On October 9, India officially welcomed the Taliban Foreign Minister, Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, with full diplomatic protocol. Muttaqi stayed in India for six days. During this visit, apart from holding official meetings with Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, Muttaqi also addressed a business chamber and held two press meetings. He even visited the historic Islamic seminary in Deoband, Uttar Pradesh.
Soon after this visit on October 21, India announced the reopening of its Embassy in Kabul, which had been shut down on 16 August 2021, a day after the Taliban captured the Afghan capital as the government under former President Ashraf Ghani collapsed.
“In keeping with the decision announced during the recent visit of the Afghan Foreign Minister to India, the Government is restoring the status of the Technical Mission of India in Kabul to that of the Embassy of India in Afghanistan with immediate effect. This decision underscores India’s resolve to deepen its bilateral engagement with the Afghan side in all spheres of mutual interest. The Embassy of India in Kabul will further augment India’s contribution to Afghanistan’s comprehensive development, humanitarian assistance, and capacity-building initiatives, in keeping with the priorities and aspirations of Afghan society,” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a press statement.[1]
India has now officially designated the current diplomat, Karan Yadav, a 2014-batch IFS, who has been in charge of the technical mission since June 2022, as chargé d’affaires (CDA) of the Embassy in Kabul.
India plans to resume stalled projects, especially in healthcare, such as establishing a Thalassemia Centre and a Modern Diagnostic Centre, and replacing the heating system at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health (IGICH) in Kabul.
India also intends to construct a 30-bed hospital in Kabul’s Bagrami district, an Oncology Centre and a Trauma Centre in Kabul, and five Maternity Health Clinics in the provinces of Paktika, Khost, and Paktia. According to the India-Afghanistan joint statement issued after the Jaishankar-Muttaqi meeting in Delhi, about 75 prosthetic limbs have been successfully fitted to Afghan nationals. India has also decided to continue providing medical assistance and high-quality healthcare to Afghan nationals.
Additionally, India will enhance its cooperation with Afghanistan on hydroelectric projects to address the war-torn country’s energy crisis while augmenting its agricultural sector.[2]
Muttaqi’s visit was a radical departure from the Indian government’s policy towards the militant Islamist group since it first seized power in Afghanistan in 1996. Then India saw the Taliban as a creation of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). That time, India supported the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban force led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, by providing military, humanitarian, and political assistance, including an airbase hospital in Tajikistan.
The only official dealings that India had with the Taliban during the group’s first rule between 1996-2001 were when India’s then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh negotiated the release of passengers of the hijacked IC 184 flight in exchange for the release of three terrorists, including Masood Azhar, who later established Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).
After the U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban, India gave official recognition to the government led by President Hamid Karzai and subsequently by President Ashraf Ghani. It reopened its Embassy in Kabul, which had been shut after the Taliban victory in 1996. It also opened four consulates in Kandahar, Herat, Jalalabad, and Mazar-e-Sharif. These consulates not only helped monitor India’s projects and aid distribution but also enabled New Delhi to gather actionable intelligence on the ISI’s activities there. During this period, twice, in 2008 and 2009, the Indian embassy in Kabul suffered from terror strikes resulting in a heavy loss of life.
While the Taliban had been reaching out to India ever since it opened its international office in Doha, Qatar, in 2013, New Delhi had been sternly opposed to having any dialogue with the group as it was focused on supporting the Ghani administration. It actively supported the intra-Afghan talks taking place in Doha at the time, which sought to broker a power-sharing deal between the republic government and the Taliban. New Delhi’s stated position at that time was that it would support only a peace process that was Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, and Afghan-controlled.
In 2021, as U.S.-led forces withdrew from Afghanistan, the Afghan army collapsed, and the Taliban began its victory march, India closed its consulates one by one. When the Taliban conquered Kabul on August 15, 2021, the Indian embassy in the Afghan capital was shut down.
Since then, New Delhi has chosen to stay away from active engagement, while keeping a narrow channel of communication open. India held its first official-level talks with the Taliban on 31 August 2021, when Deepak Mittal, who was then India’s envoy to Qatar, met Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the former Head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha. This meeting was then followed up by a series of meetings with the Taliban later in Kabul, which led India to open its technical mission there.
