India rolled out the red carpet for an unlikely guest last week: Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. An important turning point in relations between New Delhi and Kabul, Muttaqi’s visit — the first by a Taliban minister to India — saw the Narendra Modi government announce a major upgrade of its relations with the regime in Kabul.
Following talks between India’s Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar and Muttaqi, New Delhi announced that it was upgrading its current “technical” mission in Kabul, which has been in place since 2022 to facilitate trade, medical support and humanitarian aid, to a full-scale embassy. With this, India joins about a dozen countries, including China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkiye, that have full-fledged embassies in Kabul.
Muttaqi’s six-day visit to India came after he obtained a temporary travel exemption from a U.N. Security Council committee; he is still subject to UN sanctions that include travel bans and asset freezes.
Although India has not extended diplomatic recognition to the Kabul regime, the upgrade of the bilateral relationship opens a new chapter in its ties with Afghanistan, and comes at a time when relations between the Taliban regime and Pakistan, which supported and sustained the Taliban for decades, have deteriorated significantly.
For decades, India had refrained from engaging the Taliban, given the latter’s closeness to the Pakistani military and its disregard for women’s rights, among other reasons. However, following the Taliban’s capture of power in Kabul in August 2021, relations between the Taliban and Pakistan began to fray, opening up space for India to reach out to the new rulers in Afghanistan. It led to India reviewing and reworking its strategy in the rapidly changing geopolitical landscape of South Asia.
India’s red-carpet welcome to Muttaqi at New Delhi is part of that strategy.
In New Delhi, Jaishankar met Muttaqi at Hyderabad House, where India generally hosts heads of state and government, foreign ministers, and other dignitaries visiting India.
Following his meeting with Muttaqi, Jaishankar listed a series of projects and measures that India would undertake to advance ties and affirm “the enduring friendship” between India and Afghanistan.
Positioning India as a “contiguous neighbour and a well-wisher of the Afghan people,” Jaishankar announced six new projects for people’s welfare in Afghanistan. These include the construction of a 30-bed hospital in Kabul’s Bagrami district, an Oncology Center and a Trauma Center in Kabul, and five Maternity Health Clinics in the provinces of Paktika, Khost, and Paktia. The assistance package that Jaishankar unveiled for Afghanistan during the discussions with Muttaqi also included a gift of 20 ambulances, medical scanning devices, immunization and cancer medication, reconstruction of houses hit by earthquakes in September, and shelters for Afghan refugees repatriated from neighboring Pakistan and Iran.
India also offered to help Afghanistan manage its water resources and support the Afghan cricket team. It is also increasing visas for Afghans wishing to travel to India for business, educational, or medical reasons. Jaishankar welcomed Muttaqi’s invitation to Indian companies to explore mineral deposits in Afghanistan and boost trade.
Underlining a common commitment to prosperity, Jaishankar pointed to the “shared threat of cross-border terrorism” that had the potential to derail the development goals of both India and Afghanistan. He urged the Taliban minister to coordinate anti-terrorism efforts with India and said he appreciated the Kabul government’s sensitivity toward India’s security concerns. The reference was to the Taliban condemning the terrorist attack at Pahalgam in Kashmir on April 22 that killed 26 people. India had blamed Pakistan for the attack.
Jaishankar also stressed India’s commitment to Afghanistan’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence. This came in the context of Pakistan conducting bombing campaigns inside Afghanistan to take out groups inimical to Islamabad.
In fact, on October 9, the day Muttaqi landed in India, Pakistan carried out precision airstrikes on Kabul, allegedly targeted at Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Noor Wali Mehsud. Since then, fighting has escalated along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Following his meeting with Jaishankar, Muttaqi said Afghanistan viewed India as a close friend. “We want relations based on mutual respect, trade and people-to-people ties. We are ready to create a consultative mechanism to strengthen our relations.”
