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BOOKS
Savage
Garden
Finally
an Afghanistan book without a Great Game fetish
By
Manvendra Singh
AN
AFGHAN DIARY: ZAHIR SHAH TO TALIBAN
By J. N. Dixit
KONARK
Rs. 500 |
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Afghanistan
has always been and will continue to be a country that resides firmly
on the Indian firmament. And J.N. Dixit has been and will continue to
be regarded one of the finest brains to come out of the civil services,
particularly the Indian Foreign Service. So when Afghanistan is the subject
and Dixit the author interest is naturally bound to be high. Particularly
since Afghanistan and a neighbour separated at its birth by the unrecognised
Durand Line are currently high on the loath list of many nations around
the world.
There is
an interest across the strata of society, from Barmer to Bromley, to understand
this phenomenon that today is purportedly ruling Afghanistan. Dixit attempts
to explain it in this diary. Dixit was India's ambassador to Afghanistan
for more than three years, through 1982 and until mid-1985. This is the
diary he maintained of that period. He arrived in Kabul when Brezhnev
still ruled Moscow, saw through the terms of Andropov and Chernenko, until
Gorbachev was ensconced in power. Fighting raged in Afghanistan's countryside
and Kabul was under frequent attack from the holy warriors of what could
quite conceivably be labelled the unholy alliance.
This was
also the period of the climax of the proxy war in Afghanistan, the struggle
between Soviet and American world visions. The high point of Zia-ul-Haq's
romance with the West, and the low point of superpower détente.
All these are vividly brought out through the pages of Dixit's diary.
The major
difference between this and other books on Afghanistan, over a period,
is that Dixit does not write with a "Great Game" baggage. There
is no attempt to feed the images of "sturdy Afghan", "proud
Pathan" or "clash of empires". This is a straightforward
account, and an eyewitness account at that, which does little to perpetuate
those Kabul/Kandahar stories.
What this
diary does, in fact, is to demolish these images. The constant machinations
within the ruling clique of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan,
or among leaders of the various groups fighting it from Peshawar, are
vividly brought out. So much so that Ahmed Shah Masood, the last remaining
romantic-warrior, gets the Dixit treatment.
As far as
India is concerned the reaction can best be summed up by questioning the
dedication of the book to Indira Gandhi "who performed the difficult
task of reconciling the moral terms of reference of India's foreign policy
with the challenging realities of national security interests". Strange
since there is a direct correlation between the arrival of Soviet troops
in Kabul and the arming of Khalistani terrorists.
Or later
still, long after Indira Gandhi and her son had vacated the political
space, Delhi let down Najibullah in a manner that few Afghans will forgive
this country. For that shabby and unforgivable decision of 1992, Indian
security and national interests continue to pay the price. Dixit passes
over that incident in his postscript, but as postscripts tend to be, it
is too little and too late.
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The
stock markets are humming, and it's feel-good time once again, writes
INDIA TODAY Associate Editor V. Shankar Aiyar in 
