A Tragedy Live-Streamed

"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen"--Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

What has been happening at Kabul's HKIA airport from 15 August 2021 onwards has been surreal, incredulous and depressing all at the same time.

Having been through this airport many times, and seen the many layers of its heavily armed perimeter,  it was amazing to see how thousands of people managed to get past its gates, all the way to military aircraft on the runway. It has been a week now and thousands of people continue to remain there all day, blocking the approach roads, clambering atop aircrafts, sitting inside jet-engine air-vents, getting shot at by security guards, and getting killed in the resulting stampede.

Much has already been said about the levels of desperation and panic in parts of Kabul. What has come as a big surprise to me is that for a city that has been under blanket electronic and police surveillance for decades, mobile networks continue to function normally, streaming live video from people all over the place. 

One particular video clip stands out.  This is a C-17 US military plane attempting to take off from Kabul airport. It is a monster of an aircraft - over 50m long, and capable of carrying over 275 tonnes, but here, as it lumbers on the runway, we see thousands of men were running alongside; some are waving cheerfully at the cameras, a few perched on the wheel carriages or flaps. Among them was one man in a dark Pathan suit, sitting precariously over on a winglet, looking intently looking into his mobile phone!

Incredibly, there is also a clip titled "Last video from the plane" in which we have a man in the same group recording the almost festive spirit of the group perched precariously there. Even as the jet engines rev up into a roar, he is talking a selfie shot, smiling into the camera, panning it around to show his companions waving cheerfully at his friends. Apache helicopters can be seen flying alongside, trying in vain to disperse the crowds. One can almost feel the wind lashing on on those faces, the roar jet engines drowning out the crowds. 

Then another phone records the C-17 taking off. As it climbs up sharply a few men can be seen slipping off and falling to their deaths. One was seen tangles in the concertina wires of a boundary wall, another spattered on a rooftop, and in yet another mobile, recording from inside the aircraft, the body of a man can be seen flailing in the winds, like a rag-doll stuck on a dumpster.

Not one of them would have survived. One can only imagine the levels of desperation and ignorance that led these men to their deaths. One wonders how the "last video" managed to reach FB and Twitter, and how many of them really thought they could get away sitting out there?

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LINKS

*  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/17/human-remains-found-c-17-wheel-well-after-takeoff-kabul/8170724002/

Down the Road to Chaos?

Once again, Afghanistan has hit the headlines; once again for all the wrong reasons.

Unlike my earlier post which was written after the most recent attack on Kabul University, this one is triggered by a global event - the withdrawal of USA and its allies after over 20  years in Afghanistan. The withdrawal has enabled the Taliban to sweep across the country with almost daily reports of deaths in bombings, attacks and counterattacks. A sense of uncertainty about the country seems poised to spread across its borders, to the rest of South Asia and the world.

As someone with a bit of experience in Afghanistan(2018-19), I have been approached by friends for an opinion on how things are going to unfold in the months to come. This was my response in a WhatsApp group a few days ago:

Ethnic and tribal loyalties are becoming more important than the "Afghan" identity for surviving this crisis.

Did you see that clip where a Talib asks a man if he's a Hazara and then shoots him dead? The Hazaras will avenge that. The 22 commandos who were killed after they surrendered; the Afghan ambassadors daughter who got abducted in Islamabad today... these too will be avenged, and at the tribal level all this will fuel old blood-feuds on both sides of the Durand line.

About ~$10 billion of annual aid that drove the Afghan economy is now the turning off... resources are limited... people are losing jobs, schools and small businesses are closing down, families are getting split and displaced...a whole new generation is dealing with the jehadis and their insular, medieval mindset.

So far there is no sign of a strong unifying national leader,  so the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras (Shias) will fight against the talibs (mostly sunni Pashto)...and the Pashtos tribes will fight each other to control the border posts (tax revenue) and poppy fields.

The Pakistanis will of course try to push more of these displaced jehadis into Kashmir/India.

