BY VK SHASHIKUMAR
Exclusive Interview with Ambassador Bharath Raj Muthu Kumar on US withdrawal from Afghanistan, controlled surrender of Afghan govt to Taliban and Pakistan’s role in it, and the way forward for India in this changed scenario.
In the 3rd and the last part of his first tell-all interview Ambassador Bharath Raj Muthu Kumar, India’s most experienced diplomat on Afghanistan, reveals how a famous ‘Bollywood baddie Ajit joke’ led to huge strategic shift in India’s covert mission in Afghanistan, role of then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh’s role in shaping India’s mission, and the next war that the current developments would lead to.
Ambassador Muthu Kumar, who served as India’s envoy to Tajikistan, Belarus and Lithuania during his long career, set up India’s covert mission in Afghanistan in 1996 when he was posted in Tajik capital Dushanbe.
(VK Shashikumar has extensively reported from Afghanistan. He is now a systems strategist and writes occasionally on defence and strategic affairs. The opinions expressed by the author and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of Canary Trap or any employee thereof)
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