The Pashtun Taliban has risen like a phoenix: transformed from Mujahideen who pushed back the Soviets in 1979 to take power in Kabul in 1996 — as the creation of Pakistan (by Maj Gen Nasirullah Khan Babar); melted away from Afghanistan when the US and Northern Alliance (NA) ousted it from power in 2001 and then returned to Kabul in 2021, forcing the Americans to flee in a repeat of Saigon, Vietnam in 1973.

The images of US helicopters and C117 Globemasters evacuating soldiers from Saigon and Kabul still haunt US Nam and Afghan veterans. Both the British East India Company and Taliban, non-state actors, took power by use of military force — the Taliban twice — to alter the geopolitics and geostrategy of Afghanistan, the land bridge between South Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia. Its leaders, though, are sanctioned under UN and US counter-terrorism laws, and its supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada is tagged by ICC for gender crimes. In its first avatar, it was recognised as a state by Pakistan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, with the last two breaking off relations after the Taliban failed to hand over Osama Bin Laden to the US.

Now, while many Central Asian states have exchanged ambassadors, only Russia has accorded full diplomatic recognition to the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Torn between good and bad Taliban, India evacuated its Embassy and four Consulates — Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Jalalabad, and Kandahar —twice. Although it does not share borders with Afghanistan, it recognises the Herat region and the Hindukush ranges as its strategic north-western frontiers. It played a key role in assisting the NA in defeating the........

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