Taliban minister heads to India: How New Delhi is gaining ground while Pakistan loses its Afghan grip | Explained

Afghanistan's Minister of Foreign Affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi speaks during a press conference to present the ministry's annual achievements report, in Kabul on September 19, 2024. (Photo by Wakil KOHSAR / AFP)

Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi’s expected visit to India next week signals a quiet but decisive shift. It is the first high-level Taliban engagement with India since Kabul fell in August 2021, and it highlights how quickly regional alignments are redrawing themselves. Afghanistan, once treated as a client state by Islamabad, is recalibrating its foreign ties and seeking partners that can deliver legitimacy, trade and aid.

For India, this is an opportunity to shape policy pragmatically while safeguarding against terror spillovers. For Pakistan, it is a humiliation. The neighbour that claimed unrivalled influence in Kabul now finds itself sidelined, mistrusted, and scrambling for relevance. Afghanistan’s pivot to New Delhi is a diplomatic rupture Islamabad never thought it would face so soon.

India’s cautious outreach, Pakistan’s strategic nightmare

Muttaqi’s visit, if cleared, underscores how Afghanistan is diversifying its foreign contacts. New Delhi has provided humanitarian aid, reopened a technical mission in Kabul, and kept alive people-to-people and development linkages, all without formally recognising the Taliban regime.

For Kabul, India represents infrastructure, trade access and a valuable diplomatic counterbalance. For Islamabad, the very idea of Taliban ministers walking into South Block is a reminder that its monopoly over Afghan politics has collapsed.

Bagram: From NATO fortress to Afghan red line

Bagram airbase once symbolised US military dominance. But today, it symbolises Afghan sovereignty and Taliban sensitivity. Kabul has explicitly warned against any foreign military footprint in Afghanistan, with statements threatening severe consequences if neighbouring countries enable such activity. Pakistan, which has quietly entertained the possibility of aiding US operations, has been told in blunt terms it will be treated as an enemy if it helps Washington. That rhetoric exposes the depth of mistrust: Afghanistan no longer views Pakistan as protector but as potential betrayer.

TTP blowback

If one issue best illustrates Pakistan’s failed Afghan strategy, it is the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. For years, Islamabad nurtured militant networks across the Durand Line to secure influence. Those same groups now strike inside Pakistan with lethal regularity. Kabul’s tolerance, even encouragement, of certain anti-Pakistan factions is a direct consequence of Islamabad’s own proxy policies. What Pakistan once thought of as “strategic assets” have morphed into strategic liabilities. The boomerang has returned, and it is bleeding Pakistan.

CPEC 2.0: A hollow promise

Islamabad’s answer to its string of defeats is to hype CPEC 2.0. Yet the original China Pakistan Economic Corridor failed to deliver the promised prosperity, marred by delays, security threats, and local resentment.

Afghan leaders remain wary of being dragged into a project that primarily serves Pakistan’s strategic and financial interests, while offering Afghanistan little more than dependency. Instead, Kabul is signalling that it prefers multiple connectivity options, including trade corridors that bypass Pakistan altogether and potential linkages with India-backed initiatives.

Should Kabul tilt toward India-backed connectivity projects, Pakistan’s dream of centrality will be exposed as little more than economic propaganda.

Washington as Islamabad’s last crutch

Pakistan is trying hard to win over the United States. After losing its influence in Afghanistan, Islamabad now wants Washington to fund its struggling economy and ignore its double games. But the US has moved its attention elsewhere and is no longer interested in endlessly supporting Pakistan’s failed policies. Pakistan is hoping that short-term deals with America will save it, but that belief is wrong. The US is neither ready nor willing to bring back Pakistan’s old influence in Kabul.

Afghanistan hedges, Pakistan falters

All these developments point to one thing: Afghanistan is making its own choices. By engaging with India, warning Pakistan, and building ties with others, Kabul is clearly trying to break free from Pakistan’s control. For India, this is an opportunity to build practical ties with Afghanistan while insisting on strong assurances against terrorism. For Pakistan, it is a bitter reality check. Years of using proxies have now left it isolated, insecure, and increasingly irrelevant.

The end of Pakistan’s kingmaker illusion

If Muttaqi walks into Delhi next week, it will signal that Kabul has outgrown Pakistan’s suffocating embrace. Islamabad’s old claim of indispensability is a hollow echo. Afghanistan is no longer a backyard playground for Pakistan’s military but a sovereign state searching for partners on its own terms. Unless Islamabad abandons proxy politics, it will remain stuck watching as the very instability it once created is leveraged by others to sideline it. The illusion of Pakistan as Afghanistan’s kingmaker has ended, and New Delhi is where that reality will be underlined.