The Times of India report copied below --- 'World snubs India over Taliban' --- is a serious blow to our Government's handling of its foreign affairs.
India's Afghan policy is highly hampered by its policymaker's Brahminical ideological and communal obsession against Muslims. A globalised India will have to drive out those mentally prejudiced policy makers, that are not ready to play realpolitik strategies when dealing on the world stage. A big world is out there and India's parochial hangups are a big drag around its smooth progress in foreign relations. India's secularism itself is a sham for all the world to witness. Its democratic institutions must reflect the Indian ethos in totality and not be muzzled by the 3% Brahmin minority's hegemony on power. Let India and Indian people breath free and give 15% Muslims their rightful representation at all levels of its decision making.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
World snubs India over Taliban
Delhi’s ‘No Good Taliban’ Stand Junked, Largest Aid Donor Marginalised In Kabul
Ashis Ray | TNN
London: A one-day international conference on Afghanistan on Thursday rejected India’s argument that there were no degrees of Talibanism. British PM Gordon Brown, hosting the conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, announced in his opening address the establishment of a $500 ‘trust fund’ to buy “peace and integration’’ with warriors who are engaged in violence for economic rather than ideological reasons. A whopping $140 million has already been pledged for this year.
During his pre-conference discussion with British foreign secretary David Miliband, external affairs minister S M Krishna had specifically said, “There should be no distinction between a good Taliban and a bad Taliban.’’ But the Indian stand clearly fell on deaf ears. It was also unclear if remnants of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, once cultivated by India, would be accommodated in any way. There was also no reference to the erstwhile foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, who put up a spirited fight in the first round of the recent controversial presidential election and exposed a fraud before withdrawing from the contest.
Krishna was allocated a seat in the second of three rows of attendees at the conference which in itself reflected India’s peripheral role in Afghan affairs in the eyes of the international community. This, despite India being the biggest regional aidgiver to Afghanistan, with a commitment of $1.3 million.
Earlier in the week, Turkey, a Pakistan ally, did not even bother to invite India to a confabulation on Afghanistan. Krishna was among 70 foreign ministers and officials of international organisations who attended the convention at the 185-yearold Lancaster House. Pakistan supports a differentiation between Taliban segments, including being soft towards the Afghan Taliban, who are sponsored by the ISI. In an interview to a British daily on Thursday, foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi claimed: “Pakistan is perhaps better placed than any other country in the world to support Afghan reintegration and reconciliation.’’
As a goodwill gesture, the conference was preceded by a lifting of UN sanctions on five leaders of the obscurantist Taliban regime, which was ousted by armed forces led by the US after the 9/11 attack on New York by the Afghanistan-based al-Qaida. Among the beneficiaries is former foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil.
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