Hindu Kush: The epicentre of terror, drugs and weapons demands India’s vigilant gaze

The withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan in 2021 was the end of yet another conflict in this historically war-torn nation. Geographically, the country is located at one of the geopolitical hotspots where Russia, China, West and Central Asia, and South Asia meet.

The US, too, has been a central player in the last few decades due to its war against terror. Afghanistan has seen years of civil war in the last two centuries, had there been the Anglo-Afghan Wars, incursions by the Russian Empire, the Soviet-Afghan War, or finally the US’ invasion of Afghanistan.

Since 2021, the Taliban have ruled the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The individual countries have seriously conflicting interests, and many of them are playing out bilateral or multilateral rivalries or tensions on Afghan territory.

The Hindu Kush mountains are central to the region. For a long time, these mountains have been dominated by warlords. The Hindu Kush range has also been the passageway for invasions of the Indian subcontinent and continues to be important to contemporary warfare in Afghanistan.

Hindu Kush range. Wikimedia Commons

The Geography

The Hindu Kush is an 800-kilometre-long and 240-kilometer-wide mountain range with the Iranian Plateau on its west and South Asia to the south and east, and it finally joins the Great Himalayas. Essentially, they stretch from central and eastern Afghanistan into north-western Pakistan and south-eastern Tajikistan.

The Hindu Kush buttresses the Pamir Mountains near the point where the borders of China, Pakistan, and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Afghanistan meet. The north-eastern end of the Hindu Kush merges with the Karakoram Range. The southern end connects with the White Mountains near the Kabul River. It has the valley of the Amu Darya to the north and the Indus River valley to the south.

The Hindu Kush is one of the great watersheds of Central Asia. The range has many high snow-capped peaks, with the highest point being Tirich Mir at 7,708 metres in the Chitral District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

Interestingly, the “Hindu Raj” (Hindu rule) is a mountain range in northern Pakistan, between the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram ranges. The Hindu Kush and the Pamirs constitute the most seismically active intermediate-depth earthquake zone in the world.

Mountains occupy 22 per cent of the world’s land surface area and are home to about 13 per cent of the world’s population. While about 915 million people live in the mountainous region, less than 150 million people live above 2,500 m above sea level (AMSL), and only 20–30 million people live above 3,000 AMSL.

The Name

The Persian name Hindu Kush appeared first in maps of around 1000 CE. Hindu Kush is generally translated as “Killer of Hindu” or “Hindu-Killer” by most writers. According to the 14th century travelling scholar Ibn Battuta, Hindu Kush means Hindu Killer as slaves from the Indian subcontinent died in the harsh climatic conditions of the mountains while being taken from India to Turkestan.

Another alternate meaning is ‘sparkling snows of India’ and ‘mountains of India’. In Vedic Sanskrit, the range was known as Upariśyena, as “beyond the reach of eagles”. The Hindu Kush range region was a historically significant centre of Buddhism, with sites such as the Bamiyan Buddhas. While the vast majority of the region has been majority-Muslim for several centuries now, certain portions of the Hindu Kush only became Islamised relatively recently.

Inhabitants

Hindu Kush are mostly inhabited by the Ismaili Muslims who adhere to a 1,400 year tradition of Shi’a values embracing pluralism. Others like Tajik (who are Sunni Muslims), Uzbek, and some Hazara (Persian-speaking peoples of Central Asian origin) live in the valleys.

Kyrgyz nomads who once occupied the high Pamir migrated to eastern Turkey in the 1980s during the Afghan War. Pashtun are found in the major towns, like in Kabul, and in many districts south of the Hindu Kush.

Some Indic Gujar nomadic herders seasonally visit the valleys of the southern slopes. Kalasha of Chitral and the Nurestanis of Nurestan, were once the larger ethnic group. Since the 11th century they were called “Kafir,” a term disapproving derived from the Arabic word for “infidel”. Nurestanis were forcibly converted to Islam in 1896.

These mountainous areas are mostly barren and sparsely sprinkled with trees and small bushes. Gem-grade emeralds are found in the valley of the Panjshir River in the north of Kabul. The centre of this region is occupied by powerful tribes. They were totally independent and paid neither tax nor owed any allegiance to anyone. Only in the late 1980s did they change ‘loyalty’ to the Taliban and Al Qaeda combine that had transformed the region from Hindu Kush to Waziristan region of West Pakistan into a loosely integrated jihadist state.

Opium cultivation and easy money

The people of the Hindu Kush region, like some other areas of Afghanistan, have been growing a lot of opium for thousands of years. It is ostensibly required for some medicines but has a huge market for illicit drugs.