Sad days ahead 😞

I hope my rather simplistic assessment is wrong. I hope an amicable solution will be found to prevent a repeat of the devastation that visited Afghanistan two decades ago. I hope all the good work done by the UN and other international agencies - especially in primary education, infrastructure and agriculture - will not go down the drain.

And yet, an interview I saw recently seemed to confirm that this is going to be another long bloody struggle. A retired Pakistani general, Tariq Khan, a Pathan officer who led a government offensive against the "Pakistani Taliban" or TTP, seemed quite sure that the Taliban will take over Kabul in a few weeks because the city is already under a "soft siege" because supplies to the city - especially of fuel - is already being disrupted. While this may be true it is not clear if the Taliban have what it takes to dominate the rest of the country - especially non-Pashtun areas.

Unlike the Soviet occupation era when the mujahids had a strong backing in terms of armaments (USA) and petrodollars (Saudi Arabia), things are a lot more complicated now. This time, money is not so easily available; there is some in Afghanistan's biggest exports - Poppy - but the Taliban is known to be against it;  the non-Pashto groups are better armed and may not give up the cities without a bitter fight, and there seems to be little in terms of common ground between the countries that have a direct interest in the final outcome -- Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan, USA, Turkey, and India.

If the Taliban continue with their refusal to share power with people who represent half the country, what they ultimately get may be a Pyrrhic victory, and the peaceful silence of graveyards. This may not come as an explosion of a grenade with a missing pin but as a slow, painful descent to chaos. 

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LINKS & REFERENCES:

* 26 July 2021 - Turkey eyeing a new sphere of influence in Afghanistan - https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/868701-turkey-eyeing-for-new-sphere-of-influence-in-afghanistan

* 18 July 2021 - Gen. Tariq Khan's interview - https://youtu.be/Tb8hMrqBXP4

A Disjointed War

 

A few years ago, an old Afghan friend turned up and Delhi and we decided to meet at Lajpat Nagar. "This is AK", he said introducing a compatriot, "He is a Tajik but we are still good friends." 

I knew that my friend was a Pathan but the introduction left me baffled. There I was, a South Indian, born and brought up in the north, sitting in a bustling market built from scratch by punjabis displaced by the partition...but I just could not imagine introducing a friend from UP, Mizoram or Gujarat, or anywhere else in India, in this way.

It is only later, after serving two UN assignments in Afghanistan that I began to understand that the caveat 'still good friends' was actually an achievement in itself. In Kabul I had found a city that was struggling to recover from years of war and strife, a city divided along ethnic lines, where communities sought the safety of numbers.

Once while driving from Jemal Mena and Kabul University towards Sevom Aqrab, we got stuck in a traffic jam. A colleague pointed to the traffic junction and reminisced, "When I was in school this was a dangerous crossing...on this side were the Tajiks, on the other, the Uzbeks and across the road, the Hazaras...all suspicious of each other, trying to keep the Taliban out of their neighbourhoods...there were dead bodies all over the place...you could get killed simply for responding to a casual greeting with the wrong accent of Dari or Pashto.."

It is a difficult world to explain or understand. Steve Coll's latest book, "Directorate S", tries to give you a bird-eye (or blimp) view of the other side of the story. One that enfolds after 9/11 and the arrival of USA into this tinderbox, seeking Al Qaida, Osama bin Laden, and revenge for the attack on USA. 

An ultimatum was given to Mulla Omar and the Taliban leadership - surrender your guests OBL, and his AQ minions, or else. Bound a code of honour, and, perhaps, by naiveté, they refused and opted for the 'or else'. That autumn US-led coalition dropped about 12,000 bombs on Afghanistan...about 40% were "dumb", unguided resulting in thousands of civilian deaths. 

