Tilak Devasher

About: Tilak Devasher is a consultant with the Vivekananda International Foundation, Distinguished Fellow, United Services Institution and Emeritus faculty member, Rashtriya Raksha University. He is a former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India. During his professional career, Tilak specialized in security issues, especially pertaining to India's neighbourhood. He is the author of Pakistan: Courting the Abyss (December 2016); Pakistan: At the Helm (June 2018); and Pakistan: The Balochistan Conundrum (July 2019). The Pashtuns - A Contested History(2022). He is currently a member of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB).

BOOK

Name: The Pashtuns

Description:

The Pashtuns are perhaps the largest ethnic group in the world without a country of their own. They inhabit a continuous stretch of land from the Hindu Kush to the Indus, across Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan used the Pashtun-dominated areas in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) as a launching pad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and later during the US-led War on Terror.

In the process FATA was kept in a constitutional and informational black hole. The discontent finally burst in 2018 when the extra-judicial killing of a Pashtun youth led to widespread protests.

This book by veteran analyst Tilak Devasher fulfils a gap in the geopolitical understanding of South Asia, given the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the shifting power equations in the region. Mujahideen to Taliban to al Qaeda all you ever wanted to know.