The Taliban factor

India's outreach remains an open question

The returning Taliban regime recently completed one year of rule in Afghanistan by spectacularly contradicting all the naïve hopes the Western powers had invested in it. Like its extremist predecessor, which ruled from 1996 to October 2001, the 2.0 version has proven just as implacable in establishing its warped version of Sharia law that overrides human rights and oppresses women. As Afghanistan’s democratically elected regimes discovered, rebuilding a country ruined by decades of war and lacking basic institutions of governance is a tough ask, even with material support from the US. The Taliban, which remains a guerrilla group that lacks