Why is India courting the Taliban now? | Taliban news

A meeting in Dubai between Indian Foreign Minister Vikram Misri and Amir Khan Muttaki, acting foreign minister of the Taliban, on Wednesday this week confirmed India's intentions to increase its influence among the Afghan leadership, analysts say.

India has been gradually improving its relations with the Taliban over the past year, but this latest meeting marks the first high-level engagement of its kind.

India has invested more than $3 billion in aid and reconstruction in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, and a statement from India's foreign ministry laid out the usual talking points: regional development, trade and humanitarian cooperation, plus an agreement to resume development and aid projects of the health sector and refugees in Afghanistan.

But what was left unsaid in that statement – ​​but which was evident from the timing and agenda of that meeting – signaled a shift in geopolitical realities in the region.

First, the meeting comes just days after India condemned Pakistan air attacks for Afghanistan, which have reportedly killed at least 46 people in the past month.

This also comes after the Taliban appointed acting consul at the Afghan consulate in Mumbai in November last year.

Although the Indian government did not comment on the appointment, the timing coincided with the visit of the Joint Secretary of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs to Kabul that month.

The Taliban's deployment in Mumbai of Ikramuddin Kamil, a former Afghan student in India turned Taliban diplomat, puts India on a growing list of countries, including Russia, China, Turkey, Iran and Uzbekistan, that have allowed the Taliban to take over operations in Afghan embassies . Earlier, in 2022, India also sent a small technical team to partially open its embassy in Kabul.

A strategic shift?

These recent developments signal deepening ties between New Delhi and Kabul, observers say.

But the move may not be the strategic shift it seems, said Kabir Taneja, deputy director and fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank. “This is just a natural development of India's cautious and protracted approach to the reality of the Taliban in Kabul since 2021. this way,” he said. “Like other neighbours, for India, the Taliban is a reality and neglecting Afghanistan and the Afghan people is not an option.”

Raghav Sharma, associate professor at the Jindal School of International Affairs in New Delhi, agreed. “I think this is a continuation of the previous policy where we as a species engage with the Taliban but don't really want to acknowledge the depth of our engagement,” he said, noting that policy rarely comes from such dialogues.

“When it comes to diplomatic engagement with the Taliban, we have remained on the fringes,” he added, citing a study by the Washington Institute, a US think tank that analyzes international engagement with the Taliban. The survey found that countries including Qatar, China and Turkey led the way in developing relations with the Taliban, with Pakistan in fifth place.

“India is not even on the list,” Sharma said.

“For the longest time, India has been saying that Afghanistan is a country of strategic importance and we have had historical ties, but then we have to talk,” Sharma added. “Since the fall of the Republican government, we've put Afghanistan in cold storage, dealing with it only when we need to, on an ad hoc basis.”

Indian reluctance remains

One positive move that could come out of all this, Taneja said, is the prospect of visas for Afghans. “The main takeaway from the Misri-Muttaqi engagement is that India may be close to restarting a tranche of visas for Afghans, particularly in trade, health tourism and education,” he said.

India has been criticized for suspending Afghan visas, including medical and student visas, after the Taliban takeover in 2021. Since then, it has issued very few visas to Afghans. “It is high time New Delhi came to do this,” Taneja said. “This will bring relief to many Afghan nationals who have been using India as their preferred choice for attaining higher education, medical care, etc.”

Sharma said he did not expect more visas to be issued due to security concerns. “At the end of the day, the Taliban is an ideological movement and their resurgence in power has led to a surge of radicalization, which will be a challenge,” he said.

India should also continue to engage in the region. “He believes that by keeping the channel open to the Taliban, they will be able to engage them on at least some issues that matter to India. Will the Taliban succeed is another question because what leverage do we have against the Taliban?” he added.

The meeting was needed more by the Taliban than by India, Sharma said. As the group engages in military clashes with Pakistan, a former ally of the Taliban, it is eager to demonstrate that it has a wider range of capabilities.

“They (Taliban) want to show (autonomy) especially to Pakistan. But it also helps them play against the larger propaganda that they have no strategic autonomy, no agency and that they are just puppets of Pakistan,” he said, referring to the Taliban's performance on the international stage, which analysts say has been influenced by Pakistan's military presence .

Cautious steps or just lack of strategy?

There are other reasons why India may be reluctant to go further with the Taliban. Closer ties could put the “world's largest democracy” in an ethical quagmire, analysts say.

“India has long tried to advertise and position itself as the world's largest democracy, but has failed to even condemn the ban on girls' education in Afghanistan. There was absolute silence on these matters. So what signal are we sending to the population back home?” asked Sharma.

India maintains a strong presence in Afghanistan and was one of the first countries to send a diplomatic mission after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Despite significant interests in the region, however, India lacks a coherent policy towards the country.

“Whatever maneuvers India has wanted to do, it has always done in concert with other powers with whom we have found convergence of interests. It was largely Iran and Russia in the past and then the Americans,” Sharma said. After the fall of the US-backed republican government, India found itself in a new situation.

As many countries around the world quickly adjusted to the new reality, India put Afghanistan in “cold storage,” Sharma reiterated. Even the US, he said, “is working with the Taliban on counterterrorism to deal with ISKP.” The ISKP (Islamic State in Khorasan Province) is a regional branch of ISIS and is known to operate in Afghanistan.

At the same time, “countries like Iran that allowed and facilitated the Taliban, even Pakistan, kept the channels of communication open to the opposition,” Sharma added. “Iran hosts opposition figures like Ismael Khan. The Tajik government, which was initially very critical of the Taliban, is no longer so, but continues to accommodate the opposition.

“We're putting all our eggs in the Taliban basket”

Now stakeholders in the region are assessing what the new Trump administration in the United States could mean for the Taliban.

“Afghanistan has disappeared from the political consciousness in Washington, D.C.,” Taneja said. While the country remains relevant on the security front, it “will not displace more pressing issues such as Gaza, Iran and Ukraine.”

What will happen next is hard to say, he added. “Trump's strategies are similar to daily weather forecasting. However, any Taliban opposition trying to gain strength may find a more accessible ear under Trump than ever under Biden.

Ultimately, despite being the strongest power in the region, India has failed to engage with various players in Afghanistan, isolating its interests in the long run. “We initially made the mistake of putting all our eggs in (Hamid) Karzai's (former Afghan president) basket and then in (Ashraf) Ghani's basket.” We did it in Bangladesh too and threw all our support behind Sheikh Hasina.”

Fixing this may take time as India may also lack a crucial understanding of Afghan society, Taneja said.

“It's not just about cultivating connections at the political level, but also about understanding how certain socio-political settings work. I don't think India has that understanding, which is ironic because we are close to them geographically (and) culturally. And yet we have invested very little in trying to understand society,” he said.

“I believe we are repeating the same mistake and putting all our eggs in the Taliban basket,” Taneja said, warning that Afghanistan's political climate has always been very volatile.

“The soil is moving very quickly,” he added.