The recent attack on Indian personnel working under Border Road Organisation (BRO) project of building roads in the heartlands again brought the Taliban issue in the international domain. The killing of three Indian personnel by one Taliban terrorist have made many observers of international politics worry about the development. This is the second attack in the last one month. Also most of us remember kidnapping and killing of an Indian engineer- Kutti- which made waves of unrest in Indo-Afghan relation.
The Taliban element is once again picking up in the heartlands of Afghanistan and emerging as a threat to all non-talibani elements. The attacks on non-Afghani elements are not new. There are some entertainment television channels that were airing the famous Indian TV serials with Pushtu dubbing, though with blurred images of Indian gods. However recently the government ordered stopping of the airing of these Hindi serials, saying that it thrashes the 'local culture'- read Islamic principles.
The rising influence of Talibani elements on the Afghani government is surely a cause of concern. On the one hand we have Pakistan where the democracy is trying to re-establish itself and on the other there is Afghanistan where we can see the pillars of the democratic set ups are trembling due to the emergence of fundamentalist powers. What makes us worry is the dwindling towers of democracy in our neighbourhood. This becomes all the more important when we are approaching the Parliamentary elections and the political parties are busy pleasing their voters. At a time the national issues are kept on back burners, who can think of an international issues. The ruling party and the opposition both are least interested in looking into this matter and both are more than happy trying to take the credit of whatever supposedly are achievements and busy thumping all the the failures on each other. The families of those who are dying on the borders and in Afghanistan are still waiting for justice. Let us don't make it a ritual to be performed on the Shahid Diwas. Though for those who die while constructing roads, there is no mention even on the Shahid Diwas, as if they were just building the roads towards death. |
