The Alliance, a concoction of tribal leaders and warlords held out in the northern parts of Afghanistan against the Taliban more than 25 years ago. However, the rapid fall of the north brought to the front that many who had previously helped the Northern Alliance, and even the US-led forces later in 2001 to depose the Taliban, were now in cahoots with the same group.
The images that came out of Afghanistan and its capital Kabul over the past weekend sent shockwaves across the world. The Taliban took over the city after a juggernaut across the country, taking over provinces one by one till they finally reached the power centre. Ashraf Ghani, till then officially the president of Afghanistan fled the country, and the people were left leaderless, government less, at the mercy of the militia group.
The Indian approach to this crisis in its neighbourhood has been an interesting one to study. As the Taliban entered Kabul, and the Ghani government collapsed in mere hours, New Delhi largely maintained silence, opting to wait and watch as the eventualities unfolded. However, one question that was often asked was whether a new version of the Northern Alliance, a grouping led by the late guerrilla commander Ahmed Shah Massoud that took on the Taliban when it came to power in 1996, would come up.
The Alliance, a concoction of tribal leaders and warlords held out in the northern parts of Afghanistan against the Taliban more than 25 years ago. The leaders included the likes of Abdullah Abdullah (then right-hand man to Massoud, now CEO of Afghanistan), Abdul Rashid Dostum, till recently a close political confidant of Ghani (given the title of Marshal Dostum) and Amrullah Saleh, Vice President of Afghanistan. Saleh posted on social media soon after escaping Afghanistan on Sunday: "I will never betray the soul & legacy of my hero Ahmad Shah Masoud," he said.
One question that was often asked was whether a new version of the Northern Alliance, a grouping led by the late guerrilla commander Ahmed Shah Massoud that took on the Taliban when it came to power in 1996, would come up.
The rapid fall of the north brought to the front that many who had previously helped the Northern Alliance, and even the US-led forces later in 2001 to depose the Taliban, were now in cahoots with the same group. Whether as an act of survival or a realists' decision on the direction the country will take for the foreseeable future, the Taliban had managed to make inroads beyond just the Pashtun ethnic lines in the north, putting its foot in the door as political fragmentations took hold.
Scholar Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili highlights that heavy-handed political plays by Ghani with leaders representing the north and warlords that were acting as governors in the region only fragmented the situation further. Ghani's open political and electoral battle with Abdullah Abdullah further played out divisions in the north. "In addition to well-chronicles corruption, the governments heavy handedness along with perceptions of ethnic and regional favouritism, undermined trust in Kabul. This opened fertile ground to anti-government insurgency to grow in the north," Murtazashvili writes.
Examples of the above dynamics playing out were on display after the Taliban entered Kabul. Senior Taliban leader Amir Khan Mutaqi reportedly met both Abdullah Abdullah and former president Hamid Karzai to discuss the future of a Taliban-led Afghanistan and the political system that may follow. On the side lines of these exchanges, murmurs continue to grow of a potential challenge to the Taliban by the likes of Saleh, Ahmed Massoud, the son of Ahmed Shah Massoud, former defence minister Bismillah Mohammadi and others. These come with their own set of challenges, with fractures and intra-family rivalries also plaguing the Massoud ecosystem.
Senior Taliban leader Amir Khan Mutaqi reportedly met both Abdullah Abdullah and former president Hamid Karzai to discuss the future of a Taliban-led Afghanistan and the political system that may follow.
However, whatever a resistance may look like, if one happens at all, perhaps the most significant factor behind its success or failure will be the kind of support it gains from other foreign states. Insurgencies thrive on state support, lack of which severely hampers long-term survivability of such movements (although lack of such support does not automatically translate to a complete failure). For the Taliban, the open and free sanctuary provided by Pakistan acts as its strongest foundation over which it has been able to build an equally strong military and political infrastructure.
Its counter, the Northern Alliance, in the 1990s enjoyed support from the likes of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Iran, and India. New Delhi used its embassy in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, as the staging ground for its approach to the Massoud. Indian diplomat and later India's ambassador to Tajikistan, Bharath Raj Muthu Kumar, operationalised New Delhi's help for Massoud by providing military and medical assistance. When Kumar took up his ambassadorship, the person handling Northern Alliance's affairs in Dushanbe was one Amrullah Saleh.
Upon asking what was in it for New Delhi to pursue this policy of arming the Alliance and Massoud, Muthu Kumar reportedly said: "He is battling someone we should be battling. When Massoud fights the Taliban he fights Pakistan". These views have not shifted today, and have only evolved with the times. "One of the big reasons behind the current Afghanistan crisis is for Pakistan to sever its links to India, and connect it to Central Asia using Chinese economic muscle and strategic reach," India's former Ambassador to Afghanistan Gautam Mukhopadhyay said recently.
India's support for a resistance in Afghanistan this time around could become difficult. While Central Asian states are already balking from getting directly embroiled in the Afghanistan crisis, they also face pressures from both China and Russia, which are playing their roles effectively with the Taliban to make sure there is a long-term seal against a US military presence in Afghanistan.
The power dynamics and requirements around regional states and their policies on the Afghan conflict have changed drastically. India finds itself on the edge of these power plays in the region, more as a spectator, than a player for the moment. What happens in the future of Afghanistan under a Taliban patronage is yet to play out in its entirety, with many questions still lingering in grey areas. However, the geopolitical dynamics as they stand today make it difficult for New Delhi to wedge itself in, making the prospects of a Northern Alliance 2.0 in the short term even more difficult as a viable and realistic counter to the Taliban, and in effect, Pakistan.
This commentary originally appeared in The Economics Times.
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Kabir Taneja is a Fellow with Strategic Studies programme. His research focuses on Indias relations with West Asia specifically looking at the domestic political dynamics ...
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