Following the first visit of Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s acting foreign minister, to New Delhi, India’s foreign minister announced that his country has upgraded its level of engagement with Afghanistan and intends to reopen its embassy in Kabul. This development comes four years after the fall of the republic and the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, a period during which India effectively reduced its diplomatic presence to zero and, in 2022, limited itself to a small technical team in Kabul to oversee humanitarian aid operations.
On August 15, 2021, when the Taliban entered Kabul and India closed its embassy and consulates across Afghanistan, Pakistani media outlets and strategists optimistically declared the end of the strategic partnership between New Delhi and Kabul. However, with India’s gradual return to the Afghan stage and Pakistan’s unprecedented tensions with the Taliban, a new round of geopolitical rivalries is emerging in Afghanistan.
Relations between the Taliban and Pakistan have deteriorated sharply. Recent Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghan territory, including in Kabul and Paktika, illustrate the growing hostility. With both the Pakistani military and the Taliban now confirming direct attacks and exchanges of fire, the tensions have escalated into open armed clashes and simultaneous confrontations at multiple border points, unseen in the past four years.
The Taliban continue to support their former hosts, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), regarding this stance as both a religious duty and an expression of Pashtunwali (the Pashtun code of honor). Pakistan, meanwhile, views the TTP’s presence in Afghanistan as a direct threat to its national security and survival. The group’s daily attacks have provoked the anger of Pakistan’s military establishment.
The Strategic Rivalry between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan
For the past half-century, Afghanistan has remained a stage for competition between South Asia’s two nuclear-armed rivals, India and Pakistan. Although Afghanistan is not an official enemy of either country, both view it as a strategic arena where they can inflict maximum political and security costs on one another with minimal confrontation, a space suited for testing influence and managing threats at a safe distance.
Through its economic strength, cultural outreach, and soft power, India has successfully cultivated a positive image among both the Afghan public and political elites. The historically warm relations between Afghan leaders and New Delhi, India’s support for the Pashtunistan movement, and its opposition to the Durand Line have long agitated Islamabad. Pakistan, in turn, has decades of experience in arming, funding, and training Islamist militants, a card it has repeatedly used to counter India’s influence in Afghanistan.
Historic Failures in Maintaining Balance
Afghan leaders have long struggled to maintain a balance between India and Pakistan, a challenge that has repeatedly tested their diplomatic skill and political independence. Since the era of Mohammad Daoud Khan, when the equilibrium between the two neighbors first broke down, every subsequent regime, from leftist governments to the Mujahideen period, has found that leaning toward one side inevitably provokes the other.
Throughout Afghanistan’s recurring crises, India and Pakistan have consistently backed opposing camps. During the insurgency against the Soviet-backed regime, India supported the communist government. It maintained warm relations with it to the point that Dr. Najibullah, the last president of the leftist government, sought refuge in India as his rule collapsed. Pakistan, by contrast, supported and sheltered Islamist guerrilla groups fighting the Kabul regime.
During the Taliban’s first rule (1996–2001), Pakistan recognized and backed the Taliban government, while India supported the anti-Taliban resistance led by Ahmad Shah Massoud. Over the past two decades, India has sought to expand its influence by funding major infrastructure projects and cultivating ties with Afghanistan’s political elite, while Pakistan has financed and supported the Taliban as its main lever in the Afghan conflict.
During the 20 years of the republic, both President Hamid Karzai and President Ashraf Ghani tried in their own ways to maintain a delicate balance between New Delhi and Islamabad. Yet both ultimately tilted toward one side or the other. Hamid Karzai, educated in India and long familiar with Pakistan, made more effort than any other Afghan leader to sustain equal relations between the two. He visited Islamabad 20 times and made several trips to New Delhi, but still failed to establish equally strong and strategic ties with both capitals.
President Ghani, during his first visit to Pakistan, broke diplomatic convention by meeting with the Pakistani military’s General Headquarters and initially downgraded Kabul’s engagement with New Delhi. But soon, the balance shifted again, his relationship with Pakistan soured, culminating in open verbal clashes that lasted until the end of his rule. Leaders of the republic, from Karzai to Ghani and Abdullah, repeatedly admitted that peace in Afghanistan would be impossible without Pakistan’s cooperation.
The Taliban, India, and the Message to Pakistan
Today, the Taliban, a movement born from Pakistan’s long-term and direct support, faces both international isolation and internal pressure. In such a situation, rapprochement with India may serve as a tool of leverage against Islamabad. The Taliban’s message to Pakistan is clear: if the pressure continues, Kabul could turn to Pakistan’s historic rival, India.
This time, however, the issue extends beyond maintaining diplomatic balance. The question of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has become central. Pakistani officials have repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban of hosting TTP fighters, while claiming that India provides financial support to the group to destabilize Pakistan.
India’s formal return to Kabul, particularly through the reopening of its embassy, is likely to heighten regional geopolitical tensions. Should Pakistan perceive India as a key player in Afghanistan, it will almost certainly revive its support for anti-Taliban factions. No country, after all, possesses Pakistan’s experience or capability in backing armed opposition movements in Afghanistan. Following Amir Khan Muttaqi’s recent visit to New Delhi, Pakistani media began warning of an emerging “Taliban–TTP–India triangle” against Pakistan. Islamabad’s recent air and artillery strikes across the Afghan border suggest that the Taliban have miscalculated the consequences of confrontation with Pakistan.
Afghanistan: A Victim of Regional Rivalry
In the end, Afghanistan remains trapped in the crossfire of the endless rivalry between India and Pakistan. The reopening of India’s embassy in Kabul may appear to signal warmer ties with the Taliban, but in reality, it could mark the start of a new phase of intelligence, security, and political competition between New Delhi and Islamabad. This renewed contest may further destabilize the Taliban regime. Over the past four years, Pakistan has carried out multiple airstrikes on Afghan territory, while the Taliban’s responses have been limited to issuing press statements. Just as previous Afghan governments failed to sustain a stable balance between India and Pakistan, the Taliban, constrained by their ideological rigidity, weak foreign policy capacity, and financial dependency, are equally incapable of managing this rivalry. And so, the vicious cycle continues with the Afghan people once again paying the price.
You can read the Persian version of this analysis here:
