Ajai Shukla
Neither New Delhi nor its allies across Afghanistan has happy memories of Taliban takeovers in Kabul. Kabul’s first experience of Taliban rule began in 1996, when Taliban vanguards, backed by the Pakistan army, stormed into Kabul after steadily fighting their way north from their southern strongholds around Kandahar. Consolidating their hold over Kabul, the Taliban’s leadership under Mullah Omar discovered that the United Nations (UN)-backed government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani and First Vice President Ahmed Masood had already slipped out of the capital and retreated to their traditional fortress, the Panjsher Valley.
Searching for a target to vent their fury, the Taliban leadership zeroed in on former President Mohammed Najibullah, who had taken refuge with the U.N. in Kabul. Dragging Najibullah out of the U.N. compound, the vengeful Taliban tortured him to death and then hanged him from a lamp-post. For Kabul’s shocked citizenry, this was the introduction to the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan, as the Taliban called itself. For the next five years, from 1996 to 2001, Afghans across the country were governed in accordance with a strict, literalist version of Sunni Islam in which the final arbiter of right and wrong was the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice and its interpretation of the Shariah, or Islamic law.
From 2021, when the Taliban reconquered Kabul, there has been a return to that nightmare period, with public lashings and executions, the banning of music and confinement of women largely to their residences.
Against this backdrop, last week saw a diplomatic earthquake that could reshape strategic and diplomatic alignments across South Asia. Afghanistan’s officiating foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, embarked on a week-long visit to India, during which he held direct meetings with India’s Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar. This was the first ministerial visit to India by a Taliban official.
Muttaqi’s visit to India has yielded several important outcomes. Following official talks on October 10, New Delhi has announced it would upgrade its “technical mission” in Kabul to a full embassy. With the Indian and Afghan governments now opening a dialogue track, there is a possibility of useful cooperation. Both sides have agreed to deepen cooperation on development projects, particularly in healthcare, public infrastructure, and capacity-building. Jaishankar handed over five ambulances to the Afghan government as a gesture of goodwill. This high-level engagement by New Delhi reflects a pragmatic shift in India’s Afghanistan policy, with a more liberal twist in the functioning of the Taliban-controlled government.