Why India is reaching out to the Taliban now

India's latest diplomatic outreach to Afghanistan's Taliban government signals a marked shift in how it sees the geopolitical reality in the region.

This comes more than three years after India suffered a major strategic and diplomatic blow when Kabul fell to the Taliban.

Two decades of investment in Afghanistan's democracy - through military training, scholarships and landmark projects like building its new parliament - were swiftly undone. The collapse also paved the way for greater influence from regional rivals, particularly Pakistan and China, eroding India's strategic foothold and raising new security concerns.

Yet, last week signalled a shift. India's top diplomat Vikram Misri met Taliban acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai - the highest level of engagement since Kabul's fall. The Taliban expressed interest in strengthening political and economic ties with India, calling it a "significant regional and economic power".

Talks reportedly focused on expanding trade and leveraging Iran's Chabahar port, which India has been developing to bypass Pakistan's Karachi and Gwadar ports.

How significant is this meeting? Delhi has now given the Taliban leadership the de facto legitimacy it has sought from the international community since its return to power, Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center, an American think-tank, told me.

"The fact that this treatment is coming from India - a nation that never previously had friendly relations with the Taliban, makes this all the more significant, and also a diplomatic triumph for the Taliban," he says

Since the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan, countries have adopted varied approaches toward the regime, balancing diplomatic engagement with concerns over human rights and security. China, for example, has gone far: it has actively engaged with the Taliban, focusing on security and economic interests, and even has an ambassador in the country.

No country has formally recognised the Taliban government, but up to 40 countries maintain some form of diplomatic or informal relations with it.

That's why experts like Jayant Prasad, a former Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, are more circumspect about India's outreach.

For the past three years, he says, India has maintained contact with the Taliban through a foreign service diplomat. India had closed its consulates in Afghanistan during the civil war in the 1990s and reopened them in 2002 after the war ended. "We didn't want this hiatus to develop [again], so we wanted to engage. It is very simply a step up in relations," he says.

India has "historical and civilisational ties" with Afghanistan, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told parliament in 2023. India has invested more than $3bn (£2.46bn) in over 500 projects across Afghanistan, including roads, power lines, dams, hospitals and clinics. It has trained Afghan officers, awarded thousands of scholarships to students and built a new parliament building.

This reflects a lasting geopolitical reality. "Irrespective of the nature of the regime in Kabul - monarchical, communist, or Islamist - there has been a natural warmth between Delhi and Kabul," The Indian Express newspaper noted.

Mr Kugelman echoes the sentiment. "India has an important legacy as a development and humanitarian aid donor in Afghanistan, which has translated into public goodwill from the Afghan public that Delhi is keen not to lose," he says.

Interestingly, relations with Delhi appear to be easing amid rising tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan claims the hardline Pakistani Taliban (TTP) operates from sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

Last July, Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told the BBC that Pakistan would continue attacks on Afghanistan as part of an operation aimed at countering terrorism. Days before talks between India and the Taliban, Pakistani airstrikes killed dozens in eastern Afghanistan, according to the Afghan government. The Taliban government condemned the strikes as violations of its sovereignty.

This marks a sharp decline in relations since the fall of Kabul in 2021, when a top Pakistani intelligence official was among the first foreign guests to meet the Taliban regime. At the time, many saw Kabul's fall as a strategic setback for India.

"While Pakistan isn't the only factor driving India's intensifying outreach to the Taliban, it's true that Delhi does get a big win in its evergreen competition with Pakistan by moving closer to a critical long-time Pakistani asset that has now turned on its former patron," says Mr Kugelman.

There are other reasons driving the outreach. India aims to strengthen connectivity and access Central Asia, which it can't reach directly by land due to Pakistan's refusal of transit rights. Experts say Afghanistan is key to this goal. One strategy is collaborating with Iran on the Chabahar port development to improve access to Central Asia via Afghanistan.

"It is easier for Delhi to focus on the Afghanistan component of this plan by engaging more closely with the Taliban leadership, which is fully behind India's plans as they would help enhance Afghanistan's own trade and connectivity links," says Mr Kugelman.

Clearly, India's recent outreach helps advance its core interests in Taliban-led Afghanistan: preventing terrorism threats to India, deepening connectivity with Iran and Central Asia, maintaining public goodwill through aid, and countering a struggling Pakistan.

What about the downsides?

"The main risk of strengthening ties with the Taliban is the Taliban itself. We're talking about a violent and brutal actor with close ties to international - including Pakistani - terror groups that has done little to reform itself from what it was in the 1990s," says Mr Kugelman.

"India may hope that if it keeps the Taliban on side, so to speak, the Taliban will be less likely to undermine India or its interests. And that may be true. But at the end of the day, can you really trust an actor like the Taliban? That will be the unsettling question hovering over India as it continues to cautiously pursue this complex relationship."

Mr Prasad sees no downsides to India's current engagement with Afghanistan, despite concerns over the Taliban's treatment of women. "The Taliban is fully in control. Letting the Taliban stew in its own juice won't help Afghan people. Some engagement with the international community might pressurise the government to improve its behaviour."

"Remember, the Taliban is craving for recognition," says Mr Prasad. "They know that will only happen after internal reforms." Like bringing women back into public life and restoring their rights to education, work and political participation.