The Hindu Business Line : `Educate our boys'

BROWN is the predominant colour that hits you as the Indian Airlines flight IC 841, that has recently started flying between Delhi and Kabul, to the relief of aid workers and businessmen who regularly fly this sector, descends into Kabul. The US attacks on Afghanistan resulting in the ouster of the Taliban might have come to an end in December 2001 a few months after 9/11, but no tangible reconstruction of the city seem to have taken place.

What is evident from the air is very much a reality on the ground. The brutalisation of women, particularly during the Taliban era is so complete that women seem to have disappeared from Kabul's streets. The day one reaches Kabul, April 28, is a holiday as the country celebrated Jashan (celebration) Day, also called Mujahedeen day, to mark the anniversary of the exit of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan.

The Northern Alliance leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was assassinated in 2001, before the US led invasion on Afghanistan, is still a hero as a huge portrait of the leader greets you at the airport as well as other parts of the city. But one learns soon that the present dispensation is trying to tone down the reverence for the man, who would have certainly headed the government had he been alive. But even on a holiday the shops on Kabul's famous street — Chicken Street — are doing some business.

One has been warned to wear loose, full-sleeved clothes and cover the head while in the country. But nothing prepares you for the near total absence of women from public places in Kabul. The couple of women one spots on the street are in the famous light blue burqas and are begging. Apparently, the `liberation' of their country has not yet done much for them, even after four years. Nor has it done much for the infrastructure either; the city of Kabul, seeped in so much history, presents a picture of decay and deprivation. Open gutters, dusty roads full of craters and potholes, broken walls, overflowing sewers, and huge speed-breakers that seem quite unnecessary considering the traffic are quite depressing.

According to the international NGO Care, after 18 months of international aid, just one per cent of Afghanistan's reconstruction needs have been met, says the second edition of a special guide to humanitarian{gt} and conflict zones in Afghanistan, published in 2004. But as an Indian, you will get a warm reception in Afghanistan. It doesn't take long to find out that India is loved and revered here, as it plays an active role in the ongoing humanitarian aid and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. Pramod Gupta, Assistant Manager, ORG Telecom Ltd, shuttles between Delhi and Kabul to oversee the completion of a Rs 10-crore CDMA project in the 11 provinces of Afghanistan. The project, which will provide 1,000 telephone connections, is on for nine months and the service will be operational in three months. On the same flight there is a delegation of 14 doctors, nurses and other paramedics from the Max Devki Devi Heart and Vascular Institute in Delhi. Dr Praveen Chandra, Director-Cath Lab, who is heading the team, said they'll be conducting several camps to screen children and adults for heart ailments. "We've brought in a lot of medicines which we will be distributing free. Patients who need surgery or other advanced care would be given subsidised treatment in Delhi."

But Indians are admired for more than the relief work they are providing. As Haji Abdul Hakeen, a carpet merchant in Kabul points out, "In the last 25 years, so many countries have played a negative role to harm and destroy Afghanistan. whether it is Russia, Pakistan or even some Arab countries, but India has never given us any problems. It hasn't done anything to even muddy the waters of our rivers, as Pakistan did, or take away fish from there. India is a good country and it is our friend."

So what more would he want from India? "The best thing that India can do is to pick 1,000 Afghan boys from Kabul, Bamiyan, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar. Take them to your cities and give them education in your great institutions. Educating the Afghan people is the best help India can give us," says the man for whom business has been bad for decades. He has two carpet shops, "But can hardly make two sales every week."

As we walk out, he places a woollen cap, the kind worn by Massoud, on the head of the only male member in our little group. When he tries to pay him, he waves us off with a smile saying, "I don't want your money, I want your hearts." And, more important, even during these gloomy days, he is seeking a future for his country by asking for that which matters the most. Liberation of the mind through education.

Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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