Despite the absence of official diplomatic relations with the Taliban-led Afghanistan administration, India’s high-level engagements with the former insurgent group reflect a changing diplomatic approach. The January 8 meeting between foreign secretary Vikram Misri and Afghanistan’s interim foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai centred on people-to-people contact, humanitarian assistance, development programmes, the health sector and the rehabilitation of refugees. This approach largely aligns with New Delhi’s consistent diplomatic strategy under previous Western-backed governments in Kabul. Following the engagement, the Taliban termed India a “significant regional and economic partner.”
Earlier, in November 2024, a delegation led by J.P. Singh, joint secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs responsible for Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, visited Kabul and met with Taliban ministers, including the acting defence minister Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid. The meeting coincided with the Taliban’s appointment of an acting consul in the Afghan consulate in Mumbai the same month.
Strategic pragmatism and opportunism
From a previously cautious stance toward the Taliban, India’s seemingly proactive diplomacy can be understood through the prisms of strategic pragmatism and strategic opportunism. The first entails adopting a nuanced approach aimed at balancing national interests while setting aside ideological absolutism and the second refers to leveraging opportunities while keeping Pakistan firmly in the calculation. Notably, the timing of this month’s meeting, occurring amidst strained relations between the traditional allies, Pakistan and the Taliban, can widely be perceived as India’s willingness to exploit these tensions. To put things into perspective, New Delhi on January 6 “unequivocally” condemned the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) aerial strikes in Afghanistan’s Paktika province on December 24. This was the second time since March 2024 that Pakistan carried out cross-border airstrikes in Afghanistan.
India’s condemnation highlighted that Pakistani airstrikes had reportedly resulted in civilian casualties, including women and children. This signals India’s evolving approach towards Afghanistan.The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan further stated that dozens of civilians were killed in the airstrike that was reportedly aimed at targeting the camps of Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, an anti-Pakistan group operating on both sides of the border. By condemning the PAF’s actions, New Delhi is seemingly positioning itself as a responsible regional actor before the international community, while countering Islamabad’s deteriorating influence in Kabul. From a broader perspective, the incident signals India’s approach of leveraging humanitarian and ethical diplomacy to build goodwill with the Taliban administration without extending an official recognition.
While reports of backchannel talks between Indian officials and the Haqqani Network, an influential faction within the Taliban, have surfaced, New Delhi is unlikely to establish official communication channels with the bloc. This hesitance will be rooted in India’s bloody history with the Haqqani Network, which has been responsible for high-profile attacks on Indian assets in Afghanistan, including the 2008 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul. Such a move could be detrimental to the government’s staunch anti-terrorism positioning at home and abroad; the US Department of State continues to offer a $10 million bounty for information leading to Sirajuddin Haqqani, who currently serves as the acting interior minister of Afghanistan. The Haqqani faction’s overt ties to Pakistan’s intelligence agencies further complicate any potential diplomatic outreach by India. Back in 2011, Admiral Michael Mullen, former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, had termed the Haqqani faction as a “veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.”
Despite Sirajuddin’s recent attempts to portray himself as a moderate, palatable leader in comparison to the hardliners in the group, these factors render formal engagement highly unlikely. In that context, Muttaqi’s association with the traditional Kandahari faction in the Taliban and designation as foreign minister positions him as the ideal interlocutor for nations adopting a cautious approach.
Leveraging internal Taliban divisions and power struggles
To project itself as a regional stabiliser, India must consider expanding its influence through soft power, in line with its long-standing approach of focusing on development and security issues rather than ideological disparities vis-a-vis Afghanistan. While adopting cautious diplomacy, New Delhi should closely monitor the internal divisions within the Taliban and remain prepared for evolving power dynamics within the Pashtun-dominated Taliban administration. This is particularly crucial given the emerging differences between the Haqqani and Kandahari factions of the group, especially following the high-profile assassination of Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, Afghanistan’s interim minister for refugees, on December 11, 2024. While the Islamic State–Khorasan Province (IS–KP), a staunch rival of the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing that killed him, elements within the Haqqani faction have levelled allegations against the central Taliban leadership in Kabul of colluding with IS–KP.
As differences between the factions are expected to persist, even exacerbate, particularly over power-sharing, resource distribution and territorial control, India must broaden its scope of engagement should the opportunity emerge to influence policy decisions and Afghanistan’s future governance. Concurrently, India’s ability to capitalise on the currently-strained relations between Pakistan and the Taliban could help mitigate Islamabad’s influence in Kabul, thereby strengthening its own geopolitical position in the region while securing security assurances against the use of Afghan territory by ideologically aligned groups like Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed operating in Jammu and Kashmir.
Aishwaria Sonavane is a research analyst for Pakistan Studies at the Takshashila Institution. Her work focuses on counter-militancy, security, foreign policy, military-political nexus and defence, with a broader regional emphasis on Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. She tweets @aishwaria_s.