India has traditionally cooperated closely with the central governments in Afghanistan, standing as one of the friendly countries. This friendship and cooperation were not established with the first government of the Taliban group. Now that the Taliban has regained power after August 2021, India, like several other countries, has reopened its embassy in Kabul, establishing relations with the Taliban group, known as “interaction,” in the last two years.
India, which was considered one of the friendly countries of the opposition front of this group during the first rule of the Taliban, this time has not even allowed its old friends to stay and seek asylum. Instead, it has reopened its embassy in Taliban-controlled Kabul, albeit in a limited way. Additionally, by applying pressure and imposing restrictions, it has also closed the Afghan embassy in Delhi, so that it will eventually come under the control of the Taliban. This shift in India’s position and opening of a new chapter in its relations with the Taliban is not due to the change of the Taliban but is influenced by the situation of the Taliban opponents in Afghanistan and the general atmosphere of the world in favor of interaction with this group and more importantly, the political-security interests of Delhi.
India’s old friends in Afghanistan are unable to change the situation in the country for now. Their influence on the political-security situation of Afghanistan is very minimal and insufficient to encourage India to invest in these streams. On the other hand, India needs to be present on the playing field in order not to leave Afghanistan’s field empty to its rival or enemy.
India continues its rivalry with China and hostility with Pakistan in Afghanistan. In terms of economy, political prestige, science and technology, and most fields, India does not compete with Pakistan and considers it smaller than it, but instead competes with China in Asia as a superior economy and a rising military power. There are also some border disputes between these two most populous countries in the world. However, his enmity with Pakistan continues. If these two countries have a strong presence in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban and are considered to be very close friends of this group, if India is absent from Afghanistan, it has lost the field to these two countries. The strong presence of this country in Afghanistan can disturb Pakistan and China to some extent, providing political and security interests to Delhi. Avoiding the Taliban and severing ties with Afghanistan under the control of this group will not benefit Delhi, on the contrary, it will leave the Taliban and Afghanistan in the hands of its rival and enemy.
Delhi also needs the land of Afghanistan and its rulers to pursue its enmity with Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban group has the status of the mother group compared to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). No individuals or groups or government has the influence and power of control that the Afghan Taliban have over the TTP. Therefore, if the government and any organization seeking to curb TTP, it must pass through the Afghan Taliban. The government of Pakistan started negotiations with the Pakistani Taliban through them, which failed and did not reach the desired result of Islamabad. On the other hand, if a country or organization wants to use TTP instrumentally, it must also go through this passage. India does not mind creating more problems for the Pakistani government inside its territory. If Delhi can communicate with the Pakistani Taliban through the Afghan Taliban and thus pressure Islamabad, it will not hesitate to do so. Even now, among Pakistani politicians, India is accused of fueling the sentiments of Pashtunism and separatism in Pakistan.
Additionally, the general atmosphere in the world can be affected by the change in India’s foreign policy towards Afghanistan. The beginning of India’s relations with the Taliban coincides with the beginning of the Doha talks. Delhi aligned with the same current when the world no longer called the Taliban terrorists and came to compromise with them and gave them more platforms every day. It was there that the largest democracy in the world came out after establishing a relationship with the Taliban and gave up on democratic Afghanistan or supporting the democratization of Afghanistan.
The issue of democratization of Afghanistan has lost its importance for countries like the United States and its NATO partners, as well as for India. Democracy and secularism are important in India itself or the United States and its partners in NATO, but none of these countries are ready to accept unlimited costs for these values. Therefore, democratic India can work alongside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, if it can secure its security and political interests, the way the US can work with this group.
On the other hand, the current government of India, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is extremely nationalistic. Modi and his government are trying to move from a pluralistic society to a homogeneous one. For this reason, the policies that the Taliban have taken to unify Afghanistan’s plural society, and in this way, they do not spare any kind of atrocities, seem to satisfy the current Indian government.