The opium is cultivated and transformed into rough morphine and heroin for export to the world market. Locals have a long tradition of ingesting stimulants, intoxicants, and depressants.

Men have traditionally smoked opium, whereas women eat it. The Americans tried to impede opium cultivation after 2001, especially in areas where Taliban Pashtuns reside, but actually the production soared.

Afghanistan produces 72 per cent of the world’s opium supply. The cost of cocaine in the US averages $120 per gram, though costs vary depending on location, purity, and local law enforcement. While the Taliban claims that their eradication programme has diminished production, in actual fact, there was a glut of opium on the market, and the Taliban’s programme was a smokescreen in an effort to raise the market price. The unrecorded opiate economy was still around 10 per cent of Afghanistan’s GDP.

Nearly 53 per cent of headmen in opium-cultivation villages were under the control of insurgents and other non-state actors, compared with just 26 per cent for non-poppy villages. Opium is the main source of income for the local warlords and is used to acquire arms. That is the reason there are many gun and ammunition manufacturing setups in small towns of Hindu Kush and adjoining plains, especially in north-west Pakistan.

An International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) report, released in 2023, warns that glaciers in Hindu Kush Himalayas are melting at unprecedented rates. They could lose up to 75 per cent of their volume by the end of the century, leading to flooding and water shortages for the nearly 2 billion people who live downstream of the rivers.

Complex boundary and invaders

For centuries, the Hindu Kush acted as the great wall between Central Asia and India. Greek and Indian kings (Chandragupta Maurya and Kushans) ruled the region for long periods in the first millennium. Around 1500 BCE, invaders from Central Asia crossed the high passes of the Hindu Kush to come to India.

These passes have been of significant military relevance and gave access to the northern plains of India.

Mahmud Ghaznawi crossed these mountains and invaded India through Khyber Pass 17 times between 1001 and 1030; Muhammad Gauri came in 1175 and 1193.

The Thalle Pass was used by Mongols like Timur (Timurlane) in 1398, and the Kipchak Pass by Genghis Khan in the early 13th century. The first Mughal emperor, Babur, came in 1505, and again in 1526, to establish the Mughal Empire. Nadir Shah came in 1739, and Ahmad Shah Abdali came in 1761.

During the British Raj in India, the government was keenly concerned with the security of these passes and of the physical features to the south, especially of the Khyber Pass, now in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The Khyber Pass once was an important strategic gateway because it cut through the Spin Ghar instead of through the Hindu Kush, thus offering a comparatively easy route between the valley of Kabul and the plains of Punjab. The Hindu Kush range was less of a barrier but more of a buffer zone. The international boundaries running through the Hindu Kush are primarily those of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Karambar Pass lies about 60 km west of the Afghan-Chinese border.

By the end of the 19th century, the British had subdued the dissidents in the eastern Hindu Kush. Precise topographic measurements followed. The Durand Line, a rather erratic boundary because of a series of compromises reached between the British and the ruler of Afghanistan, took shape in 1893. It was later modified a little by the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919. This is now the 2,670-kilometre international boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The line divides the ethnic Pastuns, Balochis, and Gilgit-Baltistan. No Afghan government has recognised the Durand Line as its border since 1947. It has been described as having one of the most dangerous borders in the world.

Terror breeding ground

There is no militant group in the world that, at some point, did not operate in Hindu Kush. From Uzbeks and Chechens to Chinese and Turkish militants, everyone is in action, and some owe allegiance to no one. The Taliban and Al Qaeda had built their state within a state in the Hindu Kush and found a good demographic base to enrol those needed to pursue their political and ideological agenda. They propagated Shariah laws and maintained the Shoora legal system, where beheading was a common punishment.

Madrassas are used to indoctrinate the young with their ultra-orthodox version of Islam and graduate brainwashed, motivated fundamentalists. Suicide bombers were their main weapons. Pashtun nomads and Gujars dominate the area. With the Taliban government controlling Afghanistan, the whole country is now following Shariah laws.

Beyond superpowers

Due to harsh peculiar terrain and stubborn self-pride of local people, the British could not exercise sufficient control. In spite of pumping in modern weapons, Soviets failed to exercise control and were forced to leave in the 1980s. Al Qaeda and Taliban had used this exit and made it their haven. After the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda became America’s number one enemy and the US led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) arrived in Afghanistan and began their campaign against Al Qaeda and Taliban making the area highly militarised.

