The recent flurry of reports on India coming close to allowing Taliban-appointed representatives to take up key diplomatic posts in Delhi and Mumbai highlights a major policy shift, pushed through by the prevailing political realities in Kabul. Taliban officials were in New Delhi recently for a multilateral event hosted by India’s telecom regulator.

The Taliban is here to stay for now, and for the neighbourhood, ignoring them long-term is unrealistic. They have made a relatively successful push to seek out political recognition across the board. From China to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a number of States have accepted appointments by the Taliban’s interim government in a more open form. Others have baulked and allowed some access to the regime accompanied by a slew of checks and balances. Reasons vary from distance and fatigue in the West to an unfolding big-power competition. Geopolitical crevasses have offered the Taliban ample opportunities to engage globally, and they have done reasonably well.

However, engaging with the Taliban on an official pedestal is a complicated endeavour for India. To begin with, engagement is unavoidable and should be pursued. It is not merely the question of engagement itself, but what kind, and to what extent, will determine the impact on Indian national security and strategy this move could consequentially have. The fundamental shifts already represented here cannot be understated. Indian diplomats have met Sirajuddin Haqqani of the Haqqani Network, a group India has previously blamed for targeting Indian missions in Afghanistan, including the 2008 embassy bombing in Kabul that killed 58. Sirajuddin today is the acting interior minister, and operating in Kabul without his consent would be impossible.

India has also spent a long time repeatedly reminding the world that the Taliban’s creation and empowerment were nefariously designed by Pakistan. Today, Pakistan and the Taliban are at odds, with regular skirmishes across the contested Durand Line. Rawalpindi is struggling to control the likes of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). A core aim of Pakistani military and intelligence post-2021, which is keeping India out of Kabul, has failed. But this unsurprising flatlining of Pakistani strategy cannot be a theme of celebration within Indian security circles for too long, and waving jubilantly at Pakistan from Kabul is not a long-term strategy. Any meteoric rise of new extremist and terror ecosystems will impact India as well, as for many such entities, the Pakistani establishment would only be a hindrance that is to be conquered.

More broadly, engagement with the Taliban on an official footing can have repercussions for India’s own push against countering terrorism. Many at the top of the Taliban’s interim government structure continue to be on most-wanted lists and UN travel ban advisories for terrorism. Delhi has been consistently against any formulation which distinguishes between “good” and “bad” terrorism.

While pursuing pragmatic policy, narratives often have a life of their own and can become counterproductive. The Taliban itself has been seeking to place official representation in India for a while, leading to an internal tussle which, in part, led to the closing of the mission in Delhi last year. The Taliban also has its pressure points to mobilise. For long, India has maintained that people-to-people connections between the two countries are the cornerstone of the relationship. Over the past years, maintaining this stance has been difficult, in part due to India’s own errant policies on visas for Afghans, and the Taliban’s potential to weaponise access to the population by way of holding back aid or restricting movements and access to India’s “technical office”, which currently operates in place of a formal embassy.

Finally, the one positive of allowing a level of formalisation, not recognition, to the Taliban-led government is that any event where walking away from such an agreement is needed will not be a costly affair. One of the reasons why the Taliban wants to engage with India is because it knows that its survivability is impacted in case the region’s largest power sees it as a pure adversary. For India, today’s Kabul is a reality it must deal with, and with no regional appetite for further confrontation in Afghanistan, curated correspondence, as done so by others, is palatable.

The costs of such engagement are also real, and as a rapidly emerging power, these should be factored in instead of reverting to being risk averse. The presence of Taliban-appointed officials in India is, nonetheless, a tectonic moment.

Kabir Taneja is deputy director and fellow, Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation.The views expressed are personal

When Donald Trump first became President of the United States (US) in 2016, American commentators dismissed him as an aberration. Trump was a historical anomaly in America’s great democratic tradition, they claimed. Such claims ring hollow after Trump’s emphatic victory in the recent American elections.

Trumpism’s effects will be felt globally. Trump’s efforts to raise trade barriers will provoke retaliation from other major economies, not just China. His rhetoric against immigrants will encourage nativist politicians across the world to scapegoat minority groups. And his explicit “America First” policy stance will restrict the space for multilateral negotiations on a wide variety of issues, not just the climate crisis.

To deal with this, we must first understand the driving forces behind Trumpism. Three books written by three very different authors can help us in this endeavour.

The first book was written at the fag end of World War II by Karl Polanyi, a Hungarian-Austrian who left Europe to escape the horrors of Nazism. In The Great Transformation (1944), Polanyi argued that throughout human history, markets had been “embedded” in society, governed by social mores and customs. The first wave of globalisation in the latter half of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century sought to delink markets from their social moorings. People’s ability to find a job or purchase the basic necessities of life seemed to depend on the distant and abstract world of high finance. This led to a counter-movement aimed at subjugating the market economy to societal or national rules.

In some countries, this counter-movement took the form of an expanded welfare State that restricted the domain of the market in some key spheres of economic activity. For instance, modern labour laws allowed the State to regulate the price of labour rather than allowing it to be determined purely on the basis of demand and supply. This allowed workers to resist being treated as just another commodity. Society regained control over the economy. In other countries, the counter-movement brought fascists to power, who capitalised on the sense of powerlessness felt by a large section of the working class. By promising stability, they were able to steal liberty.

Trump is not a fascist. But he is a populist demagogue who has harvested the growing discontent against globalisation in America. The financial hardships suffered by working-class Americans after the 2008 financial crash and the loss of factory jobs to China created fertile grounds for a counter-movement against globalisation. Trump exploited that opportunity to the hilt.

