- 3 months ago
This special report on the 'Chakravyuh' podcast, hosted by India Today TV’s Gaurav Sawant, features former Ambassador to Afghanistan, Vivek Katju, discussing India's evolving policy towards the Taliban-led nation.
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00:00There's a massive spike in tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan and India-Afghanistan relations have steadily improved in the recent past.
00:09In fact, Indian embassy has reopened in Kabul. Afghanistan, of course, is seeking much more assistance from India.
00:17What is the future of India-Afghanistan relationship? Remember, right from our childhood and for generations, we've heard of the Kabuliwala.
00:27Civilizational ties between the two countries and the people.
00:31But is this just about Pakistan and countering Pakistan's state-sponsored radical Islamist terror?
00:38Or is there a far more deeper effort that's being made both by India and by Afghanistan?
00:45Joining us on the Chakraview podcast is someone who understands the region, the people and the subject very intimately.
00:55I want to introduce Ambassador Vivek Karju, former ambassador to Afghanistan, someone who dealt with Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iran as a joint secretary was there.
01:07I must also tell our viewers, Ambassador Karju was in Kandahar when IC814 happened and when Indians were released and brought back.
01:17I must also tell you, he's someone, late Pakistani military dictator, Parvez Musharraf blamed for the Agra summit.
01:26And I want to, you know, during the course of this conversation, try and understand why you were a joint secretary at that point of time.
01:33And we were all covering the Agra summit in Agra.
01:36But Musharraf seemed to have singled you out.
01:38We'll have that conversation, sir.
01:40But if we were to begin by talking about India-Afghanistan relationship and the recent visit of Aamir Khan Muttaki, the Taliban foreign minister to India, how would you view that, sir?
01:50I think it was a path-breaking visit.
01:53It has re-established our ties fully with the effective rulers of Afghanistan, which is now the Taliban.
02:05The Taliban has no real opposition, either within the country or outside.
02:14And it was time that we stepped up the relationship from the technical mission that we had to a regular diplomatic mission.
02:25You've been recommending it for a very long time.
02:27It's happened now in 2025.
02:30But you've been recommending it for close to a decade now.
02:33Well, I have an interest in Afghanistan, and I was following events in Afghanistan even after my retirement.
02:44Before that, I didn't deal with Afghanistan directly, but I had a number of friends in the Afghan Republic.
02:51And I must confess to you that I was getting more and more disenchanted with the way the Republic's leaders, principally the two presidents, were leading Afghanistan.
03:09I was also getting very disappointed with the manner in which the American policy was being implemented in Afghanistan.
03:18Each country, Gaurav, has to grow organically.
03:25You can't impose systems from outside.
03:29Systems develop according to the environment and the cultural traditions, the political ethos of a country.
03:37The Americans and NATO and the West thought that they could bring in justice from, say, Italy, police from Germany, the army.
03:50They could fashion the Americans could do it.
03:53Drug eradication could be done by the British.
03:56Now, that's not the way countries develop.
03:59So, by about 2016, I was reaching the conclusion that the leadership of Afghanistan, principally the first President Karzai and later President Ashraf Ghani, were not showing the perspicacity.
04:20And I hate to say this because I know them well, I have in many ways admiration for them, but they were not showing the kind of leadership that was required to build Afghanistan into a modern nation state.
04:40The current leadership, the Taliban, can we trust them?
04:45You know, you've known Taliban commanders, you've interacted with Taliban commanders.
04:52You know, our impression of the Taliban is when IC814 was hijacked, was on the tarmac in Kandahar, but we were only looking at images.
05:01You were interacting with them.
05:03You secured the release of our people.
05:05So, we, our impression is that these are guys who are very close to Pakistan and, you know, they'll stab us in the back.
05:12Gaurav, international relations always and interstate relations proceed on the basis of interest.
05:22They don't proceed on the basis of trust.
05:27There are moments in time when interests coincide and because they coincide, an entity and a state or two states work together.
05:39Let's take up the Second World War.
05:43I think it's a prime example.
05:45You had the Soviets and the Western Bloc were together against Nazi Germany.
05:55What happened almost immediately after the Second World War was won by the Soviets and the Americans and the British?
06:06They fell apart and the Cold War ensued.
06:10So, they were together when the interests coincided and they went away when the interests diverged.
06:18But in that, and so with the, I'll just add one sentence.
06:21With the Taliban, there was a period when our interests were not coinciding.
06:25They were diverging.
06:26And we were close to the Northern Alliance.
06:30We were then close to the Afghan Republic.
06:36We were helping the Afghan Republic in every which way we could.
06:41At that stage too.
06:43And this is significant.
06:44And this is something which led me to write, to begin writing from February of 2017, that we should start talking to the Taliban.