Islamic militant organisations gradually assembled the Mahsud, Wazir and other tribal groups into a loosely integrated confederation, which acknowledged Mullah Omar (the Taliban) and late Osama bin Laden (Al Qaeda) as their spiritual and political ‘Emirs’.

Under American military pressure, Osama bin Laden moved to Pakistan and was finally killed in Abbottabad in a heliborne operation on 2 May 2011. The US exited Afghanistan in 2021, leaving the country for Taliban take-over.

Anyone who dominates the strategic Hindu Kush region and controls its opium-dollars and illegal small arms industry will have significant influence over Islamic world and the terrorism that emanates from its fundamental groups. They would also control the strategic land routes connecting major Asian players China, India, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the rest of West Asia.

Whenever militants find a stronghold and anchor in the region, it has serious ramifications for India which is considered a soft target for spread of ideology. Interestingly, the region has become a secure base for producing propaganda documentary films and cell phone videos for jihadists.

Pakistan’s desire

In 2006 President Pervez Musharraf ordered the Pak Army’s XI Corps and elite Special Services Group into the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) to root out the Taliban and Al Qaeda once and for all from Pakistani soil adjoining the Hindu Kush area. The effort was a dismal failure, and cost the army over 600 lives. The Pakistan Army has been unleashing a massive assault in North Waziristan and FATA areas to regain control from militants albeit at the cost of more lives of their own.

Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had invested heavily in the Afghan local warlords and Taliban. They saw a friendly Afghanistan as a defence in depth against India. This desperate desire for depth has been questioned by some Pakistani strategists because it is resulting in playing into the hands of terrorists and has consequential internal terror effects in Pakistan. Taliban and Al Qaeda have de-facto set up home, with virtual impunity, in what many call chaotic Pakistan. Pakistan now has another front to contend with on its north-west.

Strategic play

China is extending road and rail links and oil pipelines to the region for strategic reasons through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China also has interests in exploiting rare earth and other critical minerals. China was also concerned about the Islamic influence and terror support to Muslim Uyghur population in Xinjiang. Uyghur groups and “Islamic State” (IS) have been active in Hindu Kush. The costly American presence in the region was suiting China, because any power vacuum in Afghanistan gives free-run to terror groups. Chinese influence in the region would help them prevent the spread of Islamic militancy into Xinjiang. Stability of the region is in China’s interest.

The US was initially wooing Iran and even going soft on its nuclear ambitions in view of altered dynamics in the region, but that did not work and once again there are antagonistic relations between the two.

For Tehran, the American withdrawal from the Hindu Kush has been mixed. Iran has a conflict with the US, and American bases in western Afghanistan were of bother. While Iran wants to see the US fail in all conflicts, any instability in Afghanistan creates refugee issues for Iran, and in that context American presence was good for them. China wants to have closer military ties with Iran, and has been offering defence equipment. Iran has been concerned about Pakistan and has often attacked their military outposts to prevent terrorist infiltration.

Russia has maintained relations with a number of players in Afghanistan, including the Taliban. Moscow wants its southern flank secure. They do not want the resurgence of Islamic movements.

Independent India’s contact with the famous dry fruit and shawl seller ‘Kabuliwala’ was lost by the mid 1960s. India thereafter followed developmental diplomacy in Afghanistan, and Tajikistan to strengthen presence, and to reduce Pakistani leverage. It helps to win over public support of masses that had ancient links with India.

Afghanistan is also important to India’s Central Asia connection. A possible oil pipeline from Turkmenistan, via Afghanistan and Pakistan to India (TAPI) may become a reality someday. The Taliban has reiterated their support for the pipeline and promised to guarantee its security. It is the only realistic large-scale economic project that they have got. India also invested in Chabahar port and road infrastructure to Central Asia.

Pakistan has been busy playing a double game. Though funded by the US it kept supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan against America. Washington learnt about Pakistani duplicity the hard way. Though the US has moved out, it is monitoring developments closely. While the US keeps its linkages with Pakistan, Washington is already wooing New Delhi as a partner in its greater Indo-Pacific strategy.

Terror outfits in Hindu Kush have for long been playing ‘games’ in Jammu & Kashmir. It is time the world realises that Hindu Kush has been the epicentre of world terror and other illicit activities and it can’t be left to fundamentalists in Pakistan to rekindle the terror fire. Narco based agriculture economy and illicit fund transfers from supportive regimes have to stop. While Pakistan is fast becoming a failed state due to bad strategic planning, and it fights to retain its sovereignty, India has to use its renewed friendship with the West and emerging power status and equations to arm-twist the world to clear the Hindu Kush region as the terror factory of the world.

The writer is Director General, Centre for Air Power Studies. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.

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