Jan 10, 2025 07:20 IST First published on: Jan 10, 2025 at 07:20 IST
Governments might come and go in Kabul, but India’s ties with Afghanistan have largely retained their strategic character. India’s stepped-up engagement with the Taliban — marked by the recent meeting of Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri with the acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai — underlines this basic geopolitical reality of the Subcontinent. When the Taliban stormed back into power in August 2021, it was widely lamented as a major setback to India’s regional policy. After all, India had been a strong partner for the government led by anti-Taliban forces. The return of the Taliban was also viewed as a major gain for Pakistan, which was deeply hostile to the regime that fell in Kabul. Yet, since its return, the Taliban consistently signaled its eagerness to improve relations with India. Delhi has been cautious in its interaction with the Taliban. That policy has changed now with the elevation of the engagement to the level of foreign secretary. Delhi has responded to requests from Kabul for Indian support for humanitarian assistance and developmental cooperation.
The slow but certain drift in Delhi towards normal relations with Kabul underlines an enduring geopolitical reality of the Subcontinent. Irrespective of the nature of the regime in Kabul — monarchical, communist or Islamist of different kinds — there has been a natural warmth between Delhi and Kabul. That India and Afghanistan do not have any bilateral dispute is one factor; that they share cross-border problems from Pakistan is another. Kabul has long resented the Pakistan army’s brazen meddling in its internal affairs and its treating Afghanistan as its backyard. Kabul has looked to Delhi to balance the pressures from Rawalpindi. Pakistan has sought to break this paradigm by conscious efforts to promote radical Islam in Afghanistan and groom the Taliban as an anti-Indian force. That policy has failed one more time. The tensions between Kabul and Rawalpindi have not disappeared.
Although the logic of geopolitics is moving Delhi closer to Kabul, there are two issues of concern for India. One, the domestic orientation of the Taliban regime — its repression of the population and intolerable oppression of women in particular, who are being denied basic rights such as education and minimal personal freedoms. To be sure, India does not have the power to alter the internal politics of Afghanistan; realism suggests that Delhi must deal with whichever government is in power in Kabul. Yet, India cannot give up its core values, it must nudge the Taliban towards political and social moderation. That the meeting with the Taliban officials took place in Dubai is a reminder that India can work with the United Arab Emirates and other moderate Arab states in promoting positive changes inside Afghanistan. The second issue is Delhi’s unfortunate abandonment of its previous allies in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power. This included a heart-breaking refusal to give visas to many Afghans who had actively supported India over the decades. Winning new friends in Kabul might be smart; but losing old friends is not wise.
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