The Soviet invasion of 1989 had claimed an estimated one to two million lives, or up to 10% of the population. This US invasion also caused about 140,000 deaths directly by the end of NATOs formal combat role in 2014. While the US-led allies spent about $60 billion a year in men, materials and 'humanitarian aid' in Afghanistan, the Taliban found refuge in Pakistan and managed with an estimated budget o $100 million annually. from Arab donations, drug dealing, protection rackets, local taxation, extortion and kidnapping.

Now what about the title of the book, 'Directorate S'? Well the author does not have much to offer other than patchy details about ISI and its machinations. The focus of the book is on allied generals, ambassadors, assorted dictators, dubiously 'elected' leaders and diplomats. 

Steve Coll's latest book reads like a thriller but it leaves you disappointed because the book is essentially about short-sighted Americans, not the Afghans, ISI or a way out of this mess. It describes two decades of disjointed war which has turned out to be as effective as most of the allied bombs - dumb.

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REFERENCES & LINKS

Coll, Steve (2018): DIRECTORATE S - The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Kabul's All Seeing Blimps - https://www.wired.com/2011/01/all-seeing-blimp/

Kabul - A City Under Attack...Yet Again

 

Kabul has been on my mind all day today.

It started with a trickle, with a photos-app reminding me that exactly one year ago, I had taken some pics of an office commute that took me across a hill to Jamal Mena. The narrow road had snaked past a large fuel-storage facility, past water-tankers supplying houses tightly packed on the hillside, across the ridge to a lovely green cityscape that stretched from Kabul University to mountains of Paghman.

Towards noon, news of an attack on Kabul University starting appearing on Twitter. For the rest of the day I was checking on friends working and staying around Jamal Mena - they were all safe but by evening reports said, "At least 50 students including 5 professors, 4 members of Kabul University Police, including a policewoman killed."

Is there no end to the violence inflicted on Afghanistan? 

Perhaps the answer to this question lies outside Afghanistan because it has been decades since the Afghans had some real control over their own affairs. During the days of the "Great Game" the British said that the king must return, and so he returned to play the role of an unwilling puppet. A couple of centuries later a Pakistani General said "Kabul must burn!", and so not only Kabul but the whole country was burnt so that the Soviets could be forced out. 

"The Bear Trap", written by Mohammad Yousaf, a former IGI general,  in charge of ISIs Afghanistan operations, gives a detailed account of how a few individuals, backed a 'superpower' can destroy a country in a few years.  From 1984, through 1987, over 80,000 Mujahideen went through ISIs training camps, hundreds of thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition were distributed for operations in all the 29 provinces in Afghanistan. These operations killed over 13,000 Soviet soldiers and wounded some 35,000. during nine years of bitter fighting.

As fighting raged in the countryside, Kabul's population shot up from 750,000 to over 2 million in 1985, most of whom were crammed into into tents on the outskirts of the city. 

Gen. Yousaf was quite clear that neither ISI nor his mujahids would have been able to sustain the fight if it did not have a steady flow of money and modern equipment:

As I was about to discover, nothing moves, in peace or war, without money. The Mujahideen could achieve nothing without financial support. No matter how brilliant my strategy might be, the implementation depended on the availability of a vast reservoir of cash with which to arm, train and move my forces. Almost half this money originated from the US taxpayer, with the remainder coming from the Saudi Arabian government or right Arab individuals.

As the Soviets started leaving Afghanistan, USA realised that a radical islamist government was not in its interest, so they kept the Taliban away from Kabul as long as they could.

Then came 9/11, Osama bin Laden, and the Americans returned to bomb the Taliban out of the country. Then then tried to force-feed democracy a country that has always been a diet of strict autocracy. The Taliban simply said, "You have the watches, but we have the time."   The waiting game seems to have ended this year. 

Over two decades of relative peace and quiet is now being lost again to the sounds of gunfire in universities, assassinations, and street bombings.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Kabul University Attack 2020 - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack-university/death-toll-from-kabul-university-attack-rises-to-at-least-35-as-anger-grows-idUSKBN27J178?il=0

* Book - The Bear Trap -  https://www.amazon.in/Bear-Trap-Afghanistans-Untold-Story/dp/0850522676

Yellowjackets

A bee or not a bee?