06:56Because all through the period that I have dealt with Afghanistan, we got stray messages from the Afghan Taliban relayed through different quarters that basically emphasizing that India should never consider them as Pakistani puppets.
07:19Are they?
07:21Well, they've demonstrated they are not.
07:24And that is the point they were making.
07:25And then, I think, beginning from about 2015, Taliban leadership in Doha, those who were in track two circuits, etc.
07:41Whenever they met Indians in the strategic community, always sought them out and tried to convey through them messages to Delhi that, look, again, emphasizing the same thing, that they were independent, that there was a reason why they were dependent on the Pakistanis, but that India should never think that this dependence would continue or that they were hostile to us.
08:05And if we were to go back to history, and you've written about this, when Pakistan was created, the only country in the world to oppose the creation of Pakistan was Afghanistan.
08:20Indeed.
08:21And there was a reason for it.
08:23And that reason is still alive today too.
08:26The reason is that the British literally forced the Durand line, which is which the Pakistanis now says the international border between Afghanistan and Pakistan,
08:40and which the Afghan successive governments, all governments, who've been in Kabul since 1947 and earlier, have never accepted that as the border.
08:53So, in 1947, prior to the departure of the British, the Afghans told the British that, look, this agreement for the Durand line was between the government of Afghanistan and between Amir Abdul Rahman Khan,
09:14who was then the ruler of Afghanistan and it was done in 1893, and British India, and since the British were leaving, this agreement fell.
09:26And therefore, Afghanistan should be restored to what were its original boundaries, which were really along the Indus.
09:37You see, the Pathan, and this is interesting, the Pathan or the Pashtun has always thought that the land between the two rivers,
09:46which is the Indus, which is the Indus, and the Amudariya, or the Oxus, is actually their land.
09:54No, their land.
09:55Their land, yeah.
09:56Now, this is not agreed to by the other ethnicities in Afghanistan.
10:01It's not accepted by the Tajiks.
10:03It's not accepted by the Hazaras or the Uzbeks.
10:07But this is instilled in the Pashtun mind, including the Pashtuns, I dare say, if you scratch them deep enough, the Pashtuns of Pakistan.
10:22One last point, there is a contradiction between people who are on opposite banks of the Indus,
10:33which is, once you cross the Indus towards Afghanistan,
10:39then the people become different, customs become different, ways of life become different.
10:47And even though the Pakistan state may have co-opted these people,
10:53in the Pashtun mind, as indeed, if I may say, in the Balooch mind and the Sindhi mind,
11:00Pakistan, at the end of the day, is considered as a Punjabi-dominated country.
11:07Which it is.
11:08Which it is.
11:09Their army, the bureaucracy, the intelligence agencies.
11:13Absolutely, absolutely.
11:15So, these contradictions are there.
11:19But it's very interesting that while later, of course, the Afghans accepted Pakistan,
11:29but then at one stage, when Dawood Khan was prime minister,
11:34later he replaced, he ousted King Zayusha, his cousin, in a coup in 1973,
11:40but he was prime minister between 1953 and 1963,
11:43he started a movement for Pashtunistan, which riled the Pakistani, no end.
11:51That is something that we should actually be looking at when I would think India and Afghanistan,
11:56the people of India and Afghanistan, apart from the civilizational ties that we've had,
12:01should be very, very thick.
12:05And that should give a nightmare to Pakistan at all times, something that's happening right now.
12:11You see, the Pakistanis have been worried, I think unnecessarily so,
12:16that they'll get caught in a pincer between India and Afghanistan.
12:21That the eastern frontiers, which are with India and the western frontiers with Afghanistan,
12:29will both sort of, if there's a, can both become alive and cause enormous problems,
12:39that they'll then get caught in this two-front situation.
12:42And that is why it has been the historical endeavor of all governments in Pakistan,
12:48to try to control Kabul, whoever is in Kabul's foreign policy, especially its India policy.
12:57And all governments in Kabul have refused.
13:00If you notice, only recently, I think two days ago,
13:05Mullah Yaakob, who is the son of Mullah Omar and now the defense minister,
13:11he said, we are independent.
13:13Yes.
13:14We'll have ties with India, we'll have ties with Pakistan,
13:18but we are not going to be, so the indication was that we are not going to be controlled by anyone.
13:23So what do you make of General Faiz Hamid, then DGISI,
13:30when Taliban took over Kabul, he air dashed to the Serena Hotel in Kabul
13:36and was having chai and saying, you know, all will be well,
13:40indicating that he will be the viceroy or Pakistan will once again control Afghanistan.
13:44And apparently, I think recently, Khwaja Asif or somebody in Pakistan said,
13:49they gave bulletproof cars to the leadership in Afghanistan,
13:52saying now you require all the protection because now you are running the government to Taliban.
