China and Pakistan? How has Pakistan, which has deepened its presence there amid rapidly changing circumstances in Bangladesh, suffered a major setback in Afghanistan? Let us understand all these aspects in the mirror of this high level meeting between India and Taliban.What happened in the conversation?
Taliban has assured that it will not allow Afghanistan’s soil to be used in any way against India’s interests. India has also agreed to Taliban’s request for help in Afghanistan’s health sector and rehabilitation of refugees. In fact, in the last one-and-a-half year, Pakistan has forcibly sent a large number of Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan. The Taliban faces the challenge of proper rehabilitation of about 5 lakh such refugees.

Apart from this, India has also said that in addition to the existing humanitarian assistance, it will consider starting development related projects within Afghanistan in the future. Since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, India’s help to it has been limited to humanitarian aid only. Afghanistan has also requested India to maintain and increase cooperation in the field of cricket. There is a huge passion for cricket among the youth of Afghanistan and seeing the way India has been providing all kinds of support to their team, the Afghan youth see India as a friend.

Why is meeting so important?
Dialogue between two countries is a very common process in international relations. Then what is the special thing in the Egyptian-Muttaqi meeting? So the reason for this is that for the first time after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, high level talks have taken place between the two countries. For the first time, the Foreign Secretary of India has talked with the Taliban. Before this, no further talks were held at the joint secretary level. JP Singh, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, has visited Afghanistan several times. India has not yet recognized the Taliban regime.

However, soon after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, on August 31 of the same month, India had talked to representatives of the Doha office of the Taliban through its Ambassador to Qatar Deepak Mittal. After that, in June 2022, JP Singh, Joint Secretary in MEA, met many senior Taliban leaders. After that, in 2022, India sent a ‘technical team’ to the Kabul Embassy. In fact, after Taliban rule, India had withdrawn all its diplomats from Afghanistan. New Delhi also stopped the development projects going on in Afghanistan with the help of grants and soft loans given by India. However, sending the ‘technical team’ was necessary because it would have gone against our interests to completely sever relations with a neighboring country amid turmoil. In November last year, JP Singh met Afghanistan’s acting Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob for the first time. Yakub is the son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar.

Beginning of new relationships?
After August 2021, the highest level engagement between India and Afghanistan can lead to the restoration of warm relations between the two countries. Before the Taliban rule, the democratic governments in Afghanistan had emphasized on friendship with India. With the Misri-Muttaqi meeting, now regular talks at different levels between the two countries and warmth in relations can be restored. However, there is little possibility that India will recognize the Taliban regime because it wants that the Afghanistan government should first be inclusive and women should not be deprived of their rights.

importance from security point of view
India wants to ensure that no terrorist group can carry out anti-India activities from Afghan soil. Misri, in his/her conversation with Muttaki, expressed concern about the activities of Pakistan sponsored terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed. In response, Muttaki assured that Afghanistan will not do anything that will cause any harm to India’s security. In fact, Pakistan and its army’s notorious agency ISI used the soil of Afghanistan for a long time for terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and nefarious designs of destabilizing India. Afghan soil was not only used as a safe haven for terrorists but also created terror camps and training centers for terrorists.

Pakistan’s plans will fail
In August 2021, when Taliban took power in Afghanistan, Pakistan celebrated. But since then a lot of water has flowed in the Kabul river. The circumstances have completely changed now. Pakistan thought that it would be able to use Taliban as its puppet, but this did not happen. At present the tension between the two countries is at its peak. Recently, Pakistan carried out an air strike in Afghanistan and the Taliban claims that at least 52 civilians, including children and women, have been killed in it.

In fact, in the last few years, there have been dramatic geopolitical changes in the Indian subcontinent. Bangladesh, which was traditionally friendly towards India, now has a government which is a puppet of fundamentalists and whose stance is against New Delhi. For the first time after the rise of Bangladesh, Pakistan’s influence has increased there. ISI is also taking advantage of the opportunity and is fueling anti-India sentiments in Bangladesh behind the scenes with the help of radicals. Now, by holding the hand of friendship extended by Taliban, India has made a big move to counter Pakistan. It will not be easy for Pakistan, which is engaged in mischief against India in Bangladesh, to use the soil of Afghanistan against India, which it has been doing for a long time.

Strategy to counter China
After the complete withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and the coming of Taliban to power, China is engaged in increasing its presence there. It has not only recognized the Taliban regime but also has a vulture eye on Afghanistan’s natural reforms. China has started many development projects there. Many projects related to urban development in Kabul are running with the support of China. Now India has also talked about considering resuming development projects in Afghanistan. It is also necessary to counter China’s growing influence and presence there.

India’s help to Afghanistan during Taliban rule
After the arrival of Taliban rule in Afghanistan in August 2021, even though India did not recognize its rule, it continued humanitarian aid to this neighboring country. At the end of the same year i.e. 2021, when Afghanistan was facing food crisis after a severe drought, the Modi government, forgetting its old enmity towards India, helped the Taliban by sending 50 thousand metric tons of wheat. Apart from this, till now India has helped Afghanistan by sending 300 tonnes of medicines, 27 tonnes of earthquake relief material, 40 thousand liters of pesticides, 10 crore polio vaccine doses, 15 lakh doses of corona vaccine, 11 thousand hygiene kits for de-addiction, 1.2 tonnes of stationery kits etc. .