For the past two weeks I have been intrigued by this bright yellow coloured 'bee' seen here diving deep into a rose. Unlike a regular bee however it did not limit itself to flowers. 

They could be seen just about everywhere in Kabul - perched on Thuja leaves, hovering over lawn grass, and even locked in a mortal combat with a black ant!

Turns out that this is not a bee at all. According to Wiki, this is a species of social wasps called the Yellowjackets - "They can be identified by their distinctive markings, their occurrence only in colonies, and a characteristic, rapid, side-to-side flight pattern prior to landing."

Wonder why they outnumber the regular honeybees...

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LINKS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowjacket

A Banana in Afghanistan

I was stunned today - by a banana!

Just after I had finished my breakfast in Kabul, I went across to the fruit counter and found three options - mandarins, apples and bananas. Of the options available the banana seemed the most 'user-friendly' - easier carry in your bag, to peel and eat.

Surprisingly, this particular variety looked perfectly ripe, but was not so easy to peel. Curious to know the variety I turned it around to find a sticker on one side. It said "Sabastiano Premium Eduador"!

Let that sink in. Here in Kabul, Afghanistan, I was holding in my hand one of the great wonders of global supply chain logistics. Here was a fruit grown by farmers on the opposite side of the globe in South America, transported across the seas and mountains, covering a distance of more than 15,000 km before it reached its destination - a DFAC dining hall.

While writing a blog in 2014, I had learnt that three companies - Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte - controlled more than 60 percent of global banana exports. 

In  tropical South Asia which is home to dozens of varieties of bananas available at much cheaper rates, it is a wonder how commercial logic enables agricultural products to travel insane distances!


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LINKS

* Banana production in Ecuador - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_production_in_Ecuador

* DW (Jan., 2018) - https://www.dw.com/en/world-in-progress-toxic-banana-production-in-ecuador/av-42098343

* Sharbatly Fruit - http://www.sharbatlyfruit.com/

That Hing Thing

Asafoetida (Hing) - resin chips and powder

If you want to make popadoms you need asafoetida, aka Hing.

This bit of trivia caught my attention while watching an edition of National Geographic's "Food Factory" featuring the famous women's cooperative - Sri Mahila Grih Udyog - makers of the iconic popadom brand, Lijjat Papad. You might say that this is nothing noteworthy. After all no Indian kitchen would be complete without a tiny plastic bottle containing what is perhaps the most pungent powder conceivable. In South India perhaps the most popular brand is LG - not the Korean conglomerate but a staid company started by Laljee Goshoo in Mumbai. You just cannot make Sambaar curry, or Rasam, or Dal, without a pinch of asafoetida.

A popular Indian brand

The interesting point is that all the asafoetida sold and consumed in India is imported! Lijjat Papad uses Hing (asafoetida) imported from Afghanistan. Other companies like LG import the product in raw form, mix it with gum arabic, and rice-powder / maida and sell it as "compounded asafoetida" which contains less than 50 percent of the actual stuff. Even in this adulterated form it is an expensive spice - 50g packet sells for INR 75 which comes to about INR 1500 (USD 22) for a kilogram.

Another curious thing is that asafoetida is not officially considered a "spice". For some reason it does not even figure on the Indian Spice Board's list of spices imported into India. The Ministry of Commerce lists it under the category "resins and gums" (ExIm HS code 1301-9013). Most of the asafoetida in the Indian market is imported from Afghanistan and Iran. There are two main varieties of asafoetida ie. Hing Kabuli Sufaid (Milky white asafoetida) and Hing Lal (Red asafoetida). Tajikistan too is now emerging as an important supplier of quality asafoetida.

