Where it departed from the earlier script was in its description of India as “a significant country in the region”.  It followed the visit to New Delhi by US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta this month (June) and his request that India should play an important role in the security and development of Afghanistan.

Media reports that India won’t get militarily involved in Afghanistan were sweet music to the Taliban and the authors of the VOJ commentary went to great length to lift India sky-high saying that Indians were well aware of the “aspirations, creeds and love for freedom” of the Afghan people.

Taliban are known to have mounted attacks on Indian assets in Afghanistan and did not even spare the Indian embassy and Indian doctors. The Taliban linked militant groups, especially the dreaded Haqqani Network, have been repeatedly attacking Indian interests. In one such attack, 58 people were killed and 141 wounded when the Indian Embassy in Kabul was bombed in 2008.

So much so the praise is to be taken as a warning for India against getting involved in the Afghanistan affairs.

The give away to this line of reasoning is the remark: “It is totally illogical they (India) should plunge their nation into a calamity just for the American pleasure.” Another give away was the sentence that read: “No doubt India is a significant country in the region but is also worth mentioning that they have full information about Afghanistan because they know each other very well in the long history.

The Taliban has no love for India. In fact, it has no reason to love India because India along with Iran and Russia played a major role in keeping alive the Northern Alliance when the Taliban ruled Kabul. New Delhi will not like to see Pakistan backed Taliban in the Kabul saddle once again, since that would be a call for Afghanistan’s return to the Stone Age.

The Taliban may have been happy to see U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta leave New Delhi “empty handed towards Kabul.”  This is neither a sudden nor unexpected development. India has consistently refused to go beyond economic assistance. It has avoided involvement in bolstering Afghan security, except for running training programmes for small groups of Afghan army officers in India. This is the consistent policy of India. The Taliban cannot feign ignorance.  So what is so great about ‘refusal’ to Panetta’s request?

India is spending about $2 billion on projects ranging from the construction of highways, hospital and schools to the building of Afghan parliament.
Though India extends assistance to Afghanistan in civilian areas,