World appears to have reached at crossroads, post Taliban’s invasion of Afghanistan a couple of days ago. This is an unprecedented event in the recent history where the whole world is just watching in horror as things are unfolding. The so-called superpower of the world USA, doing a meek surrender to the fundamentalist forces of Taliban and then President of America, Biden shamelessly defending his decision of withdrawing forces from Afghanistan.

World saw thousands of people fleeing the country in fear with whatever means they possibly could. Unimaginable pictures of people climbing on the top of the stationary planes or trying to sneak inside the planes through wingspan and windows are just horrifying. Millions of people across the globe also watched in horror hundreds of people running on the tarmac with a US Airforce plane in a bid to get inside it. There were others who somehow managed to climb around the wings and the tyres of the plane, had to jump from the plane after it went several thousand feet above in the air, dying instantly. Its total mayhem and chaos on the streets of Kabul, airport just everywhere, people running for their lives amid sounds of gunfire from all over. It seems that just in two days’ time the country has gone back by a century.

This all happened so sudden and so quickly that in just around two weeks’ time Taliban took control of a country of 40 million. Afghanistan has a regular army of trained 300k soldiers who simply surrendered to a force of 70,000 armed Taliban fighters without offering any resistance. The President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani has fled from the country to an undisclosed destination leaving his own people in lurch. Average Afghani citizen is so fearful that they have no idea what is going to happen next and what is the future of their country. The only way to get out of the country is by air hence every Afghan citizen is running toward Kabul airport to get on to any plane. Though Talibans are trying to assure the world that they will avoid any kind of bloodshed or violence but the reality on the ground shows a different picture altogether. It is reported that hundreds of people have been killed in past few days of chaos since the Taliban started their mission to control Afghanistan. The situation of women is the worst and reportedly thousands of young girls and women have been abducted, raped by Talibans and are being sold to make them sex slaves.

It is a real shame that while the whole world is shocked and condemning the Taliban invasion of Afghanistan, there is a country in the world where its government is celebrating this ghastly act of terror and violence and that country is Pakistan. The Pakistan government has publicly expressed its solidarity with Talibans and displayed its happiness on Talibans taking control of Afghanistan.

Actually, people are not even surprised at Pakistan’s reaction as it’s a now an open secret that Pakistan is the epicentre of terrorism in the world. China has also openly come in support of Pakistan. The actions of India’s two hostile neighbours coupled with Taliban’s violent invasion of Afghanistan has brought the world at the crossroads and at brinks of another world war. World’s major powers need to take some very urgent action to stop this anarchy going any further.

Its time, India should come to the forefront of this crisis to play a decisive and important role as an emerging world power to deescalate the situation. India not only has thousands of its citizens stuck in that country but also has got numerous investments in that country, worth billions of dollars to safeguard. Most top world leaders confide in the leadership of Narendra Modi, and I believe soon world will be looking up to him to help bring the situation in control in Afghanistan and to bring peace back in the world. – Yugal Parashar (Please note this column was written before the alert level 4 lockdown)