The earliest know reference to asafoetida comes from an ancient Sumeran medical recipe dating back to 2100 BCE. So it hardly surprising that this resin figures prominently in the Ayurveda treatise - Charaka Samhita - compiled in circa 300 BCE.  According to this source, the Bhagavata Purana compiled in the 10the century, notes that the Hing plant grows in the abode of Shiva. Considering that the plant grows in cold mountainous regions of Iran and the Western Himalayas, it is surprising how a steady supply of this resin has been reaching all corners of India over the past three millennia..

Asafoetida is extracted from the Ferula plants (esp. Ferula asfoetida) which have large taproots, 12.5-15 cm in diameter at the crown when they are 4-5 years old. Just before the plants flower, in March-April, the upper part of the living rhizome root is laid bare and the stem cut off close to the crown. The white sap that extrudes from the exposed stem-base is then collected, dried and sold to traders. The plant grows only in arid, cold areas and efforts to cultivate them in Himachal, Ladakh and Kashmir are yet to succeed.

Farmers in these states would certainly be pleased to see the efforts succeed. After all, there are only a few plants that grow with little care and yield such high prices in the market.

Exports from Afghanistan

For some reason, the FAO-UN does not list asafoetida as a noteworthy export from Afghanistan, but independent research suggests that this is indeed a significant export item from Afghanistan. In 2014-15, the country exported red asafoetida worth USD 21,940,223 (312.281 tons) and white asafoetida worth USD 12,259,302 (218 tons).

Is USD 33 million worth of exports insignificant? Certainly not if you consider the fact that the top export item from Afghanistan is raisins (red, black, big, abjosh) and its total value is just a bit more at ~ USD 36 million. Other famous dry-fruit or spice exports - Almonds and Cumin is worth just USD 26 million and USD 1.6 million respectively!

So why is it that asafoetida fails to get mentioned in the trade charts?

I don't know. Yet.

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REFERENCES & LINKS

> https://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/amazing-lijjat-papad-story-rs-80-rs-800-crore-130350826.html
> WIPO article - https://www.wipo.int/ipadvantage/en/details.jsp?id=3619
> Lijjat Papad -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shri_Mahila_Griha_Udyog_Lijjat_Papad
> https://www.thedollarbusiness.com/magazine/from-afghanistan-with-love/46065
. India imports 25% of the world's asafoetida
> http://gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com/engl/Feru_ass.html
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3459456/
> https://www.indianetzone.com/1/asafoetida.htm
> Plants mentioned in the Bhagavata Purana (600-1000AD) -  https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/118519/21/21_glossary%20of%20plants%20found%20in%20the%20text.pdf
> Afghanistan - Commodity Exports - http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#rankings/commodities_by_country_exports
- Hing does not figure in the top-5 exports by value -- the only spice that figures here is "Anise, radian, fennel, coriander" -- USD 26million (2016)
- Top export item by value was Raisins - 19T for USD 56million
> Spices Board -  http://www.indianspices.com/sites/default/files/Major%20Item%20wise%20Import-2016.pdf
> Import Policy - ExIm HS code 1301 90 13 --  http://dgftcom.nic.in/exim/2000/itchs2017/chap13.pdf
> Afghanistan Exports - https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/afg/
> (2015) Paper - India-Afghanistan - Overview of Economic Relations - http://www.renupublishers.com/images/article/1461872860AEV2N2d.pdf

* Oldest Medical Document - Sumeria 2100 BCE - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC200079/pdf/mlab00211-0009.pdf
* Shah NC and Amir Zare (2014): Asafoetida (Heeng): The Well Known Medicinal Condiment of India & Iran -  http://www.thescitech.com/admin/includes/abstractpdf/2014-10-0453469a75d73f8.pdf

Herat - City of Spires and Pines

Ancient cities have a life of their own. We read stories about them and build a certain picture in our imagination. Ground realities however turn out to be something else.

Herat is no different. To a visitor coming from Kabul it gives you a glimpse of what cities in Afghanistan could be. Relaxed, dignified, and aware of its own stature and place in history at the crossroads of civilizations.

