Developments in Afghanistan / China & its implications for India

and today we have a very important discussion with a very important guest as you know dr swami will be discussing this topic on development in afghanistan and china and his implications for india and our guest today is professor dr brahma chalani he is a i'll just give you a brief introduction he is a geostrategist scholar author and a commentator he is presently professor of strategic studies at the new delhi based center for policy research and he has been associated with the richard wand with sacker fellow of the robert bosch academy in berlin and an affiliate with the international center for the study of radicalization at king's college london a specialist in international security unarmed control issue professor chalani has held appointments at the harvard the brooking institution the school of advanced international studies at the john hopkins university and the australian national university he is the author of nine books which include asian juggernaut water asia's new battleground water peace and war confronting the global water crisis and i served as a member of the policy advisory group headed by the foreign minister of india until january 2000 he was an advisor to india's national security council serving as the convener of the external security group of the national security advisory board professor chalani is a frequent contributor to public conversation about international security on television and in the print media he writes opinion pieces for the international herald tribune the wall street journal the japan time mint the economic times at the times of india professor chalani has a phd in international studies so with this brief introduction i will go over to dr swami to initiate the discussion but i have to thank my co-host professor arvind chatwadi from delhi and ramesh swami from the united states for hosting this program together i also have to thank our technical team led by ashish shetty rakesh swami nathan and vishal mehta who are spread all over the country for putting this program and the technical technical support for this program as you know we had last week a very interesting discussion and i'm very proud to inform you that we had a viewership of 68 860 viewers across the globe in 149 countries so i thank our members and our viewers across the globe for the support for these topics and discussion will take place on sunday at 8 00 pm so with this it is over to dr swami to initiate the discussion with our honored honor honorable guest professor brahma chalani over to dhaka when you when he said last week it was no yes then now and tomorrow yeah that topic last week well the it's a very brief comment i will make because we are all wanting to hear uh professor celani uh we are now confronted with their hostile china they have as you yourself were amongst the first to point out they had occupied a fair amount of our territory in ladakh across the lac which was mutually agreed was a temporary line till we come to a negotiated settlement about disputes on the on the border but they flouted it and and came across and we have been very slow in reacting to that now china pakistan together are supportive of taliban taliban delegation went to beijing they were really treated extremely well with giving a lot of importance they met practically everybody including xi jinping and so they have now taken at least de facto control of kabul and uh so um de facto is only a technicality and now uh they have a common border afghanistan is a common border with the pok and through pok can reach our our de facto border and uh i think we are facing what i would call as a for the first time after a very very long time my first class national security crisis and therefore um i would like to request professor chalani that take your time we sit up till nine and you have complete freedom to speak and towards the end when you're finished we will ask some questions and also we uh we'll see if the the new setup that we have today audience will be able to send questions and then and this is your uh your day and so please go ahead thanks for coming i know how much in demand and how busy you are but still you found time thank you very much well thank you very much for that for those introductory remarks and also for the introduction i share your [Music] views that this is a major national security crisis for india also the main implication of the afghanistan developments is that these developments are like to strengthen the china pakistan nexus against india so this is going to be of profound significance for indian security but let me start with a very simple question why is afghanistan important it's important because of its geographic geographic location it's located at the crossroads of three regions at the crossroads of south asia central asia and southwest asia for a thousand years for a thousand years as you know india was invaded and plundered by those who came in through the hindu kush today one can say that american president joe biden has enabled the terrorist takeover of afghanistan this has serious implications not only for india but also for the u.s and the wider world i would say that this terrorist takeover is a watershed moment in american and world history we'll go down in history books as formalizing the end of facts americana and the period of western accidency the geopolitical implications of the u.s defeat in afghanistan at the hands of a terrorist militia are much more significant globally than the american defeat in vietnam when america lost in vietnam the implications were largely for the u.s and for southeast asia but now the implications of the u.s defeat in afghanistan are largely global the taliban's success in forcing out america will energize and embolden other terrorist groups in the global jihadist movement we should not forget that taliban plays a very key role in the global jihadist movement is a key element in in the in the global jihadism in effect the u.s sowed the seeds of its own defeat and humiliation in afghanistan including by fighting the war in afghanistan on one side of the durian line even though the taliban was a creature of pakistan even though pakistan had centuries in pakistan yet the americans fought the war on one side of the durian line the result is that 20 years of america's war and this was the longest war in american history that war has ended with the very enemy the u.s removed from from power the taliban recapturing that country why has this happened i think when the historians are going to debate this question but to me the answer is obvious when an aging u.s president while refusing to consider conditions on the ground overrules his military generals and intelligence agencies and orders a hasty and ill-planned action it is a sure recipe for foreign policy disaster the blame for the international human nation wrought on the u.s by the terrorist capture of afghanistan must be laid squarely at the door of joe biden let's be clear there was no strategic or domestic imperative for piranha to order a hasty and total pull out of the u.s force in afghanistan that had been under trump being cut drastically to just 2 500 soldiers at 2 000 2 500 soldiers remaining in afghanistan was certainly not a large military footprint for the u.s yet biden who's the oldest american to assume the presidency he rebuffed his top military commander's advice and ordered all american troops to return home in mid-april and by july 1st they had more or less completed the troop withdrawal because they on july 1st they vacated the bagram air base at night bagram was the nerve center of the war the staging ground for operations so on july 1st when the secretly vacated magram at night they effectively ended the war and we've seen that it took only a month and a half for the taliban since then to effectively recapture the whole afghanistan there is a big myth that the u.s was tired of the afghanistan war and that iron faced popular pressure to break the troops home nothing could be further from the truth the afghanistan war is the only war the americans have fought since world war ii where the majority's public support was sustained right through the course of the war for 20 years gather polling gallup polling is showing that americans were more supportive than opposed to that military involvement this was in contrast to previous american laws including in korea vietnam and iraq when the majority public opinion at some point turned unfavorable so if there was any imperative for a rush withdrawal it had nothing to do with any strategic reason it had nothing to do with domestic reason nothing to do with public opinion the only imperative was violence determination to honor a one-sided u.s deal with the taliban a deal that he had inherited from trump look at the irony byron has been overturning the decisions and actions and and policies of trump but on this deal with the taliban which is the world's deadliest terrorist force he decided to follow in trump's footsteps now if byron did not want to retain that small force of 2500 american troops in afghanistan he had the option of leaving a smaller force than 2500 in afghanistan a residual force that could provide critical air support and reassurance of gun forces this would have averted the disaster that has now unfolded but byron seeking to safeguard the deagle with the taliban a deal that the taliban had long violated ruled that option out so the result is the taliban sweep afghanistan the taliban sweep in afghanistan would not have been possible without the unwitting help the u.s has provided the u.s first lent respectability and legitimacy to the taliban a terrorist militia while systematically undermining the elected of ban government since the beginning of last year they have given the taliban the equivalence the same equivalence as the afghan government they they forced the afghan authorities to release more than thousand jailed terrorists five thousand jail terrorists is a number equivalent to the size of two army two u.s army brigades or regiments now where are those five release terrorists today they have helped spearhead the ongoing onslaughts so the americans did everything possible to undermine the afghan government in effect the u.s threw its ally the afghan government under the bus and got into bed with the taliban it was similar to the way the u.s early abandoned its kurdish lies in syria much has been made of the disintegration of afghan forces right here you are hearing a lot of commentary on why the afghans did not fight and the blame is being put on that grants nothing could be further from the truth then this portrayal of the afghans be responsible for the disintegration of the defenses of their defenses the collapse of the aquarium defenses is directly linked to the us betrayal with piran's action tantamount to pulling the rug from under the afghan military's feet one has to keep in mind that the u.s trained and equipped afghan military not to be an independent force but they train and equip the afghan military to remain dependent on u.s and nato support when biden withdrew 2 500 u.s soldiers all the remaining u.s soldiers that had a cascading effect it triggered the withdrawal of 8500 nato coalition groups and some 18 000 18 000 u.s military contractors the contractors were playing an indispensable role in keeping their afghan air force and u.s supplied weapon systems operational so when the contractors left the afghan air force's operational residence collapsed and the afghan army relied on the u.s or coalition capabilities to bring in quick reaction forces make available emergency logistics and air minivac which is you know air medical lift and provide close air support including providing drones over any active battlefield for situational awareness drones are so important you know if you have if you have drones over a battlefield you know where a battle is reaching you know exactly what's happening there right you you have a situational awareness now all these things that are so essential for combat all disappeared in one stroke the rapid withdrawal of u.s and coalition forces including of liaison teams that worked with afghans to provide close combat captioning not for available spare parts and logistics the afghan soldiers as former cia director general david petraeus said in in the last couple of days bravely he said fighting and dying for their country until the u.s ditched them this is the former cia director saying it publicly and when the u.s ditched them it delivered a very heavy psychological law on the afghan soldiers on the afghan military from which the prime minister could not recover so the the important point to remember is that the big loser from the afghan chaos is not afghanistan but the united states the u.s has suffered a defeat not just at the hands of the taliban but also at the hands of that militia's sponsor pakistan that's where dr swami's point of a strengthening china pakistan nexus becomes so significant as well as ominous as i explained the geopolitical implications of the u.s defeat in afghanistan are much more significant globally than the american defeat in vietnam the taliban success in forcing out america is certainly going to embolden other terrorist groups um and and you know and re-energize the global jihad movement and the taliban is set to declare an islamic caliphate yeah as it did in 1996 in 1996 when it ceased power the first thing it did was declare an islamic caliphate and that caliphate lasted until the 2001 u.s led invasion now ending you know everybody you know like the americans have been done against now for 20 years now 20 years is a long time to be you know waiting war and as i mentioned earlier this was the longest war in u.s history so nobody can nobody can question the american desire to end this long protracted war in in the war made sense but byron's hasty exit forcing all soldiers to return home within weeks that was foolhardy and look at the strange paradox that we are witnessing byron refused to retain 2 500 american troops in afghanistan and yet today he has sent five thousand twice that number five thousand troops back to afghanistan merely to evacuate u.s citizens and u.s embassy staff five thousand troops are in kabul today evacuating u.s citizens in effect byron's chickens have come home to roost the u.s could have put afghanistan without getting into bed with the taliban and thereby undermining afghan and regional security where was the need to sign a deal with the taliban the faithful deal with the taliban will go down as a historic plunder the small u.s