SUJAN DUTTA – the telegraph, calcutta india
Ghazni, Oct. 17 2004:
Two Toyota pick-up vans with wheels kicking up dust
swing in through the gates and even before the drivers have stopped,
Asadullah Khalid’s rifle-wielding Pashtun personal security guards have jumped
out and are walking towards the mansion.
The mansion is in the middle of this historic but decrepit town by the
Kabul-Kandahar road. Khalid turns around in the verandah, looks at his
men and gives a slight nod. Get out of sight for now, he has just told
them.
Fourteen centuries after the marauding armies of Mahmud, Sultan of
Ghazni, crossed the Hindukush to mount successive raids on Indian kingdoms, the
man who runs this province today is a winsome ruler who makes friends and
influences people with ease.
One of his predecessors is among the most reviled of invaders in Hindu
historiography and his name is still invoked by the Hindutva brigade to
stoke passions: in the 12th Century, about 200 years after Mahmud of
Ghazni, Mohammed Ghauri had taken a defeated Prithviraj Chauhan captive.
Centuries down, Asadullah Khalid, esquire, is Ghauri’s successor as
governor of Ghazni in America’s Afghanistan.
Ghazni province in Afghanistan’s Pushtu heartland is where the Taliban
ruled with such firmness that three years after the fall of Kabul, American
and international forces have had to do a course correction.
They now distinguish between “good Taliban” and “bad Taliban” and rely
on a mix of development activity and an emerging leadership represented by
such figures as Khalid.
He is a dapper, handsome man of 37, who carries his six-foot frame
languidly, the grace of an easy gait enhanced by the pinstriped black
silk suit.
This morning he has dispensed with the tie and has settled for a maroon
polo-neck undershirt. His hands are always inside the hip pockets. The
face is smiling and the eyes are interested.
He has lunch served at the long table in the guest wing of the mansion.
There is freshly baked but ubiquitous Afghan nan, Kabuli biryani made
with saffron and dressed with almonds and raisins, succulent kebabs, a leg
of lamb in a light spicy gravy, and phirni for dessert. Khalid is talking
of a recent trip to the United States.
Early one morning, he says, he was woken up in an airport to take a
connecting flight to Washington. He got up groggily, breezed through
security, boarded his flight and fell asleep again. Two hours later,
when he awoke, he was told he was in South Carolina, he had taken the wrong
plane.
Seated next to Khalid at lunch is a lady from the US embassy in Kabul
and she is from South Carolina. She laughs at the story. Khalid connects
easily and wins an invitation for a longer stay in her hometown.
Khalid’s Ghazni in the Pushtu heartland is a battlefield of history
where war upon war has reduced the town of mud-walled houses to a ruin. The
signs of revival in the two years since he took over as governor are feeble
but unmistakable.
The public health directorate’s Civil Hospital — the only one in Ghazni
province — is running again with aid and assistance from the US Army’s
Provincial Reconstruction Team that is camped in the dusty desert just
outside of town. Its commander, Colonel Timoney, and Khalid meet like
they have been partners for long.
“The Americans need to stay here. I hope they will not go away in a
hurry. We need America’s help here now. And one day if they go, they should
not forget Afghanistan. The elections were great,” says Khalid. “We
registered 75,000 voters in the province.”
But neither the presence of multiple security forces nor the visible
reconstruction activity — the Kabul-Kandahar road is being relaid — is
enough yet to guarantee a modicum of security. Newly-raised Afghan
National Army units control checkpoints. The 14th Brigade of the Afghan Militia
Forces is camped in Mahmud of Ghazni’s old fort. Nato’s International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) armoured personnel carriers zip up and
down the highway by which stands the Sultan of Ghazni’s austere tomb. And US
army contingents try to hunt down the hardcore Taliban. Americans and
foreigners need personal security escort even on short visits through the town.
What is happening, too, is a not-so-subtle change in the outlook of the
political authorities. Khalid, a political science student, dropped out
midway through his studies to join the Northern Alliance forces under
the late Ahmed Shah Masood and rose to become a brigade commander. He
explains now that the hunt for the Taliban is ceasing to be indiscriminate.
“There is good Taliban and there is bad Taliban. Not all people in the
Taliban are the same. I would say there are three types — the first
kind is those who work with us, like Mullah Salam Rocketi, who was a Taliban
corps commander, then there is a kind who are not the Taliban but went along
with them and third kind has very close relations with Pakistan’s
Inter-Services Intelligence and the Pakistani extreme religious outfits who are around
but not so active in Ghazni.”
But Khalid is quick at being politically correct. He says the Pakistan
government is working to weed out the terrorist elements.
Just today, Khalid has visited an old gurdwara and met Ghazni’s few
remaining Sikh families in the company of a deputy who is from another
end of the political spectrum. In June this year, he worked with the Indian
embassy to get two Indian professionals kidnapped by the Taliban freed.
Khalid represents a generation that is looking to take over the reins
of administration in Afghanistan. After the election results are out — and
Hamid Karzai is slated to win from here — Ghazni’s dapper new sultan
will revel in a newfound authority that comes out of political legitimacy.