'India's Handling of Afghanistan Crisis Flawed', Opposition Slams Gov't for Not Talking to Taliban

The Indian government is making last minute efforts to evacuate its citizens and staff in Afghanistan since the Taliban* took over the reins of the country. Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan Rudrendra Tandon was evacuated along with his family, security personnel, and journalists on Tuesday morning on a special flight.

The Narendra Modi government's handling of the Afghanistan crisis has come under severe criticism from opposition leaders, who have dubbed New Delhi's strategy as being flawed. 

Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) slammed the government for its alleged failure in planning the evacuation of Indians from Afghanistan much earlier.

"At least for 10 days or two weeks now, it was evident what was going to happen. What were our preemptive moves?", Yechury said while alleging that India is seen as a "subordinate ally" of the US.

"The world must understand that it is not the fact the US withdrew from Afghanistan so abruptly. The fact is that the US should never have gone there", he added.

Former Foreign Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Yashwant Sinha also suggested the Indian authorities talk to the Taliban openly and transparently, "not secretly behind closed doors".

MP and a prominent Muslim leader, Asaduddin Owaisi, said that India should have opened a dialogue with the Taliban before it had full control of Afghanistan. 

"Whether or not India recognises the Taliban, the government should have opened channels of communication with them. We lost time on that. For the last seven years, the federal government has failed to read what is happening", Owaisi said.

Owaisi, taking to Twitter, posted videos of his speech in parliament in 2015, when he questioned the government about what steps were being taken to safeguard the country's interests as the "Taliban is going to come back for sure", Owaisi wrote, saying: "You were warned".

zamīn-e-chaman gul khilātī hai kyā kyā
badaltā hai rañg āsmāñ kaise kaise

You were warned. #Taliban #Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/Q7lAr9yLI0

— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) August 17, 2021

But it isn't only the opposition that has trained its guns at the federal BJP government. Subramanian Swamy, a BJP MP, said that India's "weakness" before the Taliban "is bad for our national integrity and image".

India has been seen as weak before China (Depsang since 2013 and in other parts of Ladakh since April 2020) and now weak before Taliban. This is bad for our national integrity and image

— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) August 17, 2021

​Congress, the country's main opposition party, took a dig at the BJP government for not discussing the Afghanistan issue in the Indian Parliament.

Shri @RahulGandhi ji wanted to discuss china, Afghanistan and pakistan issue in parliament but this government did not paid heed to on that issue, now govt is facing repercussions and trying to evacuate its nationals stuck in Afghanistan.https://t.co/Fi3Ulm3zWo

— Youth Congress (@IYC) August 17, 2021

Daljit Singh Cheema, the leader of Shiromani Akali Dal, a strong regional party in the state of Punjab told Sputnik: "The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is extremely serious at this juncture and will have repercussions for the whole world".

"Hundreds of people have taken refuge in [a] Gurdwara in Kabul and need to be immediately evacuated. The government must be concerned", added the former education minister.

The Indian government has not openly acknowledged official talks with the Taliban. Responding to a query on whether discussions were on with the terror group, Arindam Bagchi, a spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs said: "We are in touch with all stakeholders, different stakeholders. I would not like to add anything further".​

*The Taliban is a terrorist organisation banned in Russia and many other countries.