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On January 8, 2024, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Mishri met the Afghan Taliban’s acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Mottaki, in Dubai. Although the two sides had been in contact for over 14 months, this recent meeting is the highest-level meeting between the two countries so far.

In March 2024, the Indian Foreign Ministry’s Joint Secretary also met Afghan Taliban officials in Kabul.

After the fall of Kabul in August 2021, New Delhi abandoned its diplomatic and development activities in Afghanistan due to security concerns. However, India maintains contact with the Afghan interim government in two areas.

First, India has opened communication channels with the Afghan government using humanitarian assistance as a medium. Second, India has reached out to Afghan officials in the Emirates for diplomatic outreach.

In November 2023, New Delhi slowly and cautiously began to engage with the Afghan Taliban. These meetings resulted in significant progress in bilateral relations, with Indian officials pledging to increase humanitarian assistance.

India has already sent over 47,000 metric tons of wheat, according to the United Nations World Food Program. In addition, Delhi has also provided 200 tons of medical aid.

Similarly, secret diplomatic activities between India and the Afghan Taliban led to the permanent closure of the Ghani administration’s embassy in New Delhi. Later, the Taliban’s envoy in Abu Dhabi was invited to the Republic Day celebrations in the emirate.

There are also major economic reasons behind the relationship between India and the Taliban.

There are several reasons behind India’s pro-Taliban policy. First, the international community is continuously engaging with the Taliban government. The United States is talking to the Taliban in Qatar.

China is expanding its ties with Kabul in the security, economic, and political spheres. Regional countries and the Arab world are also cautiously engaging with the Afghan interim government. Therefore, India wants to avoid being “strategically isolated” from Afghanistan.

Second, after the fall of Kabul, the Indian media and opposition parties tried to portray the victory of the Afghan Taliban as a “Pakistan victory”. The opposition parties criticized Narendra Modi over his Afghanistan policy.

In addition, the BJP government has been criticized for its weak policy with neighboring countries due to its failures in the Maldives and Bangladesh. Re-establishing ties with the Afghan Taliban is an attempt to silence the Modi government’s critics.

Third, there are major economic factors that have brought New Delhi closer to the Taliban. Before the fall of Kabul, India was implementing infrastructure and energy projects worth about $3 billion in Afghanistan.

After the Taliban took power, Indian engineers abandoned the projects and diplomatic staff vacated diplomatic buildings for security reasons. India may be interested in resuming these activities.

Moreover, lithium has now become a sought-after commodity for the world. Various studies have estimated the value of Afghanistan’s mineral resources to be over $1 trillion.

Key mineral resources include chromium, copper, gold, iron ore, lead and zinc, lithium, marble and precious and semi-precious stones. The BJP-led NDA government is already pushing for electric vehicle (EV) production in India.

Lithium will be required for EV batteries. Afghanistan can therefore meet India’s mineral needs through the Chabahar port in Iran.

However, India’s relationship with the Afghan Taliban government also has its limitations. For example, the Taliban’s policies on girls’ education and women’s rights are unlikely to be met with international and regional consensus.

Indian officials and strategic circles continue to criticize the Taliban’s decisions on girls’ education, women’s participation in the workforce and the exclusion of ethnic minorities from the government.

Therefore, the Modi government will not take a major step like granting formal recognition to the Afghan Taliban. As a result, despite its political and economic ties with Kabul, New Delhi will continue to express concerns about the Taliban’s policies.

Also, India’s role in Afghanistan’s internal political affairs will remain silent. For example, despite India’s good relations with Tajik and Uzbek leaders before the fall of Kabul, India has no interest in a settlement between the Taliban and Afghan ethnic minorities.

At best, India could increase the number of diplomatic staff in Kabul and appoint a designated officer there. In addition, Delhi-Kabul cooperation could increase visas for Afghan students and patients. New Delhi could also resume development activities that were halted after the fall of the Ghani administration.

India is offering the Taliban interim government the use of Karachi port as an alternative to Chabahar port, reducing Kabul’s dependence on Islamabad. Strategically, increasing Afghan interests in Chabahar makes sense for India, as this increased interest would force the Afghan Taliban to provide security for Indian goods to Central Asia.

In the long term, creating sustainable access for commercial activities in Central Asia is a major goal for India. Similarly, India has condemned Pakistan’s airstrikes in Afghanistan, which would strengthen the Taliban against pressure from Islamabad.

It is clear that India—albeit cautiously—has abandoned its previous policy of limited engagement with the Afghan Taliban. In the last three years, India has emphasized humanitarian assistance.

However, New Delhi now seems quite keen to expand bilateral cooperation with the Afghan Taliban based on strategic, economic and political considerations.Dawn

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