The renewed vigor in India’s relationship with the Afghan Taliban should be seen through multiple lenses. First is the steadily widening differences between Pakistan and the Taliban regime, mainly because the latter supports the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). This jihadi outfit operates along the Af-Pak border and has been accused of terrorism by the Pakistan government.
These differences have escalated in recent times, and even as Muttaqi was visiting India, armed clashes along the two countries’ border resulted in several deaths. The Afghan foreign minister used his media briefing on October 12 in Delhi to warn Islamabad that if the ongoing peace talks in Doha failed, Afghanistan had other options.
The following points in the India-Afghanistan joint statement issued on 25 October are particularly important to parse in this context.
“External Affairs Minister expressed his deep appreciation to Afghanistan for its strong condemnation of the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, India on 22 April 2025 as well as for the sincere condolences and solidarity expressed with the people and Government of India. Both sides unequivocally condemned all acts of terrorism emanating from regional countries. They underscored the importance of promoting peace, stability, and mutual trust in the region.”
“Both sides respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. External Affairs Minister appreciated side’s understanding of India’s security concerns. The Afghan Foreign Minister reiterated the commitment that the Afghan government will not allow any group or individual to use the territory of Afghanistan against India.”[3]
A second lens is geopolitics and geoeconomics. Afghanistan occupies a strategically important corner of India’s neighborhood, and, as an emerging power, India must maintain a presence there.
The planned resumption of the Indo-Afghan freight corridor, which was launched in June 2017, and the invitation to Indian companies to invest in Afghanistan’s mining sector can further boost bilateral cooperation.
Despite all this proclaimed goodwill, it needs to be noted here that unlike Russia, India has not yet formally recognised the Taliban government in Kabul. While India has said it will normalise ties with the ‘acting’ Taliban government in Afghanistan, it remains to be seen if New Delhi will reopen the four consulates it used to have in that country.
Also, India is yet to formally establish a viable connection with the dreaded Haqqani Network—headed by Sirajuddin Haqqani—which remains an integral part of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. According to intelligence sources, India has opened a back-channel with the Haqqani Network based on which New Delhi took the decision to reopen the Embassy. A formal meeting with the organisation has not yet been announced.
To deepen its engagement with present-day Kabul, India will have to establish a separate channel of communication with Hibatullah Akhundzada—the supreme leader of the Taliban and the main ruler of the Islamic Emirate, also known as the ‘Amir ul Momineen’, or ‘Commander of the Faithful’. The warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in July 2025 against Akhundzada on charges of committing crimes against humanity will pose challenges to India in this endeavor.
Akhundzada remains the main ideological fountainhead of the Taliban faction that is opposed to women’s rights, who are denied the right to freedom of movement, education and employment since 2021. His policies extended to his embassy in Delhi, where women journalists were barred from the first press conference held by Muttaqi in New Delhi, which sparked controversy and resulted in a second press conference open to all.
According to several intelligence inputs, a rift has emerged between Akhundzada and Haqqani over ideological issues. Haqqani has openly voiced his dissent against Akhundzada’s policies, particularly the ban on women’s education. Haqqani has sought to portray himself as more moderate to secure international engagement, further widening the ideological and political split.
There is much work for New Delhi to do. While looking to normalise ties with Afghanistan, it should also engage in back-channel talks with the anti-Taliban groups operating outside of Afghanistan, which could join hands with Pakistan. As India opens its door wide open to the Taliban, it should have both a short-term and a long-term strategy ready for the Af-Pak region.
Nayanima Basu is Adjunct Fellow, and an author.
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References:
[1] “Upgradation of the Technical Mission of India in Kabul to Embassy of India.” n.d. Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. https://www.mea.gov.in/press-releases.htm?dtl/40223/Upgradation_of_the_Technical_Mission_of_India_in_Kabul_to_Embassy_of_India.
[2] Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. https://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/40193/India__Afghanistan_Joint_Statement_October_10_2025.
[3] Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. https://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/40193/India__Afghanistan_Joint_Statement_October_10_2025.