The four-day visit of Afghan Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi to New Delhi widely represents the highest-level engagement between the Taliban and India since the group took over Kabul in August 2021. For New Delhi, the gradual building of ties with the Taliban has been essentially driven by pragmatic diplomacy, but, more significantly, by a calculated effort to reclaim strategic space in Afghanistan. Since the Cold War, Afghanistan served as a critical third space for the India-Pakistan rivalry, with both countries vying for strategic depth in the region. In that context, New Delhi extended support to Western-backed governments in Kabul, while Islamabad cultivated the Taliban insurgency.
India's engagements with the Taliban could be viewed through a lens of deliberately calibrated stages. In 2022, New Delhi deployed a “technical team” to Kabul after closing down its diplomatic missions after a year of closing down its embassies and consulates. This limited presence was tasked with overseeing humanitarian aid projects. By late 2023, India took a formal step by permitting the Taliban to appoint an official envoy, and subsequently opened diplomatic consulates in Mumbai and Hyderabad. Over the years, Indian officials also increased direct interactions with the Taliban in third locations. Earlier in January, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai. Now, with Muttaqi's visit, India announced its decision to upgrade its technical mission in Kabul to a full-fledged embassy, thus informing New Delhi's shift from cautious backchannel talks to a more structured bilateral relationship.
On October 10, India-Taliban issued a joint statement gesturing a shift from value-based, pro-republic position to an interest-based engagement, in comparison to previously issued statements under Western-backed governments. Firstly, by engaging directly with the Taliban's interim foreign minister, New Delhi can be seen conferring a substantial degree of de-facto recognition to the current regime. At its core, the agreement remains consistently focused on humanitarian guarantees, economic engagements, and security assurance that Afghan soil will not be used for anti-India activities by terror groups. It further reaffirms India's commitment to development aid and indicates new economic investments, particularly in Afghanistan's mining sector. The statement essentially illustrates India's prioritisation of economic investments and national security over ideological protestation to the Taliban's form of governance.
A stable and friendly Afghanistan for India is crucial for its “Connect Central Asia” policy, aimed at accessing the energy-rich Central Asian states. The development of the Chabahar Port in Iran, a project heavily invested by India, remains a key component of this strategy, which provides a transit route to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan. In that light, the recent India-Taliban engagement carries a message that New Delhi is back in the Afghan game, and the rules are not written by Pakistan.
However, in contrast to the previous agreements between India and the former Afghan Republic were framed within the language of a “Strategic Partnership”, centered on shared democratic values, and support for pluralistic society. The absence of reference to women's rights, the protection of minority communities, and inclusive governance in the latest joint statement - issues that were central to India's previous positions - informs how geopolitical pragmatism has outweighed value-based diplomacy in the new phase of India-Afghanistan bilateral relationship.
The Pakistan Angle
The bilateral meeting sends a message to Pakistan from both sides. It demonstrates the Taliban's effort to diversify foreign policy and reduce historic dependence on Pakistan. Meanwhile, India sees this as an opening to build trust with the Taliban, a group whose hardline factions have previously been accused of targeting Indian nationals and assets in Afghanistan. More specifically, anti-India attacks in Afghanistan have often been attributed to the Haqqani Network, a faction closely aligned with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In that light, India's engagement with Muttaqi, a figure from the Taliban's Doha political office, likely facilitated the establishment of diplomatic channels, with the faction being perceived as relatively moderate. The most crucial element of the joint statement referring to the Taliban's “strong condemnation” of the attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in April reaffirms the group's endorsement of India's territorial integrity while directly challenging Islamabad's Kashmir narrative.
Geographically and strategically, amicable ties between Afghanistan and India have long been a source of unease for Pakistan. Islamabad's support for the Taliban was meant to ensure a friendly regime in Afghanistan that would prevent strategic encirclement. An India-friendly Taliban is therefore expected to return these anxieties. More significantly, these developments coincide with consistent hostility in Taliban-Pakistan ties in recent years, evidenced by the military clashes that erupted across the disputed Durand Line on October 11, resulting in casualties on both sides. These tensions stem from the Taliban's reluctance to curtail the activities of its ideological ally, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a group responsible for near-daily terror attacks in Pakistan's tribal belt. While these border clashes coincide with the Taliban's India visit, we must refrain from reading much into it considering that the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has previously conducted aerial strikes against alleged TTP bases in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime. Pakistan's apprehensions are also tied to the sensitive Pashtun belt, as close ties between Taliban and India could strengthen the Pashtun nationalism and dilute Pakistan's narrative of solidarity with Afghanistan. That said, both Afghanistan and Pakistan will want to prevent a military escalation, particularly considering the Taliban's limited conventional military capacity and resources. However, Pakistan's internal security challenges are expected to persist in the foreseeable future, driven by the continued activities of Islamist groups and Baloch outfits in the peripheral provinces.
Regional Implications
The timing of the visit coincides with tectonic movements across the region. Pakistan's ties have improved with Bangladesh under the interim chief Muhammad Yunus' leadership following the ouster of India-friendly Sheikh Hasina. At present, Islamabad's standing in the global community got a fresh momentum with its defense agreement with longstanding partner Saudi Arabia, and closeness to the Donald Trump-led US administration.
Meanwhile, India now views Afghanistan as a vector for connectivity and opening trade routes into Central Asia, as a counterbalance to Beijing-funded China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) routes. Engagements like these remain a part of the slow normalisation process, however, recognition of the Taliban administration by New Delhi in the formal sense remains far off.
(Aishwaria Sonavane is a research analyst at the Takshashila Institution)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