This was once a city of fire-worshipping Zoroastrians, an area famous for its great wines until the Arabs took over after 650AD. Here ruled the Macedonians led by Alexander, the Turks, Chinese, Mongols and, of course, the Persians. It was also one of the few cities of the Islamic world to be ruled for an extended period by a woman- Queen Gawhershad - remembered today as the builder of the grand towers of the Musalla Complex.

In present day Herat, the first thing that struck me is the pine trees. Almost all the roads are lined with towering old pines. Having seen these trees only above the "pine-line" in the Himlayas, I always thought they needed steep slopes to grow big and strong, so it was bit surprising to see them all lined up in a city that was as flat as a chappati. 

Unlike Kabul which is sectioned by 2000m high 'hills', and urban settlements that have grown along a meandering river, Herat has a clear grid-like layout. A straight road brings you from the airport, right into the city centre. The security footprint here is more subtle - fewer warplanes in the airport, hardly any buildings barricaded  with T-walls and barbed wire. There are no military blimps watching you from the skies or  helicopters constantly buzzing overhead, rattling the window-panes.

The streets and markets are bustling with men and women. Fruits seem larger, jucier and more colorful; the saboos naan a lot tastier; streets are less cluttered and far less dustier, the air crisp and clean. Children crowd around street vendors; strange looking, colorful three-wheelers fashioned out of motorcycles trundle on the streets, looking as though they are going to take off any minute into the skies.

And yet you are constantly reminded that this city is not peaceful as it looks. Violence and robbery on the streets is not rare. A colleague was recently coming out of a restaurant, chatting on his mobile when a car stopped in front of him. He thought the driver needed directions, until he saw a pistol aimed at his head. Within seconds, his mobile was snatched, his purse taken out of his pocket and car was gone.

Things may not be what they seem, but I would like to think that the people of Herat hold one of the keys to peace and prosperity in this war-torn country.

Afghanistan - An Election of Independents

Tomorrow is Election Day in Afghanistan. 

This is going to be the culmination of a long process of institution building in one of the most trying circumstances. It has a process that has also seen the creation of an independent election commission to oversee a process to bring in 249 representatives from 34 provinces to the Lower House of the Afghan Parliament.

Last week when I landed at Kabul the city presented a familiar, festive sight - colorful stickers, posters, placards and banners filled every possible public space. Posters carried unique logos and numbers, and it took me a while to realise that most of the prospective Members of Parliament were competing as independent candidates. 

According to a WaPo report, there are 2,565 candidates vying for 249 seats, including 417 women candidates. The IEC aims to set up more than 19,000 polling stations in 33 provinces. Out of Afghanistan's estimated total population of 30 million, 8.8 million people have registered to vote. Kabul city alone has more thans 800 candidates competing for 33 seats! 

An overview from AFP

Unlike in India, the system here is that of a single non-transferable vote valid in one constituency. Each voter casts just one vote for one candidate in a multi-candidate race. Posts are filled by the candidates with the most votes, and so in this case, candiates who get the maximum number of votes get to become MPs. 

Voters in cities like Kabul would be extra careful tomorrow - they would have to sift through a ballot 'paper' that looks more like a newspaper centrespread, and choose one candidate out of hundreds.

While most of the posters feature men in sharp suits or in traditional attire, it is interesting to note that there are a significant number of women candidates in the fray. This is not surprising given the fact that the Afghan constitution guarantees 68 seats - or 27% of the total - for women MPs, regardless of their vote share.

A lot of hopes and aspirations are hinged on this elections process, and everybody hopes that it passes off peacefully.



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LINKS & REFERENCES

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) of Afghanistan- http://www.iec.org.af/

Report by Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-look-at-afghanistans-parliamentary-elections-on-saturday/2018/10/19/354e4b0c-d367-11e8-a4db-184311d27129_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ff58f1765639

BBC - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45836521

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/the-taliban-has-vowed-to-disrupt-the-afghan-elections-candidates-are-out-in-force-anyway/2018/10/16/d57bf1a4-ccf7-11e8-ad0a-0e01efba3cc1_story.html?utm_term=.9e059fd98606

Apostille of Fake Degrees

Last week I signed up for a UN assignment in Afghanistan. It was the culmination of a long drawn out selection process - online applications, verification of credentials and interviews. I need to be in Kabul for two months for the independent evaluation of an FAO project.

