India's subtle engagement with Taliban-led Kabul signals shift in ties

New Delhi: The black-red-green flag of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan fluttered high at the country’s embassy in New Delhi for more than two years after the Taliban militants had marched into Kabul and dislodged the government headed by M Ashraf Ghani on August 15, 2021. With Ghani, his aides and members of his family fleeing Kabul, the Taliban had hoisted from the presidential palace its white flag with the Islamic oath Shahadah written in black on it. It had marked the reestablishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan almost two decades after “Operation Enduring Freedom” launched by the United States and its allies in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks by Al Qaeda had removed the Taliban from the seat of power in Kabul.

The diplomats of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in New Delhi, however, refused to pledge loyalty to the new regime in Kabul. So did their counterparts in most of the foreign capitals. However, nearly two-and-a-half years later, Farid Mamundzay, Kabul’s envoy to New Delhi, on November 24 last posted on X a statement, announcing the “permanent closure” of the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan with effect from the previous day. He alleged that he and his colleagues had decided to shut down the diplomatic mission in New Delhi in view of the “persistent challenges” from the Government of India.

Mamundzay, who had taken over as Kabul’s envoy to New Delhi in 2020, also alleged that he and his colleagues had “faced a difficult choice” given the “constant pressure” from the Taliban and India to “relinquish control” of the embassy in New Delhi. He also referred to the earlier temporary cessation of operation by the embassy on September 30 and stated that it had been done “in the hope” that the stance of India would evolve favourably for the normal continuation of the functioning of the embassy. But he alleged that New Delhi’s approach had not changed in the past eight weeks and the visas of the diplomats had not been extended, forcing him and his colleagues to permanently shut down the embassy.

A few hours after Mamundzay, who has been living mostly in the United Kingdom after the change of regime in Kabul, posted the statement on X, the heads of the two consulates of Afghanistan in Mumbai and Hyderabad, Zakia Wardak and Sayed Mohammad Ibrahimkhil, issued a joint statement, claiming that they had taken control of the embassy in New Delhi. Like Mamundzay, Wardak and Ibrahimkhil had also been appointed by the erstwhile Afghan government led by Ashraf Ghani. But Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Taliban’s Government in Kabul, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai recently said that he was in touch with the two consular officials, who had taken over the leadership of the embassy in New Delhi.

A video showing Wardak and Ibrahimkhil hoisting the tricolour flag of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, not that of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, at the embassy in New Delhi on November 30 was widely circulated on social media.

“All I could say is, as per our understanding, the Afghan Embassy in New Delhi and the Consulates in Mumbai and Hyderabad are functioning, and you can see from the flag who they represent and our position on recognition of entities has not changed,” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said. He sought to dismiss the speculation that India’s move to quietly let two senior consular officials of Afghanistan take over the control of the country’s embassy in its capital indicated New Delhi’s subtle move towards recognizing the Taliban’s government in Kabul.

New Delhi had shut down the Embassy of India in Kabul when the Taliban took control in 1996. The gun-toting militants had not found any Indian when they raided and ransacked the Embassy of India after executing the former Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah and hanging his body from a traffic light pole. But after the Sunni Islamist militia had returned to power in Kabul on August 15, 2021, taking advantage of the withdrawal of the US-led International Security Assistance Force, New Delhi had evacuated its envoy and diplomats from Afghanistan within 48 hours but had not formally shut down its embassy and thus avoided severing diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had instead sought to build upon its back-channel contacts over the previous years with a section of the leadership of the Taliban. Stanekzai, who then headed the Taliban’s political office in Doha, had met Deepak Mittal, New Delhi’s envoy in the capital of Qatar, on August 31, 2021. Less than a year after its first public engagement with the militia, New Delhi in June 2022 sent a delegation led by a senior diplomat for a meeting with Amir Khan Muttaqi, the foreign minister of the Taliban’s government to Kabul. Meanwhile, India also started sending foodgrains and other essentials for the starving people. A “technical team” had been deployed in New Delhi’s diplomatic mission in Kabul soon to “closely monitor and coordinate the efforts of various stakeholders for the effective delivery of India’s humanitarian assistance to the people” of Afghanistan.

India, like the US and most of the other nations, has not recognized the government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan set up by the Taliban in September 2021. But its outreach to the Taliban is apparently aimed at stopping Pakistan and its “all-weather iron-brother” China from turning the Sunni Islamist group’s return to power in Afghanistan into a strategic advantage against India.

The celebration in Islamabad and the Pakistan Army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi over the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul did not last long. The relations between Pakistan and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan turned sour over the past two years. Islamabad blamed the Taliban regime in Kabul for a spurt in terrorist attacks in Pakistan. Besides, Islamabad’s recent move to drive out more than 1.5 million allegedly undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants from Pakistan had further worsened its relations with the Taliban. Meanwhile, New Delhi cautiously avoided lending its voice to the clamour of criticism on the Taliban’s abysmal human rights records and its denial of access to education for a large section of the women of Afghanistan.

“India has been a steadfast strategic partner of the erstwhile Afghan Republic since 2001, and we acknowledge the limitations and concerns that govern the realm of realpolitik and the balancing act required at a difficult time in a geo-politically sensitive region,” Mamundzay said while announcing permanent closure of the Embassy of Afghanistan in New Delhi.