America’s protectionist turn is not out of character with its history. In his 2002 book, Kicking Away the Ladder, Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang argued that America was the bastion of protectionism till the mid-20th century. American policymakers brought down tariff barriers only after they were assured of American supremacy in global markets. Even the British empire opened up trade only after it had built a well-developed industrial sector, Chang wrote. Once Britain’s status as the global hegemon came under a cloud in the 20th century, the clamour for protectionism grew there too.

It is not a coincidence that the US has turned towards protectionism at a time when it faces a threat to its status as the leading superpower. Trump represents the bombastic version of a new Washington consensus that distrusts trade and immigration. The fear of China has ensured a bipartisan American consensus against unfettered trade. Even “progressive” American intellectuals have begun questioning the benefits of unrestricted trade.

Why did Trump, and not others, succeed in harnessing the latent fears of ordinary Americans? The answer lies in his media game. In an age of hot takes and one-liners, Trump proved to be a more effective communicator. Voters could identify with him even if they were unsure of the exact policy steps a Trump administration would take to “Make America Great Again”.

In his 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, the American cultural critic Neil Postman argued that in the age of television (TV), how politicians dressed became far more important than their policy positions. In the age of social media, what a politician tweets has become far more important than what his or her party promises in its manifesto. And if tweeter-in-chief Elon Musk bats for you, it can’t hurt your chances.

America’s founding fathers were writers and intellectuals because they lived in the era of print, Postman wrote. The medium determined the tone, tenor, and quality of the message. In the age of TV, the “image” shaped reality. The ability to deliver clever sound bites became paramount. Whether you were a chief executive, a religious preacher, or a politician, you had to master the art of entertaining people.

Postman did not live to witness the age of social media. But he wouldn’t have been surprised to see a social media czar back a former TV show host in the American elections. Nor would he have been surprised to see a Fox News anchor among the initial set of cabinet nominees. In the age of political theatre, serious actors will rule the roost.

Pramit Bhattacharya is a Chennai-based journalist. The views expressed are personal

A recent train ride from Delhi to Kathgodam in Uttarakhand proved quite the eye-opener for me on how the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) seems to have bypassed large swathes of North India. A passenger looking out of the window would be greeted by garbage hillocks on both sides of the tracks, strewn carelessly behind backyards of houses that look like they have seen better days themselves. In one of these dwellings, I spotted a primary school surrounded by garbage, with pigs and dogs foraging, and algae-ridden puddles — not the most salubrious environment for students to thrive. The 300-odd kilometre journey gives one a bird’s-eye view of the sorry state of affairs on this front in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

While it is unreasonable to expect a citizenry accustomed to squalor to clean up its act overnight, it should now be clear that the SBA has failed to make even a tiny dent in what one can loosely call the Indian Himalayan region and the foothills.

If the situation in neighbouring states is woeful, parts of Delhi are going through a mini-crisis on this front. A friend residing in Malka Ganj, North Delhi, for the last 30 years says that she has never felt as “repelled” by her surroundings as she is currently. On most days, she leaves her house and avoids cows, pigs, and a growing army of aggressive stray dogs to reach her school, where she has taught for the last 25 years. Garbage lies strewn all over since the animals forage for anything edible. The area has an unbearable stench and residents try to circumvent the worst patches. Her pleas to the local government representatives have yielded no results.

A comparison between Delhi to Kathgodam with a 15-hour train journey from Madgaon in Goa to Ernakulam station, traversing through Goa, Karnataka and Kerala throws up the contrast between the North and the South. One can barely spot any garbage mounds along the way. In relative terms, the South feels virtually pristine and pure.

The idea of this piece is not to berate the SBA initiative. I, like many others, count the SBA as one of the bigger successes of this government for two reasons. One, it has raised the level of consciousness and driven home the need to adopt a cleaner approach to living — be it shunning open defecation, avoiding plastic usage, better solid waste management, and so on. Two, in fits and starts, there is a perceptible change in some parts of India. Cities like Indore and Varanasi have undergone a makeover, and many who visit them exclaim about how litter-free they find them.

To better understand the North-South cleanliness divide, and to look for possible solutions, I spoke to a few senior former municipal commissioners and officials across states and will quickly summarise what I learnt for readers.

One, the numbers in the North are exploding, accounting for 43.2% of the country’s population against the South’s 19.8% (2022 estimates). More people equals more garbage generated. Municipal corporations simply don’t seem equipped to deal with this sharp population growth, be it in terms of resources, expertise or will.

Two, behavioural aspects are a challenge, too: a lower level of civic consciousness, an unwillingness to segregate at source even among the educated and apathy among those busy trying to make ends meet compounds the problem in the North.

And three, the system in several of the municipal bodies has collapsed over time due to a lack of indifferent leadership. As and when one of these local bodies appears to be functioning, it is more a result of the organisation having landed a committed individual or a set of them than efficient systems at work. With the end of the term of the individual, it is business as usual. In 2017, when I reported on this, the municipal commissioner in charge in Indore city had elevated his fight against garbage to war, and sources confirm that the officers who have followed in his footsteps have found it a tough act to emulate.

So, how do we prevent the North from swimming in its own garbage? Perhaps the only viable and workable solution is to look at a public-private partnership (PPP) model — on the lines of the more recently introduced “Adopt A Heritage” scheme — where execution lies in the private partner’s domain. If the private sector player can find a way to ensure that the segregated garbage can be used as raw material and become an integral part of a supply chain, it will be too valuable to be wasted. The private sector can also be pulled in through the corporate social responsibility route. The details of how the model can be designed to work can be fleshed out by the experts. My short point is that unless we pull in private enterprise, this feels like a lost battle. As HG Wells has pointed out, if we don’t end the war, the war will end us.

Anjuli Bhargava writes on governance, infrastructure and the social sector. The views expressed are personal