The Taliban, who once framed India as an ideological adversary, are now publicly warming up to Delhi
Nooruddin Azizi, acting Afghan Minster of Commerce and Industry, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Kabul, Afghanistan, February 22, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS
ISLAMABAD:
The Taliban regime’s interim minister for industry and commerce, Nooruddin Azizi, has landed in New Delhi for trade talks, marking the second high-level visit by Taliban officials to India within a month.
Azizi’s five-day trip comes on the heels of the unusual eight-day tour by Taliban interim foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi — thanks to a temporary UN sanctions exemption. Officially, India doesn’t recognise the Taliban government in Kabul, yet the regime’s diplomatic engagements with Delhi are becoming increasingly frequent and conspicuous.
The back-to-back visits indicate that a deeper shift is underway in Afghanistan’s foreign policy. The Taliban, who once framed India as an ideological adversary – if not a civilisational enemy — are now publicly warming up to Delhi for trade access, investment, and much-needed economic space. The pivot is paradoxical for the hardline Taliban, whose rhetoric has for decades revolved around Islamic resistance, anti-West defiance, and denunciation of “idol-worshipping states.”
What does this reveal about the Taliban’s external strategy — and internal vulnerabilities?
For over two decades, Taliban propaganda cast India as a Hindu “kafir (infidel)” power aligned with anti-Islamic forces in Kabul. Indian development projects in Afghanistan were denounced as covert political interference. Indian diplomacy was described as subversive. Even the cultural heritage destroyed in 2001 — the Bamiyan Buddhas — was justified as an act against a so-called Hindu-Buddhist civilisational threat.
Yet in 2025, the same Taliban, who call their regime Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), now seek Indian wheat, Indian credit lines, Indian-built infrastructure, and Indian market access. The language of trade corridors and investment portfolios has replaced the rhetoric of ideological resistance. The contradiction is glaring: a movement that once spurned India on religious and political grounds now sees it as a lifeline.
One of the most symbolic contradictions in the Taliban’s newfound diplomatic romance with India is the contrast between the 2001 destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas and today’s diplomatic overtures. India has long projected itself as a global steward of Buddhist and Hindu cultural heritage — something the Taliban once attacked.
This is more than historical irony. It shows a pragmatic acknowledgment by the Taliban that heritage diplomacy, no matter how pivotal it was to their earlier puritanical narrative, cannot feed Afghanistan’s starving people or stabilise its collapsing economy. The silence of the Taliban officials on Bamiyan during their Delhi visits is strategic, even if it leaves unaddressed the deep reputational and cultural wounds that act inflicted.
For years, Taliban leaders accused the previous Afghan governments of being “India’s puppet,” alleging that Indian diplomatic missions bankrolled anti-Taliban violent groups. Those claims were central to the Taliban’s narrative that India sought to encircle Pakistan while manipulating Afghanistan’s internal political vulnerabilities.
Yet today, the Taliban are asking India for expanded wheat supplies; access to Chabahar and other ports linked to Indian routes; banking channels; reconstruction funding; and diversified trade pathways bypassing Pakistan. A former “enemy” narrative has been reimagined into one of economic necessity. The messaging has shifted from accusations of espionage to appeals for partnership.
Perhaps the most politically sensitive element of the Taliban’s India outreach is its timing. The regime has frequently stressed “Islamic brotherhood,” “historic ties,” and “shared faith” with Pakistan. Yet since 2022, ties have nosedived over TTP sanctuaries inside Afghanistan; border skirmishes and closures; increasing Afghan refugees entering Pakistan; and terrorist incidents along the Durand Line.
Instead of resolving issues with its primary Muslim neighbour, the Taliban opted to step up engagement with India – a non-Muslim regional power. Symbolically and diplomatically, this sends a message that economic opportunity outweighs ideological affinity.
For Pakistan, this shift is deeply consequential. It challenges decades of assumed Afghan alignment and exposes Islamabad’s diminishing leverage over Kabul.
Another layer of contradiction surrounds the global economic architecture. For decades, Taliban leaders denounced Western financial systems; interest-based banking; global institutions; and economic “slavery.” Yet today they seek Indian assistance precisely because Delhi is a key player in those very systems — deeply integrated into global capital, the IMF, the World Bank, and Western-led investment networks.
At home, the Taliban may continue to speak the language of resistance, but abroad, they are chasing access to the same global financial institutions they once denounced as illegitimate. This duality reveals a pattern: ideology governs speeches; necessity governs policy.
On domestic affairs, the Taliban remain as stubborn as ever. Education remains off-limits for girls. Women face severe restrictions on employment and public presence. Media freedoms are curtailed. Civil liberties operate within narrow boundaries of state interpretation of Islamic Sharia. But the moment they step into international diplomacy, the posture changes radically. They show flexibility, compromise, and transactional opportunism with surprising speed.
This split-screen behaviour reveals the regime’s fundamental challenge: legitimacy. While domestic control is enforced through ideology, international survival is pursued through pragmatism.
Taliban-associated voices historically lionised “Jihad in Kashmir” and expressed forceful sympathy for Indian Muslims facing discrimination. But during high-profile Delhi visits, the Taliban ministers maintain complete silence on Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, or Islamophobic violence in India. The silence is deliberate. Criticising India on Muslim issues would undermine the very trade and diplomatic access the Taliban now seek.
The contrast is sharp: where the Taliban once used the Kashmir issue to burnish their ideological credentials, they now avoid it to protect economic discussions.
Another revealing contrast lies in how the Taliban treat borders. The regime continues to dispute or obscure the Durand Line, challenging Pakistan’s internationally recognised frontier. Yet with India, the IEA officials project caution, respect, and reassurance, especially regarding Afghan territory being used by anti-Pakistan terrorist groups.
This asymmetry reflects where the Taliban see diplomatic risk and where they see opportunity. With Pakistan, the Taliban feel they have geographical leverage. With India, they are the supplicant.
The Taliban often proclaim that they do not seek global recognition and that recognition will come on “their own terms.” Yet repeated ministerial visits to Delhi, despite India not recognising the Kabul regime, demonstrate a clear push for visibility, legitimacy, photo-ops, and political normalisation.
The appearances matter. Each handshake and press appearance with Indian officials is a small but important signal to the international community that the Taliban can engage with major powers.
India’s own calculus is clear: strategic presence in Afghanistan without deploying boots on the ground; counterbalance to Pakistan’s influence, particularly along trade routes; protection of Indian development projects worth over $3 billion; long-term access to Central Asian energy and markets via Afghan corridors; and intelligence monitoring in a region where transnational extremist groups continue to flourish.
India is unlikely to formally recognise the Taliban in the near term, but it will continue to leverage engagement for strategic dividends.
In a nutshell, the Taliban’s rapid pivot toward India tells a larger story about the nature of their regime in 2025: ideology still governs its domestic sphere; but economic desperation, diplomatic isolation, and regional pressure are driving foreign policy; old narratives — about civilisational enemies, idol worshippers, and Western conspiracies — have been quietly shelved in the corridors of Delhi.
Ultimately, the Taliban behave not as an ideological monolith but as a fragile regime struggling for survival, ready to set aside decades of rhetoric when trade routes, wheat supplies, and diplomatic openings are at stake.
India, for its part, will continue engaging cautiously — aware that while the Taliban may have dialed down their rhetoric, their long-term reliability remains doubtful. In a region defined by shifting alliances and hard dependencies, the Taliban’s sudden embrace of India is less a transformation and more a revelation: when power meets necessity, ideology bends.
