The showdown in the Oval office between United States President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month and the subsequent developments were watched everywhere, but they have echoed the loudest for Afghans around the world, many of whom live in exile. The comparisons to how the U.S. — under Mr. Trump and then former President Joe Biden — lost interest, cut funding, pulled out stakes and left it to be ruled by the Taliban regime, were evident.
A reflection of the present
What may surprise many is how other U.S. actions resemble the present: in September 2017, for example, Mr. Trump shook hands with then-President Ashraf Ghani for a deal that would give U.S. companies access to rare earth mineral deposits in Afghanistan. In July 2018, U.S. officials began talks with the Taliban directly, without bringing the elected Ghani government on board. In February 2020, they announced the Doha Accords — heavily skewed in the Taliban’s favour — virtually accepting the narrative that the Taliban were the representatives of Afghanistan, extracting no binding commitments on a political process, shutting terror camps, securing rights of women or minorities. This flawed ceasefire accord was presented as a fait accompli to the Afghan government, which turned tail and fled, easing the path for the Taliban.
The years that followed have shown what the cost of that compromise for a ceasefire was. Even though the regime has not so far been recognised by any country, Taliban 2.0 (2021-present) has a firmer grip on the country, is more brutal to women, and is less tolerant of any opposition. That they are able to ban girls from school, college, all employment, and even from sight, is all the more horrifying as it follows two decades when such official restrictions did not exist, women worked in many spheres, and Afghanistan even had a woman candidate for President. While the past (2001-2021) was by no means utopian, the present is clearly hell-like. The situation led a speaker at a recent conference of exiles in Spain to say that rather than the “Great Game”, Afghanistan today was witnessing a “Great Abandonment”.
The U.S. and Europe have washed their hands of the problem inside Afghanistan, while Russia, China, Pakistan, and the Central and West Asian countries have embraced the regime within it, allowing the Taliban flag to fly at embassies of the erstwhile Republic.
India has been teetering on the edge, not allowing a Taliban-appointed Ambassador into the Embassy in New Delhi, but not supporting the Republic’s diplomats either. After closing its embassy in Kabul in 2021, India reopened a “technical mission” in 2022, engaging Taliban ministers at the level of a Ministry of External Affairs official. That may be set to change, as a wide range of sources say that India is now negotiating to expand its presence in Kabul, while allowing a Taliban-appointed Ambassador to serve in Delhi. In addition to the humanitarian aid it sends, India also wants to revive its development projects in Afghanistan. Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri’s meeting with Taliban Acting Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, in Dubai in January 2025, that discussed these possibilities, was the first such meeting announced publicly, as, thus far, it was the Joint Secretary in charge of the region who dealt with Taliban ‘Ministers’.
Engaging with Taliban 2.0
What then is prompting the Narendra Modi government, especially given the Bharatiya Janata Party’s political base, to make overtures to the band of radical Islamists that controls Kabul? Several reasons are being proffered by officials, who mostly pitch this as a matter of pragmatism and realpolitik.
The first is that the “Taliban is here to stay”, and it makes sense for India to come to terms with it. While some engagement with the Afghan regime is inevitable in this second tenure, there is no reason to believe that the Taliban’s grip is eternal. Already, reports indicate the tussle between Haqqani factions and Kandahari clerics over the issue of girls education has grown serious. According to the reports, Sher Abbas Stanekzai and Sirajuddin Haqqani, who are both India’s main interlocutors within the Taliban, have had to flee the country for suggesting that the restrictions on females were unfair. The Taliban’s mismanagement of the economy, and the drying up of foreign assistance, especially now with the Trump administration’s freeze on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and even the Chabahar port, will squeeze the situation further. A surge in refugees being returned by Pakistan and tensions with Pakistan along the Durand Line will exacerbate these fault-lines.
The second explanation, that India can help common Afghans only by working closely with the Taliban, is easily refuted. Between 1996 and 2001, India had kept up aid consignments to Afghanistan through other aid agencies. In any case, it is hardly likely that the Taliban would refuse to accept aid from India, given its importance.
The third explanation is that India would lose strategic space in Afghanistan by not reopening its embassy there when all other countries in its neighbourhood have. However, expecting strategic space from the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate, given its ideology, is a risky proposition. The relationship India forged with the Afghan Republic: a strategic partnership (Afghanistan’s first), intelligence sharing with the National Directorate of Security (NDS), and working with the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) to protect Indian interests, cannot be built with the Taliban. If Taliban 2.0 has not changed from Taliban 1.0 in other respects, it would be foolhardy to assume a change of heart on India too, given how the group targeted Indian missions, workers, diplomats and security force personnel for the 25 years prior to the takeover of Kabul.
New Delhi should worry instead about losing mind-space amongst Afghans, who have been deeply disappointed by the Modi government’s decision not to open out visas for Afghans fleeing the Taliban in 2021, including those who risked their lives to protect Indians. According to officials privy to a high-level meeting on the issue, India’s security establishment worried that those who come as “refugees” would later prove to be “terrorists”.
The lived experience, however, is that those who took shelter in India in the past and came as students, patients and traders, built reservoirs of goodwill for India back home and proved invaluable in positions of power during the tenures of President Hamid Karzai and Ghani. The legacy of India’s support to leaders of the Northern Alliance such as Ahmad Shah Massoud (1990s) has lived on in the hearts of many who are hurt by the harsh rejection they face today, even as India moves closer into a clinch with the Taliban.
Reversing policy
For all these reasons, the government must study the developing situation in Afghanistan more closely and reconsider any plans to allow the creeping Talibanisation of the Embassy in Delhi. Ties with the regime in Kabul may be a necessity, but there is an urgent need to rebuild ties with those opposed to the Taliban as well. India must speak up about the situation of women and provide them a platform when possible. It is surprising that with all its clout, The Board of Control for Cricket in India did not push the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) to recognise the Afghan women’s cricket team that has regrouped in Australia, or even to host the women’s team in India.
India should not shy away from allowing leaders of the exiled community to hold conferences and forums in India to raise their voice for political representation inside Afghanistan either. If there is one thing India’s past problems in its neighbourhood have revealed, it is that New Delhi must engage with those in power, without abandoning contact with others across the political spectrum, if it wants to remain relevant in all eventualities and outcomes.
suhasini.h@thehindu.co.in
Published – March 26, 2025 12:16 am IST