military footprint in afghanistan that biden inherited was easily sustainable on the on a long term because it involved modest cost and little risk to american lives at the height of the american war in afghanistan there were a hundred and ten thousand soldiers one 1.1 lakh soldiers from that the number came down under trump just to 2500 soldiers a 2 500 soldiers is a very small force a small military footprint and moreover for the last seven and a half years there was no u.s combat role in afghanistan people forget that the u.s combat role in afghanistan ended at the end of 2014 and when the u.s combat role ended at the end of 2014 american financial costs and casualties dramatically dropped in this entire seven and a half year period since the combat role ended the americans have lost only 99 soldiers in afghanistan 99 many of them in non-hostile incidents like you know they are on a helicopter the helicopter develops engine problem and it crashes so not brought down by enemy fire but because of an accident soldiers died many of these 99 soldiers died because of accidents in comparison the afghans because afghans were on the front lines for the last seven and a half years right for seven and a half years the americans who are not on the front lines have gone through on the front lines and guess how many afghans died according to president um and this was this was the figure from last year that he know that he he released at the beginning of last year so a year and a half have uh you know have passed since it released africa he said 45 000 afghan security men have died since the u.s combat role ended 45 000 as compared to 99 u.s fraternities so this small u.s military footprint in afghanistan could have been sustained there was no domestic pressure in the u.s no public opinion favoring an end to the war so now in the next um uh five minutes or so because i want to wrap up this discussion uh or maybe five to seven minutes so that we have more time for discussion i will focus on on two issues dr swami one is what are india's options now and two on china the other issue that you raised yes first what are india's options let's remember that india has no geographic integrity with afghanistan law has been said about india's 3 billion assistance to afghanistan whether that money has been wasted answer is no that three billion assistance to afghanistan helped set up major projects that serve the afghan people those projects have earned india goodwill at the grassroots level according to a gallup poll the country most loved to have gone is india how did india earn that goodwill that goodwill has been earned over many decades and 3 billion in assistance to afghanistan in this century is a very small sum of money for india considering how much we dole out to to a number of countries and the afghan goodwill toward india will not evaporate because of taliban military successes one thing india has to be cognizant of is not to yield to u.s pressure u.s pressure over the years has led to very costly owned rules by india the biggest mistake india made was when under u.s pressure india halted critical aid to afghan president nachopulla in the early 90s as you recall the soviet union had disintegrated najibullah was relying on india moscow had given india the role to provide assistance to najipula he needed money he needed arms and this is not a real burden on india yet the americans pressured india and we halted all assistance to najib leading to his ouster in 1992 and the taliban's rise so india was india contributed to the rise of the taliban india is paying for the taliban's rise and let's not forget the ic 814 hijacking when in a hijacked indian airliner was flown to the taliban bastion of kandahar in 1999 taliban's resurgence and its re-coming to power is terrible news for india because taliban all said and done as a proxy of pakistan yes and pakistan will re-employ the taliban for actions against india including to train and arm luxury toy bar and jaishay muhammad people in afghanistan has happened previously in the 1990s when the taliban was in power taliban hill areas were used by pakistan for training terrorists against india another mistake india made is more recent india has made a series of foreign policy mistakes we never debate them in india you never see an article on on nachipola how nachopula was ousted and india's role india has india has blood on its hands you know and i only mentioned uh one example from the past uh but there are a number of examples where you know where india has been uh has betrayed its own friends in fact india traditionally has shown more respect towards enemies then it often betrays his friends but give you another example from recent times in 2019 there is two years ago exactly or so the u.s imposed oil sanctions on iran and these were these were unilateral sanctions on them by the americans they had no human sanctity uh human stamp on it on them india blindly heated the u.s sanctions and stopped buying iranian oil this was unlike china chinatown today has not stopped buying iranian oil in fact because of india's stoppage of all imports of oil from iran iran began offering huge discounts to china so for more than two years china has been having a you know having a ball they have been buying iranian oil at a heavy discount but the reason why i mentioned that is that by halting oil by halting all oil imports from iran india undermined the relationship of trust with their own trust is very important in a in a partnership the iranians no longer trust india they see india in the u.s camp or they see india as a country very susceptible to u.s pressure iran is very important for india to play a role in afghanistan because india can send critical supplies to afghanistan by land only only via iran there's no other route there's no other route right to send supplies to afghanistan and india's blind you know blind hearing of u.s sanctions has hurt india's cooperation with iran including in afghanistan so the lesson is that yielding to u.s pressure militates against national interests and sends a message to the world that india is a soft state and and can be pushed around you know when when biden announced his decision to pull out all u.s forces he said in april this was in april four months ago or less than four months ago that the us did not go to afghanistan to nation build he's right that was the only thing correct in his long statement on april 14th when he held that press conference and said i'm calling uh all american troops back the u.s did not go to afghanistan to nation build as he said the u.s went to afghanistan to wreck vengeance for the 9 attacks yeah that's right it was left to nations like india to build highways hospitals dams and the national parliament building now those highways hospitals dams and national parliament building are not going to be dismantled by the taliban certainly not the highways hospitals and dams right so india's investment in afghanistan at 3 billion that india invested will hold india in good stead in the long run excuse me but india's options today are highly limited in afghanistan and the situation is so fluid and so fast changing we don't know whether war lords in afghanistan are going to again mount a opposition to the taliban whether the secular uh elements or the non question