Having visited, worked and stayed in a few countries over the past 23 years, I thought I was familiar with the formalities involved in international travel. In this case, instructions from FAO were quite clear: "Approach Embassy with all relevant documents - Passport, photographs, degree certificate photocopy and original , signed contract document, MOFA reference number. Ticket is not necessary for visa".  

At the Afghan Embassy visa counter however, the officer flipped through my documents and asked me a question that left me quite stunned. "How do we know", she asked with genuine concern, "That your degree certificates are not fake?"

I tried telling her that, in the first place, I would not be selected by the UN for an assignment if I had fake degrees. I had two Master's degrees - the first from IRMA and the other from Tsukuba University, Japan. Both could easily be verified online on the official alumni pages. Also, I had got the second degree on a full scholarship from the World Bank - a fact that could be easily verified on a Google search since my entire Master's thesis was available online. 

The visa officer was unmoved. "Rules are rules", she insisted, "If your highest degree is from Japan, it has to be endorsed by the Japanese Embassy in India. All Indian degrees have to be verified by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)". She also added helpfully that applicants got it done at Patiala Courts where extra fees was charged for 'fast service'.

One of the lessons I had learnt is that there is no point arguing with with a Visa Officer. I walked out of the Afghan Embassy, crossed the road, and checked at the Embassy of Japan. They did not have any facility for "endorsing" certificates from Japanese universities. All they could do was to check with their registry and give me a letter saying that the university seal was genuine. This process would take at least three working days, and cost Rs. 2300. 

What next? I had no idea that MEA had anything to do with certification of education documents. Outside the Japanese Embassy, I set my files on a concrete blast-barrier and googled "India MEA education certificate endorsement". I got this page and learnt a new word: apostille.

It was a two-step procedure. First, the degree certificate had to be endorsed by a state government authority, and under Step-2 "MEA legalises the documents on the basis of the signature of the designated...authorities. Hence it does not take responsibility of the contents of the documents". MEA charged Rs.50 per document for this service. As expected, there was no mention of the time-frame involved.

Strapped for time, I now headed towards Patiala House Courts Complex, into the den of brokers, middlemen and lawyers dressed in 50 shades of black. In one of the many hole-in-the-wall offices, I presented by predicament to one of the broker-lawyers.  He feigned deep concern, quickly gauged my desperation level, and quoted his fees: Rs. 3000. 

So, for a government service worth Rs.50, I had to shell out Rs. 3000. Within this margin lies the thriving new economy of the apostilles. An education certificate from IRMA, an automomous education institution in Gujarat, is endorsed by a Sub-Divisional Magistrate in another state, Delhi, who proclaims it as genuine. Based on this, MEA legalises it 'without taking any responsibility of the contents of the documents'.

Come to think of it, this is a racket no different from that of the Public Notaries who blindly attest any document with a Government of India seal. The only difference is that you get a fancy sticker with a flurry of seals and signatures behind an education certificate.

Why would any Embassy encourage this kind of daylight robbery? Is this merely the game of passing-the-buck between bureaucrats of different countries?  A friend who has worked in Afghanistan for over a decade said this rule was introduced in 2013 to avoid fake people with fake degrees from getting posh jobs in Afghanistan. It seems there are many such guys already in the country.  Also, it seems Afghan nationals too have been using fake certificates to enter the job market. He also added that brokers charged anything from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 10,000 for a one-day service.

The latter was confirmed by a lawyer at Patiala Courts. There are thousands of Afghans studying in India, and it seems their government does not accept any education certificate from India unless it is attested by by MEA and the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD)! 

