Memories Of Afghanistan & A Professor Who Became The President

During the summer of 2003, two years after the collapse of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, one of my colleagues Alok Rath and I travelled to Kabul to facilitate a training of INGOs and local group on micro level participatory planning being spearheaded by an International NGO. I was working with an Action Aid India office based out of Bhubaneswar, Odisha. 

One of my senior colleagues and former boss Bijay Kumar, who is also from Odisha, was lead of the Action Aid post war development operation in Afghanistan. By 2003, he had spent considerable time in Afghanistan and vastly experienced the post war socio-economic situation of the people in rural Afghanistan. He is the one who emphasized the need and importance for people centered rural reconstruction planning to rebuild Afghanistan’s fragile socio-economic ecosystem. Since Alok and I were involved in similar planning process in India, he handpicked us to facilitate the training for the staff of Action Aid and other NGOs engaged in post war reconstruction initiatives.

In June 2003, we boarded the famed Ariana airlines, Afghanistan’s national carrier, which was flying thrice a week between New Delhi and Kabul. Prior to our travel, we were well instructed that one shouldn’t get panicked at Kabul International airport after arrival since the airport wasn’t fully operational and had limited passenger amenities with high-security arrangements. It was real chaos at the Kabul International airport for emigration and baggage claims. However, we let out a sigh of relief when one of our colleagues, who was present at the airport, smoothly guided us through the exit.

Driving down to the city, we could see the trail of destruction and ruin all over the beautiful city of Kabul. The training was organized on the Action Aid premises and the fieldwork was done in one of the villages. During our conversation with the local staff and the people in the villages, we listened to horrifying stories of Taliban excesses and oppression of the people. While moving around Kabul and rural Afghanistan, we could witness a large number of disabled people, who have faced wrath from the Taliban and lost either a limb or an arm, begging on the streets mostly in Kabul. The men narrated how they were asked to grow bread to a certain length and wear traditional clothes; women were forced to remain in burqa and ordered to stay indoors and subjected to inhuman restrictions on their movements.

We lived in the Action Aid guest house and during evenings often chatted with the local support staff and the security guards about life in Afghanistan before and after the Taliban rule. Most Afghans love music and many like old Bollywood songs and often our friends requested us to sing old Hindi numbers. During Taliban rule, all kinds of entertainment whether watching videos, movies, listening to songs on radio, tape recorder was forbidden. In the streets, we could see ripped-out tapes from cassettes hanging on fences. Radio Kabul, which was the only source of information for people, had stopped playing songs and music and transmitted radical diktats. During our day out we went to the beautiful Chicken Street in Kabul to buy souvenirs. Chicken Street has very expensive carpet, valuable artefacts, handicrafts and gemstones shops; in some corners, you will find some traditional food. Massoud, my colleague from Action Aid Afghanistan who accompanied us, said many of the exotic artefacts in Kabul Museum were destroyed and looted by unscrupulous and terror groups and sometimes sold in Chicken Street. 

During our leisure, we once discussed about the political situation of Afghanistan and often people spoke about one Dr Ashraf Ghani, the then Finance Minister, who was quite active in mobilizing funds for the reconstruction of war-torn Afghanistan. This Afghan name somehow sounded familiar to me! I was desperate to know more about the person and google-searched for his credentials.  Yes, he was the same person whom I met in Odisha a decade back. Dr Ashraf Mohammad Ghani was a Professor of Anthropology at John Hopkins University and worked in the World Bank. 

During my initial years of social work which I began in Agragamee, an NGO which was working with the displaced people of Upper Indravati Project (UIP) in Kalahandi, Odisha, we carried out a socio-economic survey of the displaced people. This study enriched me and served as a window to understand the agony and pains of displaced tribals driven out from their ancestral land to give away for a mega irrigation and power project. After the study, Director of Agragamee Achyut Das asked some of us who were associated with the study, whether we would continue to work in these nondescript, remote locations with displaced people living in villages of Thuamul-Rampur, Dasmantpur and Tentulikhunti blocks of erstwhile Kalahandi and Koraput districts. The land-based rehabilitation of UIP had utterly failed due to the government’s inability to put in place a robust policy, forcing the displaced people to move up to the hills and remote locations and live in small clusters. Later, we set up a small but beautiful campus at Padepadar in the present Padepadar panchayat of Thuamul-Rampur block of Kalahandi. Soon, we started initiating a number of tribal development work in both R&R (rehabilitation and resettlement) and local villages. 

One fine morning, a fleet of government vehicles entered our campus which was located on the Khatiguda and Mahulpatna reservoir road. One officer from the R&R wing of UIP got down from the jeep and told us that one person from the World Bank team wanted to speak to us. I was on the campus and with some of my colleagues welcomed the World Bank person to our small office. We used to sit on the floor and work on small desks. The World Bank representative, who looked like an Asian, and a senior R&R official sat on the floor mat. It was the World Bank Mission person who introduced him as Dr Ashraf Ghani, a former Professor of Anthropology who had recently joined World Bank as an anthropologist and was visiting UIP to document the R&R work done by the Odisha government. The World Bank-financed UIP but subsequently withdrew. Ghani along with the accompanying government official stayed for quite long, listening and taking notes on Agragamee’s study on the status of R&R in UIP.  The study, commissioned by the Odisha government, made a number of key recommendations to improve the R&R of displaced people. The following day Ghani was scheduled to visit some R&R villages and requested someone from our team to accompany him.  

The next day I accompanied him to a number of resettlement colonies in the vicinity of the Indravati dam project. He spoke to the tribals about their life before and after displacement and the facilities being provided by the government. In one of the villages, the people showed him a glass of muddy water which they were consuming due to lack of potable drinking water. Disgusted, Ghani asked one of the R&R officers if he could drink this water? He was very unhappy about seeing the plight of the people. At some other places, people said they did not get basic services from the government; some even complained to him about non-receipt of R&R compensation. He understood a little bit of Hindi, and I acted as an interpreter, translating from Odia to English.  He was extremely devastated to see the deplorable condition of the tribal displaced people. During our conversation, he described the involuntary displacement of tribals worldwide as a real concern and said it caused irreparable harm to generations of tribal and indigenous communities. During our conversation, he also spoke about the developments taking place in Afghanistan. The Taliban and other invaders have stalled the development of Afghanistan and pushed it to civil war. 

Back in Kabul, one of my colleagues said she knew someone in the government who could arrange my meeting with Prof Ghani. I was keen to meet someone who I had met in Odisha. A message was sent to his office. Sadly, however, I couldn’t get any communication from his office during my stay in Afghanistan. Later, my senior colleague in Kabul seemed to have spoken to Ghani about me on the sidelines of a government conference. I am told he could remember me.  In 2014, Ghani become the President of Afghanistan and continued his focus on rebuilding Afghanistan.

The current turmoil in Afghanistan is quite similar to what transpired 20 years back and is likely to create a situation akin to what people witnessed during Taliban’s first rule. On August 15, 2021, Ghani left the country fearing for his life after the Taliban took over Afghanistan for a second time. I can only pray for Professor Ashraf Ghani, who no doubt led Afghanistan through a difficult period. At the same time, my heart goes out to the people of Afghanistan. I can only wish that peace get restored soon in the country.