Edits | September, 2021
(1) Talibanistan!
Afghanistan has the US by its horns. With so many American soldiers dead in the recent blast at the end of August 2021 it is needless to say that the Americans have had their act wrongly structured and timed. Envisaging the various scenarios that the Americans and the rest of the world is faced with, it can only be seen that either the Taliban will be completely annihilated in some sort of a military activity as soon as the evacuation of the US citizens, its allies and some Afghans is completed close to the deadline of 31st August. It is wrong to presume that Taliban is the organisation which can run a government or a country. The basic DNA of the Taliban is to fight, and that it does its best. Any organisation cannot simply change its DNA since it does not have the philosophy or the and to run the other stuff. In this likely scenario it is quite possible that the western forces will have to re-occupy Afghanistan and then form some sort of an inclusive governance along with the locals, if any of them are left. It’s a country now divided by any tax recovering economic activity and financial sustainability which the population depends on, and there is no government to hold the country together. For all we know Iran or Pakistan could expand their borders into Afghanistan.
The worst affected in this crisis will be women, young women and children who are not only vulnerable but have no future whatsoever. Even if they are dislocated from Afghanistan, they will not have a future in any other country. Refugees hardly have any rights in any other country and in fact they are only victimised by the harbouring country citizens. Even if Afghanistan was to be re-occupied these people will be double cautious on their endeavours of life. Usually, a civil war or a mass suicide occurs in countries with the political scenario of Afghanistan.
It is most likely that a military action by the western forces should happen in September to secure its friends in Afghanistan and try to form some sort of a government to keep its borders intact. The worst mistake of American world policing adventure has the entire planet facing extreme terrorism in the times to come. Since India is in this part of the world, these mindless terror groups should be at our borders very soon. This will only increase the budget budgeted expenditure of India for protecting its borders, that too while the economy is down and the threat of Covid era looms large. Afghanistan cities will now face more terror in the world may not know about it since largely all the journalists and news covering agencies have left that land. Most probably in September the Afghan crisis will precipitate in some sort of a structure, until then India will have to be vigilant on its borders.
(2) Will the strategy of schemes favour BJP this time?
As the 2022 elections near, BJP returns to Uttar Pradesh with a bucket of schemes, launches the election campaign ‘Irade Nek Kaam Anek’. From OBC Card to Ujjwala 2.0, from trying to woo farmers to Jan Ashirwad Yatras, the party is not leaving any stone unturned to win UP polls.
It’s hard to deny that the schemes played a big part in the BJP’s big win in the UP-Assembly elections in 2017. The launch of schemes when the elections are ahead clearly show that BJP is pro at strategic gameplay. The UP government has created a record of distributing free food grain to over 113.2 million beneficiaries within four days. Making and breaking records in terms of stats and numbers have always been the undefended territory of the BJP government.
As many as seven leaders from Uttar Pradesh in the new Council of Ministers after reshuffling the cabinet promoted focus on ‘Vikas and Vishwas’. To make their all-efforts count, the Yogi government has also prepared a booklet on the development initiatives undertaken by the government, which has a picture of Lord Ram.
BJP has assured that the main focus would be on COVID-19, farmers, tackling unemployment, and a crackdown on the mafia, if they form the government in 2022. Why these aspects were not in the frame during their present tenure. Like any other election, this time too, BJP has a bag full of colour candies to tempt everyone around, did they really mean it?
The country is all set to drive into a third wave of the pandemic at the start of the election campaigning of BJP for the forthcoming UP elections. Once the election campaigning starts in UP without any infrastructure of oxygen, medicine, hospitals, doctors, nurses, ambulances, what we are going to foresee, we will see in the times to come nothing less than a catastrophe. As Indians, we cannot afford another play by BJP and its election machinery for a new round of Covid infections.It will be interesting to see if the voters of UP fall for the scheme-scam or not.
CA Divesh Nath Editor Woman’s Era LinkedIn: Divesh Nath