By Syed Nooruzzaman
Despite the Afghanistan authorities’ claim to the contrary, the people in the country governed by the Taliban are passing through unimaginatively excruciating circumstances. Reports available from different sources tell a very painful story of poverty, gender-based discrimination, little involvement of the global community in helping fight widespread hunger, paucity of resources to promote economic activity all over the country, etc. In fact, Afghans in general face a struggle for survival almost every day.
Whatever efforts made so far to spur economic activity on a mass scale have reportedly failed to alleviate people’s suffering. Jobs of even low level are too few to absorb the growing workforce. There is only an apology for healthcare facilities one finds in a country of over 45 million (4.5 crore) people, according to the World Population Review. Women remain the worst sufferers, though not surprising in a country governed by an ideological mix of religion and tribal traditions. How else can one explain the forceful denial of education to girls beyond the middle class? There are different other kinds of discriminatory treatment meted out to the female sex in the name of religion, though unjustifiable in accordance with the Islamic teachings if the local tribal influence is kept aside. Islam can never justify girls of less than 10 years in age forcibly being married off so that their family gets money to survive for some time.
The Guardian of London recently published a well-researched report highlighting families forced to marry off their eight-or-nine-year-old daughters for 200,000 Afghanis (2,270 pounds) to save other family members from dying of hunger. The chilling report says that these poor girls cry inconsolably when they come to know of being virtually sold off in the name of marriage, but ultimately they accept their fait accompli, looking at the pitiable condition of their families!
The living conditions in Afghanistan from almost every angle have only worsened since the country became free from the foreign yoke in August 2021 with the Taliban taking over the reins of power on September 7 that year. According to the Human Rights Watch, over 3.7 million children face acute malnutrition even today. This is, however, not to argue that the previous regime imposed on the Afghans with the help of foreign forces (US-led NATO troops) should have been running the affairs instead of the Taliban. The Taliban government came into being following the just demand that Afghanistan should be handed over to the Afghans so that they can govern their country in the manner they wish to. But this does not mean that the government should be run in accordance with the whims and fancies of a group which has made insufficient efforts to ensure that Afghanistan becomes a valuable part of the global community.
The world is changing fast. The US is no longer in a position to control the world as it did in the past. If the US refuses to cooperate with regard to the task of rebuilding Afghanistan, there are other resourceful nations who would be forthcoming to help alleviate the widespread poverty in the country. Of course, the Taliban government deserves appreciation for building bridges of understanding with India, Pakistan, China, Russia, the UAE and certain other countries. Russia has accorded the formal full recognition to the Taliban-governed Afghanistan. But the countries which want to contribute enormously for rebuilding Afghanistan cannot help produce the desired results unless the government in Kabul creates a condition conducive to economic growth. It must try to get a good Press by focusing on human rights, economic growth and ending gender-based discrimination, including the education of its female population.
Can the Taliban government deny that Afghanistan’s economy has shrunk to a level from where the country finds itself helpless to take care of the people’s food-related requirements? Nearly half of its population (around 45 per cent) is in need of urgent humanitarian aid from the global community, unlikely to be available under the prevailing circumstances.
But who is to blame for all this? Blaming the Taliban government alone because of its policies will not be fair. The world community too will have to share the blame. It should extend all kinds of assistance to Afghanistan to speed up the country’s rebuilding efforts as an investment in peace in the region and the rest of the world. But, at the same time, the Taliban administration will also have to amend its policies to be able to get enough cooperation from the international community. The Taliban government’s assertion that the difficulties the people face is the price they have to pay for getting independence from the foreign yoke will not do. It must remind the international community of its responsibility to come to the rescue of a country ravaged by decades of strife as a result of the Great Game world powers had been playing in Afghanistan. The world community should realise the peculiar difficulties Afghanistan faces with lakhs (over 60 lakhs, according to the figures provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or UNHCR) of Afghan refugees forced to leave for their country from Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere.
Sadly, foreign aid to Afghanistan today is almost zero. This amounts to perpetuating the stark poverty in a country which played the worst role in threatening world peace and stability in the past. Poverty breeds contempt and hatred for all. An extreme poverty-stricken country becomes the best breeding ground for extremists. Therefore, it is the duty of the international community to come to the aid of the Afghans with open arms so that this landlocked country does not pose a fresh threat to peace and progress in the world.
Despite all kinds of difficulties faced by the Afghans during the five years of Taliban rule, they have provided enough proof again that they are fiercely independent-minded people. They cannot allow themselves to be used by any other country to play political games by using Afghanistan’s territory. Here one cannot help pointing out that Pakistan desperately wanted Afghanistan to be freed from outside control with a view to getting strategic depth in its immediate neighbourhood. This expectation of Pakistan has, however, turned out to be unrealistic. The two countries indulged in a full-scale military conflict in February this year (2026) on security-related issues. Pakistan accused Afghanistan of providing shelter to an extremist group called the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) whereas Kabul vehemently denied the charge. Afghanistan asked Pakistan to keep its own house in order instead of blaming others.
As quoted by Afghanistan International, the Afghanistan Ambassador in Islamabad, Sardar Ahmad Shakib, told a gathering on September 1, though indirectly, that Pakistan was wrong in thinking that the Taliban government was working as a ‘proxy’ for India. He pointed out that an independent country could maintain cordial relations with several states without bothering about the wishes of others. He asserted that Afghanistan and Pakistan were next-door neighbours, no doubt, but this did not mean that they should approve of each other’s strategic choices. Both are free to make their own independent decisions. And that is what Afghanistan under the Taliban has been doing.
[The writer, a former Dy Editor of The Tribune, is a Delhi-based political commentator.]