elements are going to resist the taliban group so at the moment india can only wait and watch and play safe i'm turning to china and that's my last uh part yes uh china has as you all know long shielded pakistan from international pressure over its harboring of terrorist groups but after nine chinese dam engineers were killed in a terrorist triggered bus explosion in northernmost pakistan china squarely blamed america's quote-unquote hasty withdrawal from afghanistan for creating cross-border insecurity while in private china cannot be unhappy with the exit of a defeated america it not only opens greater space for china's expansionism but also shows how u.s power is in decline the past explosion however has made china realize that the fallout from the afghanistan chaos threatens its regional interests and the chinese foreign minister wong has proposed that pakistan collaborate with beijing in afghanistan in fact beijing will have to use pakistan the largest recipient of chinese financing under bri and also pakistan is china's client state so china will use pakistan to increase its footprint in afghanistan also afghanistan is important for china in terms of its pri afghanistan's strategic location makes makes it geopolitically attractive for beijing for beijing's bri so make no mistake china will exploit the void in afghanistan and also try to gain access to afghanistan's vast mineral wealth not many people know this that according to u.s estimates afghanistan is sitting on two trillion dollars worth of mineral resources now advancing such interests including accessing mineral wealth hinges on violence are bailing in afghanistan so violence in afghanistan is not in china's interests yet look at the paradox you know we are talking about you know i just mentioned the paradox and you know about the us how they they have sent back twice the number of troops that they withdrew just to evacuate their own citizens but look at another paradox that relates to china's strategic ambitions china today detains more than a million muslims in a muslim bullock in sinkiang that's right beijing views islamic extremism as a pressing threat and they use that as an as a justification for this largest mass incarceration of people on religious grounds since the nazi era since the nazi area no country has imprisoned so many people on religious grounds and yet look at look at the paradox that china has built cozy ties with the taliban the marauding islamist force well you know if if atheists comments china for more than half a century can be close to pakistan and pakistan was the first islamic republic of the post-colonial era so if you know if if china can can be such close allies of pakistan it's not a surprise that it's become strange that fellows the taliban taliban is responsible for is for the world's deadliest terrorist attacks the world's deadliest terrorist attacks are carried out by the taliban yes so what does this show it shows the transactional approach the transactional approach has long been a hallmark of chinese foreign policy when when the taliban seized power in 1996 tipsy spot again now i'm talking about the earlier uh capture of fire in 1996. china established a very cozy relationship with that regime it began direct flights between between and kabul and on the day 9 11 attacks happened in the us the same day a chinese delegation was in kabul signing an agreement on economic and technical cooperation with the taliban regime such was the cooperation between the taliban regime and china and after the taliban was ousted from power by the u.s led invasion cannot quietly maintain close ties with the taliban in pakistan you you know much has been made of this potential for the afghan conflict to spill over into sinking now the this you know this um this um this kind of a concern is so overblown people don't even understand the geography first china has a very short frontier with afghanistan the sinkian frontier with afghanistan is only 76 kilometer wide 76 kilometer wide and that frontier is made of impossible high altitude rain high mountains there's no way anybody can cross across that frontier there are no tracks you know even even dirt tracks for people to cross over [Music] you know that um frontier the only way people can grow from afghanistan to sink yang is is via tajikistan but the but the chinese have deployed thousands of their own troops in tajikistan including on the target afghan border the chinese also have their own troops in pakistan occupied in kashmir right right thousands of them yeah and pakistan occupied jammu and kashmir borders thinking have you ever heard of china ever and ever saying that any pakistani terrorists have crossed from pakistan health jnk to sinkyang no there's never been any example in any instance of of pakistani terrorists crossing into sinkhang because china has very secure borders and heavy deployment at frontiers so there is no way that that afghan militants can can can infiltrate sing via tajikistan given the large chinese military presence in tajikistan but i think as the bus explosion in pakistan illustrates china's concerns are essentially centered on its economic interests in central asia and pakistan and the safety of chinese nationals who are working on projects there the threat of terrorism however provides beijing a convenient cover to advance its geopolitical interests and with the us and retreat china is likely to increase its strategic footprint in afghanistan by leveraging its tragic relationship with pakistan and its closing ties with the taliban and to co-op the taliban china has already daniel the prospect of providing the taliban the two things the taliban needs to govern afghanistan what are the two things talwan needs diplomatic recognition and much needed infrastructure and economic development assistance china has dangled both these things and the taliban rising to the bait has gone out of its way to assuage china's concerns so clearly a taliban a taliban dominated afghanistan will not only be under pakistan's sway but also greatly aid china's designs it will as dr swami said strengthen the shanna pakistan nexus against india america's exit has opened the path for an opportunity optionistic china to make strategic inroads into afghanistan and deepen its penetration not just to pakistan but also of iran and central asia all this is going to compound india's foreign policy challenges so i'll stop here well thank you it's a very informative very articulate presentation uh we've learned a lot i think i have to perhaps after some time [Music] um when matters settle down a bit uh request you to come again and tell us what india should do uh in terms of steps uh without having to rely on any one country or the other but today let me just uh before i ask my other colleagues make one comment and uh one question uh the comment is that you when you mention najibullah i was reminded that when chandrasekhar was prime minister i was the senior most minister and najibullah made a special request that i should visit afghanistan and it was end of december early january is very cold but my colleagues sitting here uh mr alvin chad was with me assisting me in the commerce ministry and so both of us went and najibullah gave a tremendous reception to us welcome to us in fact he came out of the palace into the