No wonder the brokers at Patiala Courts are laughing all the way to the bank.

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REFERENCES & LINKS



* Afghan Embassy - Visa Rules - http://newdelhi.mfa.af/consular-services-4/visa/visa-information-indians/working-entry-visa-wev

* MEA, India - Procedure for Attestation of Education Degrees - https://www.mea.gov.in/apostille.htm

* Apostille Convention - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostille_Convention

When History Repeats Itself

Each time I read a book by William Dalrymple, I wonder why our country does not produce such engaging scholar-storytellers. The book, "Return of a King" is no exception. It is meticulously researched and weaves a story that blends the contrasting versions of the victorious and the vanquished, into one 500-page, eminently readable tome.

In this book, the author also has is also a personal angle tucked away in the story. Dalrymple's great-great-grand uncle was an active participant in the Afghan wars, first as a bureaucrat in Punjab, and then as a soldier and prisoner-of-war in Afghanistan. So it also serves, to some extent, as the family history of a Scottish Highlander.

The book describes a period is spread across three centuries, from the time of Nadir Shah's invasion and plunder of Delhi in 1739 to the entry of British and US forces in the 1980s,  with the proclaimed intent of "fighting terror" and "restoring democracy" in what had become the stronghold of Osama bin Laden and his band of Arab fighters.

At the time of Nadir Shah, it was his Shiite Persian followers - the Qizilbash - along with his former soldiers, who formed the ruling elite of Afghanistan. The Sadozai clan was formed by a soldier named Ahmad Shah Abdali/Durrani who was to defeat the Maratha forces in the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761, while the Barakzai clan arose from a gunner is Nadir's army named, Haji Jamal Khan.

While the central theme is politics, intrigue and power-struggles between these two clans, the book makes you wonder about the Afghanistan that would have existed long before it was taken over by Islamic soldiers of fortune, and of the times when fighting "Jihad" against "Infidels" was not the rousing war-cry that destroyed a rich cultural heritage.

It offers glimpses of economic linkages cultural traditions that persisted even until the last century -- of Shikarpuri merchants whom kings approached to fund their war-efforts; of Nepali pilgrims visiting the remains of Hindu holy sites in the mountains; of regular raids that took place across the Khyber Pass into the plains; slave traders who flourished in the markets of Kabul, Khulm and Balkh, all the way to Bukhara.

You wonder what a different world it would have been a few thousand years ago, when Princess Gandhari of Mahabharata moved out of Khandahar to marry a king in the Gangetic plains, and then went on to blindfold herself and listen to a courtier's commentary of the internecine war that destroyed her dynasty.

Later, did Alexander's army too wreak vengeance on villages just as the British army did in the early 1840s? Did they also plunder and rape, torch villages and cut down all fruiting trees, just as the British did in the Jalalabad valley and in villages like Istalif, the Shomali plains (which is today home to the USAF base at Baghram)?

What thoughts would have crossed the minds of the thousands of people who were taken away as slaves - so many that an entire mountain range is now called the Hindukush ("Hindu Killer") where most perished? In this context, some of the narratives make you cringe, such as the one by Josiah Harlan that describes how Uzbek slave-traders sewed their captives to their horse-saddles:

"To oblige the prisoner to keep up, a strand of coarse horse-hair is passed by means of a crooked needle, under around the collar-bone. a few inches from its junction with the sternum; with the hair a loop is formed which they attach a rope that may be fastened to the saddle. The captive is constrained to keep near the retreating horse-man, with his hands tied behind his person, is altogether helpless" 

This story revolves around the return of a king, and yet, it reads like a play that has been performed many times over on the same stage. The costumes change, religious leanings change from Hindu and Buddhist to Islam; languages switch from maybe Kharoshti/Prakrit, Pali, and Sanskrit to Persian, Pashto, Dari and English, but the same tragedy gets repeated over and over again.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* GoodReads - "Return of a King" - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13454654-return-of-a-king
* Istalif village - http://www.istalif.com/