Outrageous affront to humanity

THE TALIBAN'S FIAT on ways to segregate Afghanistan's tiny religious minorities, consisting mostly of Hindus and Sikhs, is not only inhumane but also disingenuously naive. In a `fatwa' or purported Islamic religious decree, the Taliban's `spiritual- statesman', Mullah Mohammed Omar, is said to have ordained that the country's non-Muslim minorities should sport a badge of identification. This act of cruelty is only the latest in a long list of atrocities by the `ruling' regime in Kabul. Controlling nearly 90 per cent of Afghanistan's rugged terrain with a rich ethnic diversity, the Taliban has already acquired utter notoriety for unspeakable barbarity in regard to Afghanistan's Muslim majority as well. Yet, a truly indignant international community has not so far been able to stop the Taliban in its dirty tracks. Now, the ostensible argument in support of the latest savage diktat is that the Afghan `authorities' can easily spot the minorities in good faith. The stated aim is to spare them from the rigours of a code of `Islamic' ethics and etiquette that the Taliban applies in regard to the majority population. It is, of course, a different matter that most Islamic schools and Muslim-run governments around the world are not convinced of the authenticity of such an overall code as is being imposed on Afghanistan in the name of religious purity. The followers of Mullah Omar do not obviously care about such mainstream Islamic opinion. More ominously, they seem impervious to the sheer absurdity of this new order that is reminiscent of Nazi Germany's eternal shame of isolating and annihilating the Jewish people.

The Taliban's neo-apartheid intentions cannot be concealed by the stray reports that a few Hindus have really found nothing amiss about being asked to identify themselves and their homes by displaying an yellow badge or cloth as the case might be. An innocent reasoning in this connection is that the Taliban's Islamic police has so far allowed the Hindus and Sikhs a free hand in regard to their private religious practices. However, Afghanistan's minorities are by and large aware of the sinister motives of the Taliban. The minuscule size of these communities has not also lulled the wider international society into ignoring their potential plight. India, whose connections with Afghanistan date back to a hoary past, is trying to galvanise global opinion against the Taliban's cultural excesses, while the U.S., whose geopolitical interest in Kabul is historically more recent, is also in the vanguard of this campaign. It was only two months ago that the Taliban blatantly defied universal opinion and upheld its own bizarre sense of self-esteem as the most regressive `Islamic' fundamentalist group across the globe. It simply obliterated the famous statues of Lord Buddha in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province by disregarding their symbolism as the country's cherished pre-Islamic heritage.

The litany of the Taliban's intolerance extends to the do's and don'ts slapped on the Afghan Muslims too. These injunctions range from gender-specific costume codes to beard norms for the men, not to mention the uncivilised ban on girls' education as also a taboo on the employment of women. No less unsavoury has been the anti-modern streak inherent in the sundry prohibitions of photography, television and the like. An overwhelming indictment of the Taliban will be incomplete without its perceived abetment of international terrorists and the narcotics traders. The U.S. and Russia have taken the lead to try and meet the Taliban menace on the wider international stage. Yet, the world community's options inside Afghanistan are quite limited. Given today's political cross-currents in Afghanistan's neighbourhood, the native anti-Taliban groups have not so far been able to reassert themselves despite the continuing alienation of the Kabul `regime' from the United Nations.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : An evasive dialogue
Next     : Turning to Musharraf