into the street to receive me i mean that was the enthusiasm and then uh he said uh that he wants you know he feels betrayed by the russians and he wants us to help out because as he said and you have said that has been reinforced there's a lot of good will for indians in afghanistan when i told him that we'll have to start slowly because we just come to power and i don't know how much we can turn around very quickly but he said at least buy our badam and he had one american badam which we are important were importing and one in afghanistan which was much smaller but it was so nice and sweet compared to the american one so i went back and i passed as a commerce minister i passed a law by rule that nothing will be imported from any other country except afghanistan and you would be surprised at the furore and ultimately rajiv gandhi phoned me up to say that please you know will draw that order i said why he said because when i went to america in 85 i promised ronald reagan was president that he will buy from his california farm all the badam that he grows there and he says good for indo-us relationship i mean that's coc how cried we were um i think when you mentioned about uh some of these things that we do to please the americans it is a very tragic thing and americans don't respect you for it by the americans are a great give and take people you give something take something and if you give something without taking something then they think you're an idiot and if you uh take something and not give something then they'll think you're a rascal so if the americans you have to do that but we didn't i mean the one on iran i perfectly agree with you they're a shia country and they are natural friends of india uh we have historical relationship question is now china has come into vast parts of of ladakh and you yourself have written about it and so why and there's been kept a secret in fact uh one of my parliament questions was declared i mean was withdrawn from by the secretariat because i asked how much of our ladakh land has been grabbed by china and the question was listed perfectly normal question but then the secretary general said that it is the government of india has said that that information is secret and i couldn't understand how if a foreign power country forcibly occupies your territory why should it be a secret but anyway i would really ask a question arising from that do we have a plan to deal with china on uh ladakh at all or are they going to be allowed to you know just eat away while we have all these discussions we are going to invite xi jinping to uh brix bank meeting a bricks uh summit meeting in november i'm told and the preparations are going on pretty pretty uh pretty well so i are we not cognizant is that is your understanding of my party's governments you can china policy so you can make hell tell what we are up to vis-a-vis china in view of the fact that after 18 one-to-one meetings with the of xi jinping with modi he quietly sends his troops and grabs our territory which is by the way mutually agreed as indian because we drew the line of actual control in 1993 to say till the dispute is settled this is yours and this will keep including exciting so what is your view about how china is going to proceed with us will it be encourage pakistan only or would they also feel encouraged to do something on indian border both on arunachal and in ladakh well today dr swami as you know the entire india-china frontier from nadar to arnold pradesh has become a hot border yes and there are multiple standoffs between india and china not just in nadar there's a standoff on the sikkim tibet border there's also one standoff on the original tibit border so the entire long frontier has been turned into a hot water and this holds ominous implications for india and the chinese encroachments are not just restricted in ladakh as you know that they are also encroaching on bhutanese land on nepalese land on indian land in pradesh and also they have sought to encroach on sikkim land too so we are facing uh multiple encroachments or encroachment efforts and what happened in ladakh in april 2020 showed our defenses in very poor light because you know india was caught mapping and not a single army commander has been held to account nobody has been court-martialed um and i'm even i'm even in fact very worried about the buffer zones that have come up in three areas uh you know where the pla had encroached one is kalwan valley the the buffer zone came up in july last year then we had the pangong buffer zone that came up in february this year and then the most recent buffer zone this month in the in the kogra area all three buffers have one common element that these buffers have come up on areas that were traditionally patrolled by india so what china's strategy has been in these areas first encroach and then dictate a buffer zone that actually pushes the indians further back into indian territory now if you look at the galwan buffer zone prime minister modi said when he said you know his speech he was talking about petrol 0.14 which is you know which the government of india has said repeatedly is indian indian post right now whereas today petrol 0.14 middle of the buffer zone india has retreated 1.7 kilometers back from that from that pp-14 so india has gone back into its own territory and similarly what what we are saying in pogba this month that petrol point 17 a which has been a traditional indian patrolling point and and that pp17a is not on the lse it's the lsa is further to the east that's right but we have agreed to a buffer with pp17a as the epicenter and we have moved 2.5 kilometers back from pp17a so in a sense uh it's a win-win for china it's winning twice against india uh you know first approaching uh and and then forcing a uh dictating a buffer on india yeah and again there's no debate in india you know so um one doesn't know because without a public discourse there can be no you know no pressure point on the government uh you know if the government can and i think it's not the government alone uh the political leadership i actually have come to the conclusion now when i look at india's blunders over the over the decades that you know we have always been blaming the prime minister in office when simla happened it was indira gandhi's fault that she gave away all the battlefield gains without any good quit pro core but what was the military leadership's role did they have no role to play you know did the chiefs did not uh say anything they had the option of putting their foot down right no prime minister is going to you know uh go ahead with a winner with such a major giveaway if the chiefs say that uh you know we this is this is their sellout or if they say if you go this we're going to resign right no prime minister is going to go ahead with anything of this time so similarly you know i i think that whatever has happened in lazar the blame lies squarely with the military leadership and the kind of military leadership we have uh you know there's been no accountability for the for india having been caught off guard in april 2020 um no nobody has been held to account for number of lapses there has been no debate even as to why we we why we vacated the kalashads we said the kalash heights were on the indian side that was our leverage yeah i can