Afghanistan is important to India despite New Delhi’s policies

India has been involved in multilateral talks on Afghanistan for years and hosted the high-profile Sixth Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process in the city of Amritsar in December 2016. It was inaugurated by Ghani and Modi.

In 2019, Ghani was re-elected in a disputed election, but was told by Modi in a congratulatory message that "India is your second home". In the end, when the Taliban took Kabul in 2021, he fled elsewhere.

Ironically, the Taliban's seizure of Kabul came on India's Independence Day (15 August), marking its freedom from British colonialism in 1947. Since 2021, there has been a bittersweet feeling to the day.

Giving and receiving

India was among the friendlier countries to ousted President Ashraf Ghani's administration and, before that, to the regime headed by Hamid Karzai. It was also a strong backer of the now defunct militia, the Northern Alliance.

India and Afghanistan signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement in 2011 and their relations flourished under US protection. India marketed its soft power in Afghanistan, including Bollywood films, while reaping the benefits of US troop presence.

India was not happy with the prospect of a US pullout and strived for an intra-Afghan political arrangement that would look after its interests.

Aware that India sees Afghanistan as strategically important (especially because of Pakistan), Ghani's advisors sought substantial Indian military help, while negotiations on a future power-sharing formula were discussed.

Among them were Hamdullah Mohib, Ghani's national security advisor, and Farid Mamundzay, who served as the Afghan ambassador in New Delhi.

In a July 2021 TV interview, Mamundzay asked for Indian military help against the Taliban and thanked New Delhi for its help in the past, including training and scholarships for military recruits and the provision of hardware, including 11 helicopters.

India gifted four Mi-25 attack helicopters to the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) as far back as in 2015 (ground troops were never a viable option). Ghani's officials explicitly sought Indian training and weapons.

In 2021, ANDSF was 300,000-strong. The Americans, who spent $2.3tn on the invasion and reconstruction from 2001-21, thought ANDSF could match the Taliban. But could any country replace the US? Certainly not India.

Adjusting accordingly

After the US withdrew, Mamundzay announced the closure of India's Afghan embassy in 2023 after complaining that visas for diplomats were being denied and alluding to "a shift in the Indian government's conduct".

Diplomatic appointees who did not want to work with the Taliban left to find other posts. Meanwhile, the embassy, and consulates in Mumbai and Hyderabad, continue to offer consular services to thousands of Afghans in India, in coordination with the Taliban.

This is in sharp contrast to the Taliban announcing late last month that they no longer accept the validity of consular services given by the Afghan missions in countries like Austria, France, Italy, Greece, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Australia and Canada.

Deft diplomacy overcame India's antipathy towards the Taliban and New Delhi quickly established a basic working relationship with Kabul's new authorities.

It does not formally recognise the Kabul government (now known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) but neither does it show animosity toward it. So far, that has been reciprocated.

The Taliban cooperated with India in the evacuation of about 1,700 Indians from Afghanistan in the chaos that came with the US withdrawal.

Managing relations

Since June 2022, an Indian technical team has been based in the embassy in Kabul and works to support Indian humanitarian assistance and other projects.

Yet since 2021, India's role in Afghanistan has declined, while Russia and China have assumed bigger profiles. When India hosted talks about Afghanistan in November 2021, Pakistan and China were the notable absentees.

Top security advisors from India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan all participated, but Pakistan rejected the invitation and China cited "scheduling difficulties".

Russia, China and others that share a border with Afghanistan want it to be peaceful and stable. The region is fed up with the wars and conflicts imposed on it.

Kazakhstan recently removed the Taliban from its list of banned groups, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov seemed to acknowledge the reality in May 2024.

"The main point is: they are the real power," he said. "We, like our allies in Central Asia, care about Afghanistan. This process is about accepting reality."

Still strategic

The reality on the ground are not lost on India. Despite its association with the former regime, India has made several gestures that the Taliban appear to appreciate. India's long-held position is that no one country can veto what happens in Afghanistan.

The enmity between India and Pakistan casts a shadow over the whole region. India's Hindu nationalism and domestic politics also narrow its openings with Afghanistan.

Its diplomacy has centred on development projects, trade exchange, and the issuance of a limited number of visas for Afghan nationals. That may not be enough to achieve the desired results in high-stakes regional politics.

While India may be prepared to play the long game on Afghanistan, its near-term actions will be influenced by how Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries engage with Kabul.

India thinks of Afghanistan as a natural land bridge that connects it to Central Asia. India's management of Iran's strategic port of Chabahar takes it closer to the bridge via a rail route linking Chabahar and Zahedan city near Iran's Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

India's strategy is to bypass Pakistan as it reaches out to Central Asia. Afghanistan holds the key to that.