Why Afghans Have Not Risen Against the Taliban

Repression explains much of the silence. But Afghanistan’s history of violent political change, and the absence of institutions for peaceful change, explain the rest.

In July, a satirical, social-media-born movement called the Cockroach Janta Party won a major victory in India. After weeks of protests over examination paper leaks, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned. The movement’s leaders declared victory, demonstrating that sustained public pressure could force even a powerful government to respond.

The episode raised a question for me: Why have Afghans, living under one of the region’s most repressive governments, not mounted a comparable nationwide movement against the Taliban?

The comparison has limits. Indian protesters operate in a country with courts, a relatively free press and legal protections for dissent. Afghans face a regime that tolerates little opposition. But beyond repression, Afghanistan’s political history helps explain why widespread dissatisfaction has not developed into sustained collective action.

The first explanation is straightforward. Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban have restricted political freedoms, independent expression and women’s participation in public life. Protesting can bring arrest, violence and intimidation. Surveillance, economic hardship, the suppression of independent media and exhaustion from four decades of war further discourage resistance. Silence under such conditions should never be mistaken for consent.

Yet repression alone does not tell the whole story. Afghanistan has repeatedly experienced political upheaval without developing reliable institutions through which citizens can peacefully remove rulers who have lost public confidence.

Political scientist Samuel P. Huntington identified a problem common to many developing societies: “the rates of mobilization and participation are high; the rates of organization and institutionalization are low.” Public anger, in other words, does not automatically produce political change. Without durable organizations and institutions, even widespread dissatisfaction can remain fragmented and ineffective.

Afghanistan’s history illustrates this problem. The communist coup of 1978 ushered in purges, Soviet intervention and devastating war. Following the Soviet withdrawal, the collapse of Mohammad Najibullah’s government in 1992 led to fighting among rival mujahideen factions. The republic established after 2001 introduced elections, but the disputed 2014 presidential election was resolved through an elite agreement brokered with American assistance rather than a clear electoral verdict. Dependent on foreign military and financial support, the state remained fragile. In 2021, it collapsed as American forces withdrew and the Taliban advanced.

The circumstances differed, but the pattern was remarkably consistent: power changed hands through armed struggle, elite bargains or foreign intervention, not through durable institutions of peaceful political accountability.

The fall of King Amanullah Khan in 1929 offers an earlier example. His ambitious reforms provoked opposition from religious leaders and tribal forces, while British interests formed part of the wider political context. Domestic resistance and the king’s own miscalculations also mattered. The episode illustrates how political struggles often became contests among rival centers of power, leaving ordinary citizens with little influence over the outcome.

This does not mean Afghans have never resisted. In 1979 and 1980, residents of Herat and Kabul rose against communist rule and Soviet intervention. In 2016 and 2017, the Enlightenment Movement brought thousands into Kabul’s streets to protest the government’s decision to route a major power line away from the predominantly Hazara region of Bamiyan. In 2018, peace marchers traveled from Helmand toward the capital. Since 2021, women have protested Taliban restrictions, while students, teachers and other activists have continued to resist at considerable personal risk.

These acts of courage undermine any suggestion that Afghans are inherently passive. But many protests have been suppressed, remained localized or lacked the organization necessary to sustain momentum. Brave individuals and isolated demonstrations cannot, by themselves, shift the balance of power.

Economist Douglass North’s work on institutions offers another useful insight: societies develop rules and patterns of behavior that shape the choices available to future generations. In Afghanistan, repeated experiences of violent transitions may have weakened confidence that peaceful resistance can succeed. When people expect protests to end in repression, and political change to depend on armed groups or foreign powers, organizing becomes more difficult.

This political culture is neither permanent nor uniquely Afghan. Mass protests have also failed to dislodge repressive governments in Iran, Myanmar and Belarus. The point is not that Afghans lack courage, but that courage alone cannot overcome the absence of institutions, organization and credible political alternatives.

What, then, might weaken the Taliban? A split within its leadership or a financial crisis that prevents it from paying officials and fighters could create an opening. Neither outcome is inevitable. Meanwhile, the opposition remains divided along political, ethnic and regional lines. Many opposition figures operate abroad and look to foreign governments for assistance, risking a return to the old pattern in which outsiders and armed factions determine Afghanistan’s future.

A more durable alternative would begin at home. Teachers, women’s groups, professional associations, local elders and other existing networks could gradually build trust, cooperation and a shared political vision. Such work would not immediately remove the Taliban, but it could help prepare society for an eventual political opening.

Foreign governments also have a role. They should not interpret the Taliban’s survival as proof of popular consent or assume that replacing one set of rulers with another will resolve Afghanistan’s deeper political problems. Humanitarian assistance must continue, while political engagement should be tied to concrete improvements in human rights, particularly girls’ education and women’s ability to work.

India’s student protesters demonstrated what organized civic action can accomplish when political space exists. Afghanistan’s experience offers a more sobering lesson: where peaceful channels of change are absent, those with guns tend to determine the outcome.

Afghanistan needs more than the replacement of the Taliban. It needs a political system in which citizens can hold their rulers accountable without waiting for another coup, another war or another foreign intervention.