add something to that you can add something to that i spoke uh one to one um to the one of the most the highest ranked officer i won't mention his name so not to get in trouble and i asked him kailashi was sitting there and he suddenly went away and the chinese have just moved in and taken it over and we were looking down on the in pangong lake area we were looking down at the chinese bunkers and so on which they had been there and so is that strategic position why do you give it up he says well we were told that we need to create an atmosphere for negotiations so we should do that and then we do it and the chinese school he came and occupied it same thing with deep song nobody talks about devsung the chinese and full and that's very near i think yeah i agree with you sorry i interrupted you but i mean this is not the devsung is the most critical area for india it's also where the chinese improvement is is the largest they have come in very deep yes 18 kilometers into india that's right and blocked india's access to traditional patrolling points hundreds of square kilometers of indian territory in devsung is now under pla control and deep sun is where you know is is a critical point that that uh is vital for uh seattle glacier also vital vital for india to at some point to regain oxichen uh and look at karakoram pass exactly it's it kind of in fact the davidson sector is up to the karakoram pass uh highway which you know which in the the new highway the critical highway is up to the base of the the karakoram pass and and and today that highway has come under has become vulnerable because of the chinese encroachment deep into devsun so but now we're trying to construct another road another road which will take a number of years and by then the chinese would have enjoyed somebody else making that new road also wonderful so that story goes on unfortunately well anyone else wants to ask a a question uh we are running out of time but we'll take some levels i have a very small question to professor that is uh when najibullah was ousted in 1992 uh and nobody came to his health no other country came to his help he took refuse in the united nations headquarters in kabul and uh for quite some time he was there before he was murdered uh unlike uh nazibullah why mr ghani did not call for any help either from any country he did not seek any help in fact he immediately surrendered and he did not even seek united nations help before moving to tajikistan as the tv news is saying just now he has moved half an hour back to tajikistan well to answer your question in two words you was betraying u.s betrayal experience all that why do i say that the americans train and equip the afghan forces but as i said in you know earlier in the presentation that they train and equip the grand forces not to be independent but to remain reliant on american and nato support for everything from maintenance and logistics to close air support to you know to um to um common things that militaries do in in other countries so when all that disappeared you know when when when byron withdrew the american forces and the contractors all left the afghan military collapsed now when the military collapses in such a dramatic fashion nobody i don't i don't think ghani ever expected that to happen nobody expected that the americans would withdraw so rapidly within weeks within weeks they would grow right their decision was announced in mid-april by july 1st they had pulled out of bagram and ended the war effectively so this happened in two and a half months and and and um and and then the blow that the afghan security forces suffered when they realized that that you know when they when the taliban began this multi-pronged offensive across the country the military was unable to mount a challenge and when the defenses collapsed it left ghani and others very little time to do anything as far as najibullah is concerned uh you know going back to najibullah najibullah took refuge in the human compound in kabul because there was no way for him to escape to another country his family came to india as you know and in fact i have been close friends with the family for many years but he got trapped because there was no way for him uh you know to be evacuated from kabul and his tragic end uh was avoidable and i think uh india's own um sorted role in his ouster is is something that really troubles me because it shows that that india is so vulnerable to american pressure and and that american pressure is also manifest from very recent development of last year when the doha deal was signed by the u.s with the taliban it was a sellout to pakistan and to the taliban right yeah and and the deals deals the deal text said that the taliban will not attack u.s and u.s and its allies which implicitly excluded india because india is not an ally of the us but a strategic partner right and yet india not only supported the doha deal india was physically present at the signing ceremony in indowa yeah what are you know it really shows how wonderful we are under successive governments that's the one common element in indian foreign policy under successive governments that i have seen you know that that if the americans say something we're willing to do their bidding and that's reason why the americans don't don't respect you as dr swami said you know if they believe in in give-and-take uh if if you're willing to just uh obey them and not seek anything in return the americans will treat you like dirt this is this is the way they you know the americans treat others uh with contempt you know when they find them to be pushovers it's only those who really uh talk up to them um you know like china uh they they give respect to such countries um you know they they that's right and i think the indians especially indian political leaders uh given that many of them come from semi uh you know semi-urban areas they don't you know they don't have uh they don't have ex you know they have no exposure to international uh relations prior to taking office they you know they're not um foreign policy savvy and certainly they don't understand american thinking in american strategy they become very very you know easy to to manipulate uh and and i um and i think that um and also the other indian fairing is that we don't learn from the mistakes of our predecessors no prime minister you know we look at the failures or the mistakes of his predecessors so modi will repeat the mistakes of vajpayee from his own party yeah now for example if you look at um how um modi made a unscheduled stopover in lahore to reach out to a prime minister yeah that's the same prime minister that vajpayee tried to quote by going by bus bus to lahore and then crying in public that my bus got hijacked to cargill right so history repeated itself under two successive bjp prime ministers same thing on china we're seeing the same mistakes being repeated including under two bjp prime ministers so you know and this really underscores the fact that prime ministers don't look back at the mistakes of their predecessors and learn from them right i have a question uh professor chalani uh i want to find out if india could have with the help of america played an effective role if they had planned it well in afghanistan if it was about a year or more earlier could india have a better role to play when america was leaving afghanistan not really because the americans never wanted india the indians in afghanistan the americans especially under the under president biden are molly coddling pakistan the last thing they would have allowed is u.s india cooperation in afghanistan it was out of question they had they specifically asked india not to have any any any boots on the ground in afghanistan and um so they were very uh you know very sensitive to pakistani concerns and they did not want india indian military presence of any kind in afghanistan and of course yeah even military presence in afghanistan in any case did not make any sense to me uh because you know given the fact that india has no geographic contiguity with afghanistan so any kind of indian military involvement in afghanistan would have been um would have been in terms of logistics extremely complex extremely risky and and dependent on others including russia and iran and today as you know the russians have embraced the taliban they have established their own kosher relationship with taliban in recent months and our own relationship with iran is not uh good anymore so any kind of indian military entanglement in afghanistan would have proved very costly to indian interests there there's a view uh which i subscribe to uh is that the russians are junior partners of china they owe them so much money that's true that's you know very well said in fact the junior partners of china not just in afghanistan or in pakistan or in iran the junior powers of of china in their own backyard of central asia indonesia is you know is the spot was part of the old soviet union but today they are junior parties of china and central asia they are playing second federal to china and their ceo that's right yeah you just brought up a very important point in seo breaks what is the sanctity of india being a part of quad of the brics even now is it is there any validity based on the way uh the current biden government is going to continue to treat india well it's sort of a balancing act on the part of india because you know india all said and done is um effectively pursuing a pro-us foreign policy no indian policy maker will say that but for all intents and purposes india is pursuing a u.s friendly foreign policy so being a member of seo and being a member of brics and and you know having also this ric meeting that is russia india china trilateral meeting all are designed to provide the veneer of balance in reality india is very much in the u.s camp as i mentioned even the doha agreement was embraced by india an anti-india deal if india can embrace does that show about indian foreign policy and actually have your development diplomats present in indowa uh you know to provide the right you know india's stamp on the on the deal yeah that would be something more shameful than that in my view yeah that's right in fact the doha deal has led to the undriving of afghanistan that is a direct consequence of that so it's a shame on india's part that it was it was it you know it gave its stamp of approval to the world deal and and because india has been now left to fend off but new threats that are going to emerge from the developments in afghanistan okay interestingly i just finished one point um interestingly in march dr swami biden in a press conference emphatically said when there is a question if the troops go out come out from come back from afghanistan what will happen to will taliban take over he said absolutely not america has trained 300 000 he said twice three hundred thousand troops and they will hold strong you know it is a shameful defeat i mean like uh as professor celine he said that now he's setting five thousand troops i mean two days ago you said you're gonna pull out and then they said are you gonna retreat no are you gonna rethink they said no now suddenly coming back at 5000. um sadly we have a senile man as the president of my country who i mean it's just ridiculous i mean it is embarrassing bottom line embarrassing to see what this guy is doing today uh within within what we as perception from where we see it well i think uh after the debacle in afghanistan and the international humiliation this will wreck on on the us the critics of biden who have been saying that biden has cognitive problems uh those critics those critics you know their voices will be you know will be heard with some greater attention if not respect uh but the fact is that um when you have an old man who refuses to listen to his generals and to his intel agencies and who for no strategic reason orders a full withdrawal of u.s troops within weeks that leader will face inevitable crisis in my tone yeah so you might see the coming yeah sorry go ahead no no much ahead of the zone deadline of august 31st well the august 31 first deadline was just you know uh well it was artificial it already withdrawn on july 1st yeah that's right the only the only people remaining were the uh you know a couple of hundred soldiers guarding the u.s embassy and the kabul airport that's all correct but but but look look at the irony if when he first announced the total withdrawal of all u.s troops he said he he said they'll be all home by 9 11 this year september 11 right that's right that's right it never came to his uh mind that september 11 marks the anniversary of a gruesome obvious terrorism in the u.s that's right and he said that anniversary as the as a deadline yeah now the the debt now 911 will come this year september 11 will come this year with the taliban in kabul that's right celebrating it celebrating celebrating the anniversary in kabul you just now mentioned about what could happen in uh usa the president the military and the media and all that reacting to what biden has done but you and dr swami have been clearly stating what is happening in ladakh and uh china coming in and all that contrary to that famous statement of when do you think the indian media and the indian public will really rise up to know the reality of what happened in ladakh region across the area i think i think you know we should all learn the lesson from the us especially from the u.s media this disaster in afghanistan would not have happened but for the mainstream u.s media the mainstream u.s media is a fawning media that creates biden just the way the north korean media treats their leader kim jong-un biden is the dear leader of the mainstream us media they you know they slobber over him as if he's the dear leader of america they you know they uh when he when he ran for for president the mainstream media spearheaded his potential campaign they trashed his opponent they concealed the hunter biden scandal and when in april this year biden announced this total withdrawal from afghanistan not one newspaper in the in the u.s or one television network questioned their decision in contrast when trump drastically ordered the reduction of u.s troops to 2500 by ignoring the advice of military generals the u.s media roasted him so you know when you have a foreign media you have no debate you create the room for disaster so that's a lesson we should be drawing that the discourse and debate are very important everything that the government does needs to be scrutinized because those in power can lose touch with reality or because they're so preoccupied with