India must engage with the Taliban, for regional stability

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met Taliban minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaq in Dubai. (Courtesy: X | @MEAIndia)

In politics, it is said that there are no permanent friends or permanent foes, only permanent interests. This is perhaps how India’s engagement with the Taliban can be explained. The recent meeting between Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and the acting Taliban foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, has caused quite a stir, not just in India but internationally too.

At the meeting, India agreed not only to continue but to step up humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and “would consider engaging in development projects in the near future,” while also promoting the use of the Iranian port of Chabahar for trade, commercial activities, and humanitarian assistance. On its part, the Taliban issued a statement saying that it sought to strengthen political and economic relations with India, “a key regional and economic player.”

Misri's meeting is the highest-level engagement with the Taliban so far. Until now, the most senior official to meet with the group had been Joint Secretary J P Singh. Interestingly, Misri's meeting with Muttaqi came against the backdrop of an escalating Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict.

On 24 December, the Pakistan Air Force carried out strikes on the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the bordering Afghan province of Paktika. While Pakistan claimed that TTP terrorists had been eliminated, the Afghan Taliban claimed that the strikes killed 46 civilians, mostly women and children. On 28 December, the Taliban claimed to have carried out retaliatory strikes against Pakistan.

In an unprecedented move, on 6 January, India's Ministry of External Affairs released a statement saying, “We unequivocally condemn any attack on innocent civilians," and that "It is an old practice of Pakistan to blame its neighbours for its own internal failures. We have also noted the response of an Afghan spokesperson in this regard.”

Undoubtedly, the fissures between Pakistan and Afghanistan make the case for greater Indian engagement with the Taliban, but it would be shortsighted to attribute such engagement solely to Pak-Afghan relations. Regional security, trade, and realpolitik demand that India engages with the Taliban. And India has quietly been doing so for a while now.

India's centuries-long civilisational ties with Afghanistan were interrupted by the first Taliban rule in the late 1990s. Having aligned its policy on Afghanistan with US-led policies there, India remained a strong supporter of the successive US-backed governments. Even when it became imminent that the Taliban would return to power in Kabul, New Delhi held back from engaging with the group. All other regional powers, including India's close strategic partner Russia, as well as China, Iran, and Afghanistan's immediate neighbours Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, had opened channels of communication with the Taliban, coordinating local and border security and trade, while India held back. As a result, India had to evacuate its personnel, close down its many consulates in Afghanistan, and finally shut down its embassy in Kabul as the Taliban swept to power there in August 2021.

India has now come to the understanding shared by Afghanistan's other neighbours and regional powers: The Taliban are here to stay. Brutal as its rule might be, it is for the Afghan people to deal with that. On the other hand, the Taliban remains the most promising foil and bulwark against ISIS-Khorasan Province, whose footprint has been increasing in the region with brutal attacks in Iran, Russia, and attempted ones on countries like India, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The decimation of the group in Iraq has heightened the danger in Central and South Asia, as the residual recruits have flocked to Afghanistan.

If the Taliban could effectively deal with ISIS and other terror groups on its territory, it would not only ensure security for the region but also open up business and trade opportunities in Afghanistan. Engaging with the Taliban would thus be a trade-off for security for these states.

While there has been no formal recognition of the Taliban government so far, countries like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have already removed the group from their list of proscribed and terrorist organisations. Last month, Russian lawmakers passed a bill giving courts the power to remove groups from the country’s list of terrorist organisations, facilitating the Taliban's removal from such a list. All these countries have allowed the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan (IEA), the official Taliban nomenclature for Afghanistan, to take charge of the diplomatic missions in their countries. China has gone a step further, even stationing its ambassador in Kabul and inking deals in Afghanistan’s lucrative metals and mining sector.

It is therefore only a matter of course for India to follow suit, especially since it has invested and continues to invest in Afghanistan’s development and capacity building. From dams to parliament to historical monuments, India has been actively involved in building Afghan infrastructure and society. India has continued to dispatch humanitarian aid to Afghanistan even after the Taliban takeover.

In 2022, India reopened its embassy in Kabul with a "technical team" operating there. Quietly, a couple of Taliban officials have also taken up residence in the Afghan diplomatic complex, in Delhi, as well as in Afghan consulates in Hyderabad and Mumbai.

The Taliban, in turn, has also been making overtures to India and has, on several occasions, stated that it would not allow its territory to be used against India.

This makes it only logical for India to follow the regional consensus. Afghan-Pakistan tensions only reinforce that India’s decision serves its own security interests.