Its cadres' brutal killing of former President Najibullah and his brother, its extremely orthodox policies on dress codes and the status of women, and its violation of international law governing conflict situations (and killing Iranian diplomats, taking Iranian and UN officials hostage) have led to Taliban being perceived as an outlandish, religious-extremist, anarchic entity. The Taliban leadership providing refuge to Osama bin Laden has compounded this perception of an Islamic horde bent upondestabilising regional peace and international order.

In objective terms, this is a short-sighted perception. If other countries' policies are rooted in it, it could be unfair to Taliban and to the people of Afghanistan. Taliban merits a second look. It is not just a numerically and militarily strong organisation with an orthodox Sunni Islamic creed. The causes of its origin and gaining strength should be understood.

Taliban rose due to the political bankruptcy, military and administrative inefficiency, factionalism and uncontrolled corruption amongst the various Mujahideen groups which resisted the Soviet invasion and defeated the PDPA regime of Afghanistan primarily under Pakistani tutelage and Saudi support. When these Mujahideen groups failed completely to stabilise Afghanistan between 1989 and 1994, the ground was fertile for the rise of an idealistic militant reformist movement. Different Mujahideen groups refusing to function in cooperation with Najibullah and descending into months of factionalfights after his removal led to widespread disenchantment with them in Afgh-anistan. Even the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were at a loss about managing Afghan affairs by the end of 1993.

It was at this point that Mullah Mohammad Omar, Taliban's present supreme leader, created and led a movement of young religious cadres to resist the depredations of various Mujahideen groups. Omar belonged to the Hizb-e-Islami Mujahi-deen faction originally led by Yunus Khalis. He was an active military leader of the group when it fought the Russians. His base was Kandahar. He formed the group in 1994 and attracted large following from Pushtoon youth in southern and western Afghanistan and from the Afghan refugee camps in Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan in Pakistan. The cadres from the refugee camps were equally disenchanted by the intrigues of the Mujahideen groups based in Peshawar. Most of the initial cadres were students of Madarsas in Quetta and the Islamic schools run in the refugee camps inand around Peshawar. Pakistan's ISI, disappointed with the Mujahideen it had previously supported, decided to back this new organisation (Taliban). They were given training, finances and weapons even as support was rapidly withdrawn from other Mujahideen groups. Between 1994 and 1996, Taliban's military operations were conducted with the support of former officials and other ranks of the Pakistani army. This was why Taliban scored significant military successes in Kandahar, Herat and later in Jalalabad, ultimately leading to the capture of Kabul.

Even more importantly, their success was due to the support of the major ethnic component of Afghanistan's population, the Pushtoons. This support is still available, despite Taliban's extreme Islamic terms of reference in governance and religious fanaticism. Even if it is unpalatable, the reality that the movement represents a majority of Afghanis-tan's population in socio-ethnic terms has to be acknowledged.

There is a sort of historical continuity in Talibandominating the emerging power structure in Afghanistan. Despite Afghanistan being a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual polity with Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and some Uighurs, Pushtoons have dominated its politics. While the Taliban leadership is Pushtoon and Sunni, the leadership of the northern alliance (Rabbani, Dostum and Masood) is non-Pushtoon; some of them are Shia. There are Shia-Sunni differences, but Taliban has not been averse to military and political cooperation with Shia organisations such as the Hizb-e-Wahdat.

In fact, almost till early 1997, Iran was not averse to Taliban neutralising corrupt Sunni Mujahideen groups competing for power after the Soviet withdrawal. It is only when Taliban blotted its copybook with Iran, persecuting Shias and attacking Iranian officials, that the break occurred. Taliban's stipulations on women's employment and education, its dress-code orthodoxy and religious fanaticism are questionable, it is acknowledged as a disciplined force. Areas under its control arecomparatively corruption- and crime-free. It will control most of Afghanistan's territory in the near future. Whether it stabilises government depends on its coming to terms with other ethnic groups on the basis of fairness, with cooperation from Iran.

India has vital and tangible interests in sustaining relations with Afghanistan both bilaterally and in terms of its interests in Central Asia. So a static antagonistic attitude towards Taliban may not be practical or desirable. Taliban or its successors representing the majority Pushtoon population will dominate Afghan politics. We should not assume that it will remain close to the Pakistani establishment in the long term. Once it fully controls Afghanistan, traditional Pushtoon doubts and reservations about Pakistan will affect its policies towards Pakistan. Iran, despite present antagonism, would not be averse to coming to terms with a political group representing Afghanistan's majority if it offered a fair deal to non-Pushtoons and Shias.

To my mind,there should be a parallelism between India and Iran in dealing with Afghan political developments and Taliban. The Taliban leadership itself has publicly indicated that as the situation stabilises, its orthodoxy and extremism will diminish. In the ultimate analysis, India's policy has always been to deal with governments in effective power even if some of their policies may not be entirely acceptable in Indian ideological terms. We must structure our Afghan policies on practical lines rather than static prejudices.