their daily challenges they have no time to reflect that's why we need debate and and and and and you know and and even criticism constructive critiques are so important and healthy in any democracy no i think even uh even advisors don't tell the leaders the truth because they're afraid that if they say something unpleasant they may be replaced you also mentioned us quite often i mean that part too right in china and india sorry yeah yeah so he professor mentioned about the the foreign media i think it's a clear message that the indian media needs to shape up or basically that's exactly what is getting repeated what's happening in the us is getting mirrored in india where their constructive criticism of true criticism is to what on a policy front is considered you know unacceptable i don't think it's i don't think it's you know being we have the same parallel the reason is that things in india very different there are four major newspapers in india looking at just the newspaper world two establishment newspapers two function like and you know like opposition newspapers uh so you have but you see the all the four papers don't promote debate what they do is that they promote uh trivial and petty news coverage the whole entire focus of the media whether it's television or the press is on petty politics you know i said the other day uh on twitter that um you know there's a new word uh that has become popular called sportainment sportainment is the fusion of sports and entertainment in india politics is potainment it's the biggest sportainment in the country and the media is the biggest sportament industry because it's the media is not used anymore in india the media is is entertainment it's you know it's the entire focus of the media it's on petty things you just you know look up any um yeah just look up for example the two largest newspapers in the country you know just go to the website times of india and the sun times see what what they cover on their website this is what they cover in their print editions this is not this is not a replica of what's happening in the u.s so um in india i think the problems are more deep seeded because journalism has collapsed in india and it's become you know it's become uh 95 percent of me from of journalists india are are nothing but uh stenographers you know all they're saying is he said this he said that this is all they're reporting uh and and and and most of it most of us most of journalism is this there's no attempt to analyze to you know to collate things to present use in a in a readable form nothing you know it's and um and no serious attempt to look at serious issues certainly serious issues frighten them because they don't have those capacities yeah you know among journalists now to to deal with serious issues so if if you have a debate on afghanistan as it gets uh you know like um at the moment they'll again focus on uh on silly questions you know they never have a real debate on even on television uh it's more about presenting different faces on television that's not about the content again uh much of the media is like that in india it's very unfortunate you know this uh and this is beyond this beyond beyond beyond what the government can do the government cannot reform the media the government cannot oversee the media the government cannot improve the standards of journalism in india so this is you know this is uh a serious very serious issue in my view because the media also is very influential no other day justice nariman picked up some newspaper report uh or you know the indian experts had reported about about uh you know this um uh this you know hindi hindu ritual of um of you know people doing this ganga jail and and he ordered the up government uh to stop that on the basis of a newspaper report so you know so in in some ways the newspapers are also trying to run the government and run the judiciary by by the nose that reason why we need we need first pure pure institutions in journalism that is journalists overlooking standards in journalism you need an ombudsman you need you need a press council with real teeth you need oversight not by the government but by independent people largely people from the media world so you need need reform but this this reform has to come from within it cannot come from outside that's right okay thank you who's going to conclude thank you thank you professor chelani you really provided a very rich content to our program today whether it is on afghanistan or on china or on government or on media in fact uh the last part we spent about seven eight minutes on media uh there has been a lot of criticism in the media about media saying that what they present in that if you wanna talk about two newspapers including the electronic channels and all that they only say the government is saying this opposition is saying that nobody is saying what is the truth and if the truth is not what government is saying nobody's saying the government is lying nobody has guts in fact there should be a debate on this issue in fact you pointed out in this direction that we need to discuss whether it is press counsel or what we call media counsel in fact there should be media accounts instead of response and what should be the role there is no teeth anyway and thank you very much for providing a very rich historical perspective on afghanistan i remember having been to kabul with dr swami as dr swami mentioned on december 28 1990 we were lodged in the indian embassy and uh just morning that we arrived there was a bomb blast opposite the embassy there was a hotel and that bomb lost we were told by taliban at that time taliban was not so strong a force but we were also told by the embassy officials that taliban was being funded by pakistan and taliban was earning money by smuggling of the tires car tires that we were told at that time and uh we had a delegation of the traders with us who dealt in the fruit uh the dry fruits and uh dr swami's decision when dr mentioned about this after he came back from afghanistan was really very bold this season dr swami thank you very much uh you have been very consistent on both afghanistan and china in fact this morning your tweet which was actually a redo of 2018 on afghanistan so this shows your consistent and surprisingly professor chelani and you both of you both of them have been in same units and many many issues especially on china and uh foreign policy of the indian government thank you very much for providing a technical support we will be meeting next sunday again at 8pm in words of wisdom with a new topic with a new guest and with dr subraman till then thank you very much you must one promise you must accept except from him that is in some time in the future when another major event takes place he will agree to come back and address us again well i hope not not thank you uh i i hope not for another crisis we don't need more crises yes true but we need to we need to have people who can call spread as paid yeah without missing words without missing words you have been very frank and forthright [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: Virat Hindustan Sangam

Views: 36,051

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Id: 9oClvz2bT00

Length: 85min 38sec (5138 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 15 2021