13:56You know, what Faiz Hamid did in 2021 reminded me of what Mia Nawaz Sharif had done in 1992.
14:09In 1992, Najibullah Faiz and the Mujahideen groups who were then in Pishar,
14:18their government was to be formed.
14:20And who went there?
14:24Nawaz Sharif, who was then the Prime Minister.
14:26He had no business to go there.
14:28Yes.
14:29And once, I can share with you, I won't name him,
14:32I asked a former DG of the ISI on the margins of a Track 2 event,
14:38I said,
14:38you did not do this.
14:48You don't have a backup inside.
14:51You had attacked me.
14:55You had to be free.
14:56You have one being armed.
15:00It seems that the government is giving a guide to what he is doing and how he is going to build it.
15:09That he is the vessel of the state.
15:11Yes, that you are absolutely right.
15:13That was also the mistake of Faiz Hamid.
15:15And the swagger with which Faiz Hamid was behaving.
15:18And that riles the Afghan the most especially the Pashtun.
15:24He is very independent minded.
15:26He says I will accept everything but I will not accept that I am subservient to anyone.
15:34So that happened.
15:37So Faiz Hamid made this cardinal error.
15:39And now what does Khwaja Asif say?
15:42Yeh Ihsan Faramosh hain.
15:44Yeh Ihsan Faramosh hain.
15:45What Ihsan?
15:47If you ask the Afghan, you ask the Taliban,
15:54they say the Pakistanis didn't help us out of the goodness of their heart.
16:00They were gaining from us.
16:02Financially also.
16:03Financially.
16:04You know, I will share this with you.
16:06When I went to Kabul as ambassador in 2002,
16:09I thought that there will be great goodwill for Pakistan
16:12because they had given refuge to millions of Afghans at the time of their crisis when they went across.
16:21And for decades.
16:22And for decades.
16:23And to my great surprise, I found that almost all of them had very harsh words to say about Pakistan.
16:33So I asked a group of young people who had come to me to the mission.
16:40And I'll share another story with you, which perhaps very few people know.
16:44So I asked these people, I said, look, you studied there, etc.
16:48So you should be happy with you.
16:51I'm sure you have friends in Pakistan, etc.
16:53Muslim brothers and blah.
16:54No, I don't think to Islam.
16:55I said so much.
16:57I said, look, you were there.
16:59You were in school with these people, etc.
17:02And you know, all of them said,
17:05Safir Sahib, because that's what they say.
17:07Safir Sahib, you don't know how we were treated.
17:09Yeah.
17:10We will never forget how badly we were treated.
17:13And on cricket.
17:14Yeah.
17:15And I think this is something which your viewers might find interesting.
17:20One day I was in office and my staff told me that the president of the Afghan Cricket Association wants to see you.
17:30So I got baffled.
17:31I said, Afghan Cricket Association?
17:33Football?
17:34Yes.
17:35But cricket?
17:36So I said, the gentleman came in and he sat down.
17:39And my first question to him was that I, since when have you people started playing cricket?
17:46So he said, Safir Sahib, our boys went studied in Pakistan, etc.
17:52So they took to cricket.
17:53And now cricket is a popular game.
17:55So I said, what can I do for you?
17:57So he said, can you get us some kits?
18:00Can you get us, you know, matting and such things?
18:04So I said, do you have a ground?
18:06So he said, we'll make a ground.
18:07But we want to start cricket.
18:08So I wrote to Delhi.
18:09And Delhi, great alacrity.
18:13I was sent a lot of cricket playing stuff, pads.
18:17You know, just normal equipment.
18:19And I sent it to them and that began.
18:22So I, it was interesting that they didn't think of going to Pakistan to ask.
18:27They came to ask.
18:28I want to then understand from you.
18:31Pakistan is bleeding within.
18:33I believe there have been deaths very recently in Balochistan.
18:36Hundreds of deaths in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
18:39Afghanistan is giving them grief.
18:41They don't have good relations with Iran.
18:43And, you know, Operation Sindhuur is still on.
18:46So what is Asim Munir gloating about?
18:50And, you know, is this riding a tiger that he will end up in the belly of the tiger?
18:56Or does he think that America and China will bill him out?
18:59The latter.
19:00I think let's, let's.
19:04I think one should always be realistic.
19:09Because one must always especially be realistic about states that are inimical to us.
19:17Pakistan, if you look at it, is a large country.
19:20It has 240 million people.
19:23It has nuclear weapons.
19:26And as I often say, no one, none of the great powers want a nuclear Somalia.
19:34Yeah.
19:35It's a nightmare for them.
19:37The army is in their thinking, Western thinking and deeply entrenched Western thinking going back to the 1950s.
19:48The army is the only stable institution in Pakistan.
19:53And isn't that true?
19:55And it's true.
19:56It's true.
