Why India needs to be on the ground in Kabul
Re-establishing Delhi’s diplomatic presence in Afghanistan will not be seen as an endorsement of the Taliban, but as a commitment to, and support of, all Afghans
Less than a year after the forced closure of all its missions, India has made quite a return to Afghanistan. As a first responder of humanitarian relief after the earthquake that took over 1,000 lives, a group of Indian officials — cryptically termed ”technical team”— landed in Kabul in an Indian Air Force plane, delivered substantial aid, and reopened the embassy last week. Such diplomatic reopening occurred days after what India believes, accurately or otherwise, is a warning signal from Rawalpindi: The Islamic State Khorasan’s attack on the Karte Parwan gurdwara, which forced the last Afghan Sikhs to leave their homeland.
India’s return to a Taliban-dominated Afghanistan has occurred against the backdrop of a raging debate about when, how, and to what extent, it should re-establish a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan. After all, India evacuated its personnel in 2021 to protect them from guaranteed attacks. Though it wants India back, the Taliban’s territorial control remains uneven, political writ challenged, and its stand on human and women’s rights uncompromising. Does it then make sense to invest capital and resources to re-establish limited diplomatic ties?
Few believe that India should not return to Afghanistan at all. But not all are convinced about the method and timing. Arguably, India could invest more in the anti-Taliban resistance groups, and wait for a more propitious moment in its ties with Pakistan to avoid a violent pushback akin to the gurdwara attack. The risk herein is that the resistance could falter, and Pakistan will never willingly accept India’s return. To make sense of India’s decision, then, it’s important to unpack Afghanistan’s internal situation, India-Pakistan dynamics, and India’s bureaucratic tussles.
The Taliban, flourishing with violent factionalism, wants revenues and legitimacy. Financial support is important to deliver necessities to a starving population, and to build a State that could inch towards abating, if not ending, conflict. International legitimacy is needed for the same reason. The Taliban’s diplomatic limbo, and the Haqqani family’s listing as a foreign terrorist outfit by the United States (US), limits the scale and scope of external aid and engagement. The Taliban is struggling on both counts, and views engagement with India, a regional heavyweight, as critical.
India’s relations with Pakistan, too, are undergoing a change. Imran Khan’s ouster and Shehbaz Sharif’s arrival has reduced vitriolic rhetoric on both sides. The ceasefire on the Line of Control holds, the backchannel remains open, and there’s recognition of the need to restart cross-border trade. India is unlikely to spend political capital on peace with Pakistan till it’s sure of Sharif’s political longevity, and the forthcoming Chief of Army Staff (COAS)’s — to be announced in six months — inclination. But a Pakistan drowning in debt, seeking an outreach to the US, and keen to reduce bilateral hostilities is unlikely to push back against India in Afghanistan, beyond a point.
Islamabad’s argument that India uses Afghanistan to foment militancy inside Pakistan stands belied, given the spike in attacks by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch nationalists during India’s absence from Kabul. In this context, Pakistani attempts to obviate India’s return could complicate an already deteriorating Pakistan-Taliban relationship. The fact that former Pakistani intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed (after being bruised in the Imran-Bajwa battle) was in Kabul to secure a Haqqani-arbitered ceasefire with the TTP is a sign that the Taliban wants to increase its foreign policy autonomy, even if its leverage over Rawalpindi remains limited.
In India, the push for engaging with the Taliban came from a small but experienced set of officials. They picked up long-lost channels with multiple Taliban leaders — including the Haqqanis — and started building operational understanding, if not trust, where none existed. Part of India’s security bureaucracy remains unsure about the Taliban’s capability and willingness to provide security to Indian personnel posted in Kabul. These are genuine, but old concerns. Indians have long been under fire in Afghanistan, and that’s unlikely to change.
The onus of providing security is on the Taliban’s shoulders, including Sirajuddin Haqqani. To be sure that it is not reliant on Haqqani, who has Indian blood on his hands, New Delhi has invested in his competitor Mullah Yaqoob, who recently gave a first of its kind interview to an Indian news channel. Coupled with the fact that Iran, itself competing with Pakistan for leverage over the Taliban, is offering logistical support for evacuations is as good as it gets to cushion such security risks. To not capitalise on these moves is likely to make it harder for India to return to Kabul in the future.
There is a serious counter-argument that resistance to the Taliban is growing. The National Resistance Front is down but not out, and former power brokers such as Abdul Rashid Dostum, Ismael Khan, and Ustad Atta are planning a comeback. India is likely to keep its options open if battlefield dynamics evolve. But to remain aloof with regard to a neighbouring country of immense strategic value makes little sense.
To view India’s outreach as an endorsement of the Taliban’s violence and misogyny or giving up on old allies — which it is not — misses the point that India’s relations with Afghanistan are more than just about the Taliban.
To ensure continuity in its ties with all Afghans, and to support them with much-needed aid, India needs to be on the ground in Kabul, not thousands of miles removed.