The shadow of conflict and enmity between India and Pakistan is cast over Afghanistan. India, which was the loser when the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan fell to the hands of the Taliban, and its friendly government has handed over the country to its enemy’s proxy group, does not want to remain a loser. The government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan had perhaps the friendliest relations among the countries of the region with India. The level of cooperation between the two sides and the level of financial and educational assistance from India to Afghanistan was very high. This country implemented several hundred-million-dollar projects for Afghanistan, with the Salma dam and the parliament building being two prominent examples of this country’s aid. India gave more than a thousand scholarships every year, thousands of other students studied at the country’s universities at their own expense, and more importantly, it trained Afghan soldiers.
Pakistan, which was upset and worried about the training of Afghan soldiers by India, tried many times to gain the trust of the Afghan government and train Afghan soldiers and officers as an alternative to India, but it failed to establish this trust. In early 2015, when former Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani had just come to power and was talking about his foreign policy circles, he tried to normalize Afghanistan’s relations with Pakistan or at least reduce the amount of tension. At the same time, General Raheel Sharif, then Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army, traveled to Kabul and met with Ghani government officials. He once again suggested that Afghan officers and soldiers be sent to Pakistan for training. Following his suggestion, Ghani’s government sent six officers to Pakistan for an 18-month training course at the Kakul Military Academy in Abbottabad. Ghani’s government’s relations with Pakistan did not go according to Kabul’s wishes, ultimately ending up with two sides entering a new phase of conflict. As more time passed since the beginning of President Ghani’s rule, these relations became more strained, to the point that at the end of the republic, Ghani’s national security advisor took childish and hateful positions towards Pakistan.
On the other hand, the relations between the Afghan government and the Indian government were very friendly both during the time of President Karzai and during the time of President Ghani. Creating trust between Kabul and Delhi and maintaining it coupled with India’s huge financial aid to Afghanistan had given this country significant influence in Afghanistan. This upset Pakistan. When the Taliban dominated Afghanistan as the followers of Pakistani schools and the group supported by the Pakistani government and army, India considered everything it had built to build trust and expand its influence in the Afghan government to be destroyed.
Therefore, he had no more than three options. He could forget about Afghanistan and accept its loss to Pakistan on Afghan soil or enter into a close interaction with the opposition of the Taliban and thereby maintain its influence over Afghanistan, or enter into an interaction with the Taliban group and partially remove this group from the unilateral control of Pakistan. India had chosen the third option since 2019 when the Doha talks began, and the opposing currents of the Taliban in Afghanistan do not have enough strength and cohesion to influence the situation to persuade India to change its approach.
In 2019, India appointed an Afghan expert as its ambassador to Doha to build relations with the Taliban, which had a political office there. From the same year onwards, since the public atmosphere had changed from hostility towards the Taliban towards interaction with this group, India also adjusted itself according to the public wave, entering an interaction with the Taliban. However, India’s relationship with the Taliban was not to the extent of raising Pakistan’s concerns or creating trust between the two sides. Therefore, when the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan fell to the hands of the Taliban India did not see much room for itself in Afghanistan. However, nearly a year after the Taliban took over, India sent a delegation to Kabul and then reopened its embassy, but did not send an ambassador. Although India has entered relatively close interaction with the Taliban, it does not ignore Pakistan’s influence on this group. The unreliability of the Taliban will not be overlooked. For this reason, this country still observes caution in establishing relations with the Taliban. The reopening of the embassy is important for India to restore its influence in Kabul, somehow reduce Pakistan’s unilateral control over the Taliban, and monitor the situation closely. Not sending an ambassador to this embassy and limiting its scope of activity shows Delhi’s caution. India’s foreign minister once stated that he could not make a judgment about Afghanistan so soon and therefore would not send an ambassador to Afghanistan, although he would keep the embassy open.
However, India’s relations with the Taliban cannot be friendly forever. Just as India’s political-security interests have led this country to establish relations with the Taliban, if tomorrow these interests are provided from somewhere else or if the Taliban are unable to provide them, these relations can be severed. If the Taliban fail to maintain a balance between friendship with countries like India and surrender to Pakistan, it will still affect Delhi’s relations with Taliban-controlled Kabul.
