Editorial: Time to grow a spine, MEA

• When it comes to the status of women in society, conservatives of every faith, whatever their differences, stand on much the same side. So, it was quite in character for the Taliban regime of Afghanistan that its foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, kept women journalists out of his press conference at the Afghan embassy in New Delhi last Friday. It was characteristic of his hosts, too, the Hindu nationalist government of India, to acquiesce in the discourtesy.

In the face of a huge uproar from the Women Press Corps, the Editors Guild and the Opposition, Muttaqi held a second presser on Sunday, Oct. 12, into which women journalists were allowed. It's good that amends were made, but the point stands that the Taliban operates from an untenable starting position on the role of women, one that is not acceptable to women anywhere, much less in a country where gender equality informs every article of the Constitution. As for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the episode shows it in a poor light for standing by as a spectator while a basic principle is overlooked by a foreign government on its soil.

The symbolism of the incident goes beyond courtesies. Here were two ideologies, Hindu nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism, seemingly poles apart but willing to collaborate on invisibilising women. What happened in New Delhi last week was not merely an affront to women journalists. It was a symbolic effort by the Taliban regime to legitimise its practice of gender apartheid, even when diplomacy demanded that the manners of its hosts be respected. And by allowing that to happen, and claiming to have no agency over it, MEA signalled that its own democratic norms are negotiable.

In diplomatic practice, the space of a foreign country’s embassy is deemed to be its sovereign territory. However, that precept cannot be invoked here in MEA’s defence. The Taliban regime has not yet been accorded full diplomatic recognition by India, and technically, the Afghan embassy in New Delhi is still being run by officials loyal to the former republic. Indeed, before Muttaqi’s first press conference began last Friday, those officials refused to allow the Taliban flag to be used as the backdrop. Instead, a picture of the Bamiyan Buddha — a symbol of Afghanistan’s pluralistic past that the Taliban once destroyed — served as the backdrop as Muttaqi spoke.

While the officials of a dislodged government managed to assert their will, why did the MEA fail to even influence the nuances of the event? Did it try? MEA’s claim that it had nothing to do with the organising of the press conference is a limp excuse. If New Delhi cannot even impose its will on events on its own soil, what kind of influence can it be expected to wield in Kabul, Central Asia, or West Asia under the rubric of this “strategic engagement.”

India’s foreign policy aspires to a big voice on the global stage, but it tends to speak loudly when the issue is generic and falls silent when the stakes are real. It has waffled on big issues, be it the genocide in Gaza or the gender apartheid of the Taliban. The faux pas witnessed over the weekend underlines the need for MEA to grow a spine.