India-Afghanistan relations: A chance to reshape the regional balance of power
New Delhi has joined other countries to oppose a US attempt to reclaim Bagram airbase. With an Afghan minister here for talks, we have a chance to upgrade ties with Kabul—not just to secure our immediate trade and security interests, but to foster lasting change that could counter militancy.
There are many occasions when even rivals agree to unite behind a common issue. It is usually a shared threat or mutual interest that yields a ‘consensus among enemies.’ The White House demand that the Taliban government of Afghanistan let the US re-establish its presence at Bagram has become a rallying call for many geopolitical actors in the region.
This week, traditional rivals India and Pakistan—apart from Afghanistan, China, Iran, Russia and four Central Asian nations—jointly expressed opposition to US control of that airbase (without naming it). That a foreign power, especially a non-Asian military force, should acquire a launchpad for counterterror operations was taken as a new risk to the region’s fragile geopolitical equilibrium.
This rebuff to America’s plan emerged at the recent Moscow Format talks, whose joint statement deemed as unacceptable “attempts by countries to deploy their military infrastructure in Afghanistan and neighbouring states."
On 9 October, Afghan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi flew in straight from Moscow to New Delhi, offering Indian diplomats and security mandarins an opportunity to not only consolidate regional stability, but also re-imagine the regional balance of power.
Muttaqi’s visit to India is significant in many ways. New Delhi has engaged this Taliban regime gradually, one cautious brick at a time, even though we had to shut down our embassy in Kabul in 2021 after the Ashraf Ghani government was ousted. While the embassy reopened after a few months, it is still not a full-fledged diplomatic mission. It has, however, served as a useful platform for the delivery of Indian relief material during recent natural disasters.
New Delhi’s desire to strengthen ties with Kabul must also be seen through the lens of strained relations between the Taliban and Pakistan; Kabul’s clear criticism of the 22 April terror attack in Pahalgam only widened that rift. India’s talks with Kabul, therefore, are likely to focus on regional security and anti-terrorism.
Better trade and economic relations would be beneficial too. Afghanistan has many metals and minerals that some Indian businesses had licences to mine; the idea was to ship these home for refining via the Chabahar Port in Iran. Licence renewals would be part of the agenda, apart from fresh trade agreements and the sharing of healthcare infrastructure.
From a security and strategic standpoint, Afghanistan is a key peg in our geopolitical contest with China. But there is much more that New Delhi can achieve beyond the here-and-now of trade and security. We have both a chance and the regional influence to forge changes that could endure.
Sure, New Delhi had dilly-dallied over its formal recognition of the Taliban 2.0 regime, but that was largely the result of Taliban 1.0’s sponsorship of terror in Jammu and Kashmir. For calm to prevail, Islamist extremism must reduce in unruly frontier zones. To help reduce militancy, we could deploy our soft power in a bid to reverse gender repression in a country with which we have had age-old relations.
Tagore’s short story Kabuliwala, about a small Kolkata girl’s friendship with an elderly Afghan dry fruits seller, is a metaphor for the universal bonds of a global family. Now, at a time when many of our neighbours are wracked with unrest, New Delhi would do well to dust off the Panchsheel doctrine. These five principles of peaceful coexistence can be repurposed to tackle challenges of the day.
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