India Pushes Pragmatic Policy Towards Afghanistan

Indian experts consider the ongoing aid programs to Afghanistan are a form of maintaining longstanding relations between India and the people of Afghanistan and a way to keep relations separate from recognizing the Taliban* government.

Sputnik India spoke to Vishal Chandra, a research fellow on Afghanistan affairs at New Delhi's MP-IDSA, about the future relationship between India and the Taliban.

"We have to embrace the entire aspect of Indo-Afghan [relations] because when we say Indo-Afghan, we are looking at a broader context here. So our relationship is centuries old. For over seven decades, India has been working with the government in Kabul and the people of Afghanistan. It was never about one state to another state relationship. Our relationship went beyond a state-to-state relationship," Chandra said.

According to Chandra, India has been largely successful in maintaining its engagement with Afghanistan and its people despite numerous regime changes that were often violent or the result of direct or indirect external interference.

By providing humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan, including several remittances of over 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat and then medical assistance, India has attempted to continue economic and political prospects even after the Taliban came to power in 2021.

"In August 2023, ICCR announced thousands of online scholarships for Afghan students. So India is committed to staying engaged with Afghanistan. And if the Taliban is there, they are also sending signals that they would like to have relations with them. A working relationship has developed between India and the Taliban government over two and a half years. And India has set up its technical team at its embassy in Kabul. So some efforts are ongoing and meetings have already taken place," Chandra said.

On the possibility of establishing formal bilateral relations with the Taliban government in the near future, Chandra told Sputnik India, "I think our position is very clear, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs has made it clear that we will make our presence felt in Kabul. We're not going to raise it to the level of ambassador. We're not going to send any ambassadors there."

So far no country has accepted the authority of the Taliban in Kabul, including countries that accepted Taliban rule in the 1990s such as Pakistan , Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

However, national security concerns are important in maintaining India's relations with Afghanistan. Under no circumstances would India like to see terrorist incidents or any expansion of terrorist organizations in Afghanistan.

"Both Al Qaeda** and Islamic State Khorasan** are competing to attract recruits from the region. I think somewhere we need to pay attention to how the Islamist landscape is evolving. And perhaps this is where India needs to have a presence and keep an eye on the internal conflict happening inside Afghanistan,” Chandra told Sputnik India.

* The Taliban is under UN sanctions for extremism

** terror outfits banned in Russia

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