“I am happy to be in Delhi, and this visit will increase the understanding between the two countries. India and Afghanistan should increase their engagements and exchanges… We will not allow any group to use our territory against others,” he added.
The comments offer an insight into the complicated relationship between India and the Taliban. Traditionally, India has been wary of the hardline group that emerged from the southern Kandahar region in 1994 with the help of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
When the group took control of Afghanistan for the first time in 1996, India joined hands with Iran and Russia to prop up an anti-Taliban alliance headed by Tajik leader Ahmed Shah Masood.
In 1999, when Pakistani militants hijacked an Indian Airlines passenger aircraft flying from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu to New Delhi, India freed three terrorists jailed for attacks in Kashmir to secure the release of 160 hostages. The exchange took place in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan’s Kandahar airport. The freed terrorists and hijackers reappeared within days in Pakistan, underlining the close links between the Taliban and Pakistan. One of the terrorists freed by India was Maulana Masood Azhar, who went on to found the now U.N.-proscribed Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist group.
India and the Taliban remained on opposite sides following the ouster of the Taliban from power by a U.S.-led coalition in late 2001. New Delhi not only strongly supported the Western-backed Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani governments but also assisted reconstruction efforts in the war-ravaged country by spending almost $3 billion on people-centric projects between 2002 and 2021. During this period, the Taliban targeted and killed Indian personnel working on road and engineering projects. A major attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July 2008, which claimed the lives of two Indian diplomats and two security personnel, was carried out by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani Network.
Consequently, it was not surprising that when the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in August 2021, it was seen as a serious blow to India’s security and economic interests in Afghanistan. It prompted India to move its embassy staff out of Kabul and shut down its consulates in Herat, Kandahar, Jalalabad and Mazar-e-Sharif.
The announcement regarding the re-opening of the Indian embassy in Kabul is therefore a milestone in India’s efforts to reset ties with the Taliban.
While this is a triumph for Indian diplomacy, New Delhi must remain cautious as Pakistan will step up its own efforts to curb Indian influence in Afghanistan.
Indeed, on October 9, within hours of Muttaqi landing in India, explosions were reported in Kabul, with news reports speculating that these were drone strikes by Pakistan. Islamabad, which has been unhappy with the Taliban for not reining in the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that routinely targets Pakistani interests, has been accusing India of fomenting terrorism in Pakistan through Afghanistan. As tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban wax and wane, India will have to be careful that it doesn’t get caught in the crossfire and that the safety of Indian nationals in Afghanistan is not jeopardized.
Another element in this mix is an effort by China, India’s strategic rival, to broker peace between Pakistan and the Taliban. Under an agreement reached in May, Pakistan, China and Afghanistan agreed to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) into Afghanistan. China has reportedly promised to invest in Afghanistan on the condition that the Taliban regime reins in the TTP. Stability in the region is crucial for the success of CPEC.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump has floated the idea to retake control of Bagram airbase just outside Kabul. The Taliban has rejected the U.S. demand, a position that has found support in Beijing, New Delhi, and Moscow.
Speculation over the U.S. seeking to retake Bagram comes amid rapidly warming Pakistan-U.S. relations. There are reports that the Trump administration is keen on drilling for oil and prospecting for rare earth minerals in Pakistan. The warming of Pakistan-U.S. ties comes as U.S. relations with India have hit turbulence.
With its outreach to the Taliban and its all-out courting of the regime, India has made a decisive move. But the road ahead is uncertain. There are many variables in the mix. There are at least two key elements that India will need to watch closely. One is how Pakistan responds to the New Delhi-Taliban rapprochement. In its first response to Muttaqi’s India visit, Pakistan strongly objected to references to Kashmir in the Afghanistan-India joint statement, reports said.
The second key element is whether India can rely on the security guarantees from the Taliban. At present, New Delhi is not so sure, which is perhaps why India is holding back from recognizing the Taliban government in Kabul, although the Indian foreign ministry addressed Muttaqi as “foreign minister.”