19:57So, the army chief is always been made much of.
20:03And Asim Munir is the current army chief who's appointed, I dare say, he's appointed himself as field marshal.
20:12I mean, if I were he, I would be deeply embarrassed as becoming field marshal.
20:18Why do I say this?
20:20Because the operations as they were, were not ground operations.
20:25He was the army chief.
20:27But whatever operations took place were aerial operations.
20:31And they got hammered there.
20:32But in Afghanistan, it's a very good thing.
20:35It's a good thing.
20:36It's a good thing.
20:37It's a good thing.
20:38It's a good thing.
20:39It's a good thing.
20:40It's a good thing.
20:42It's a good thing.
20:44It's a good thing.
20:46It's a good thing.
20:47is, we are Samarik.
20:50We are in this moment,
20:52when Americans have made a
20:54process for us,
20:55our time is in this moment,
20:59our time is in this moment,
21:01our government is in this moment,
21:03the government is in this moment.
21:06And I have a very happy
21:08that we have our own
21:11after a while,
21:13and the Taliban
21:17Pakistan's netritv is clear that we will further our relationship.
21:27This is our job and no one stops it.
21:31Okay, then people say that they treat the people who treat the people who treat their moral standing,
21:38they are also having a moral standing.
21:40Is that a great deal?
21:42is not good.
21:44I don't think it's good.
21:46I think it's good.
21:48But
21:50I think it's good.
21:52But
21:54I think it's good.
21:56But I think
21:58it's good.
22:00There are many countries
22:02which have been
22:04a lot of people
22:06that you can understand.
22:08It's good.
22:10We can understand.
22:12Or
22:14the people who
22:16are
22:17the
22:18people
22:20who are
22:21standing
22:22up.
22:23But
22:24the country
22:25is
22:26the
22:28people
22:29who
22:31are
22:32the
22:33people
22:34who
22:35are
22:36the
22:38people
22:39who
22:40are
22:41trying to
22:42look at
22:43other
22:44people.
22:45I think
22:46that's right.
22:47But
22:48we should
22:50say
22:51that
22:52you should
22:53think
22:54the world
22:55is
22:56going
22:57to
22:58protect
22:59our
23:01strategic interests.
23:03Our embassy in Kabul was targeted, our consulates have been targeted, in fact when Prime Minister
23:09Narendra Modi was being sworn in in Delhi 2014, our consulate had just been targeted
23:14in Herat.
23:15In Herat.
23:16Hamid Karzai, then President of Afghanistan, he had come to India, I interviewed him and
23:20he said Lashkar-e-Taiba is responsible for these attacks.
23:24Lashkar-e-Taiba may try to target our interests once again in Afghanistan.
23:29I think we'll have to be very, very careful, we'll have to provide full security.
23:35I think the Taliban also will help in this, but that we need to take whatever steps we
23:42need to augment our security and to ensure that the people who are there, our officials
23:48who are there, diplomats who are there, are provided all the security that they require.
23:55But that can't inhibit us because there is a very much at stake economically.
24:03Also the Hindukish is very rich in natural resources and we can't allow not to have ourselves, not
24:12to have a stake in those resources.
24:14very interesting.
24:15Sir, I also want to understand from you.
24:20So your thing is that we should encourage mining that's happening there.
24:23They want us to do mining in that area.
24:26They want us to help with education, healthcare, military assistance is what they seek.
24:32What would you say if there was a request to have some kind of deployment in Afghanistan, a couple
24:41of squadrons in Afghanistan or a training division in Afghanistan at an appropriate time or some
24:48kind of a coalition force to stabilize Afghanistan should they need it?
24:53Look, for the time being, I favor that we follow the traditional approach, which is that if the
25:04Afghan defense forces want training in India for some of the officers, then we should be willing
25:14to do that after proper scrutinies, after proper checks.
25:20Similarly, I believe that we must be far more open on visas with scrutinies, medical visas,
25:27education visas, etc.
25:29But naturally, keeping in mind our security concerns.
25:34So it's a step by step process and we should not take any action in a hurry.
25:46This is a long process.
25:47It's a long game.
25:49It's not a short game.
25:51We are in for the long haul, but we've got to prepare the ground to protect our interests.
25:57And I think that preparation, I'm happy, is now taking place in that we are not showing
26:03any inhibitions and I'm very happy about this.
26:10And I will let that be the last word on this part of the Chakraview podcast.
26:14We've had historic civilizational ties with Afghanistan.
26:19They say Gandhari came from what is modern day Kandahar.
26:23You know, they talk about a relationship that goes back even earlier.
26:28But now it's of strategic importance that we build on this relationship and remain here
26:33for the long haul.
26:34Sir, for joining me here on the Chakraview podcast, many thanks.
26:38Pleasure.
26:39Pleasure, God.
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