UPSC Issue at a Glance is an initiative of UPSC Essentials to focus your prelims and mains exam preparation on an issue that has been in the news. Every Thursday, cover a new topic in Q&A format. This week’s issue is focused on the India-Taliban talks. Let’s get started!
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What is the issue?
In the first high-level bilateral engagement with the Taliban regime, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met Afghanistan’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai on 8th January. This meeting was particularly noteworthy, as it involved an Indian official at the level of foreign secretary, a step up from previous engagements, which were conducted by joint secretaries. This change signals an upgrade in official interactions from the Indian government. A statement from the Ministry of External Affairs said the two sides discussed various issues pertaining to bilateral relations as well as regional developments.
Why is this issue relevant?
India and its neighbourhood forms an important part of UPSC CSE syllabus. Additionally, from 2013 to 2023, a total of 12 questions have been asked regarding India and its neighbouring countries in mains. These questions covered India’s relations with neighbouring nations such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, etc. In prelims, questions related to location and geography have been asked.
UPSC Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance
Mains Examination: General Studies-II: India and its neighbourhood- relations.
Question 1: What is the Taliban and its history?
The Taliban, which means “students” in the Pashto language, emerged in 1994 around the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. It was one of the factions involved in a civil war for control of the country following the withdrawal of the Soviet Union and the subsequent collapse of the Afghan government.
The group originally drew its members from the “mujahideen” fighters who, with support from the United States, successfully repelled Soviet forces in the 1980s. Within just two years, the Taliban gained sole control over most of Afghanistan, proclaiming an Islamic emirate in 1996 with a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Other mujahideen groups retreated to the northern part of the country.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, a NATO coalition led by the United States invaded Afghanistan and quickly removed the Taliban from power. Following their ousting, the US established an interim Afghan government and appointed Hamid Karzai as its leader. Meanwhile, Taliban retreated into remote areas, where it began a 20-year-long insurgency against the Afghan government and its Western allies.
This November 2011 photo shows Gen. James Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps, in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. It took only two months for US invaders to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. (AP)
Taliban 2.0
In February 2020, the Taliban and the US government reached an agreement in Doha that committed the US to withdraw from Afghanistan while requiring the Taliban to refrain from attacking US forces. However, this deal did not establish any significant frameworks guiding how the Taliban would operate within Afghanistan’s political system or provide guidelines on governance related to human rights and democratic values.
Following the US withdrawal process, the Taliban made significant advances, and in August 2021, they took control of Kabul after the departure of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan.
Supporters of the Taliban carry the Taliban’s signature white flags in the Afghan-Pakistan border town of Chaman, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 14, 2021. (AP)
Question 2: How has India navigated its relationship with the Taliban since they assumed power?
From 1996 to now, India’s journey from first opposition, then diffidence to engaging with the Taliban, to the resigned acceptance of its inevitability, is in no small measure a story of India’s problematic relationship with Pakistan.-Nirupama Subramanian
The above statement clearly outlines the evolution of India’s relationship with the Taliban. Various factors have undoubtedly played a key role in shaping India’s engagement with them.
Nirupama Subramanian wrote in Explained: Engaging with the Taliban, The Indian Express (2022)– “In 1996, when the Taliban fought their way through warring mujahideen factions into Kabul for the first time, India, fearing a spillover on Kashmir insurgency (there was indeed some), backed the Northern Alliance with money and weapons. As the scholar Avinash Paliwal has pointed out (My Enemy’s Enemy: India in Afghanistan from the Soviet Union to the US Withdrawal), New Delhi did briefly contemplate opening contacts with the group but dropped the idea as the establishment was divided on reaching out to a group tied to Pakistan.”
Later on in 2000, after meeting with Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban envoy to Pakistan, Vijay K. Nambiar, India’s High Commissioner to Islamabad at the time, assessed the prospects for engagement with the regime in Kabul as bleak.
“I realised that there was no way in which we (Taliban and India) are going to be truly connected with each other in any kind of an understanding,” he said, according to Avinash Paliwal’s book, My Enemy’s Enemy: India in Afghanistan, from the Soviet Invasion to the US withdrawal (2017).
India’s engagement with Taliban 2.0
On August 31, 2021, just hours after the last U.S. military aircraft departed from Afghanistan, India made its first official contact with the Taliban. This meeting occurred at the request of the new authorities in Kabul. Ambassador to Qatar Deepak Mittal met with Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, at the Indian embassy. Stanekzai stated that India is “very important for this subcontinent.” He expressed the Taliban’s desire to maintain “cultural,” “economic,” “political,” and “trade ties” with India, similar to those of the past.
Taliban soldiers celebrate the second anniversary of their coming to power, on a street near the US embassy in Kabul in august 2023. (Reuters)
A few days after the Doha meeting, then Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla stated that the engagement had been “limited,” but the Taliban had suggested they would be “reasonable” in addressing India’s concerns. In September same year, India referred to the Taliban as “those in positions of power and authority across Afghanistan,” marking the first time the group was acknowledged as a state actor.
In October 2023, the Afghan embassy in New Delhi closed operations citing paucity of resources and personnel, and the failure to “meet expectations…to serve the best interests of Afghanistan”. However, in conversations with key Taliban leaders, Indian officials have gained the impression that the Taliban are “ready to engage” and are seeking help to rebuild the country’s infrastructure. In light of this, India is exploring potential avenues for engagement with the Taliban.
Question 3: What key factors have driven India to engage with the Taliban at a higher level?
The Taliban has been calling for increased engagement with India since they ousted the Ashraf Ghani government and took control of Kabul in August 2021. Although India has not formally recognised the Taliban regime, in light of recent developments in regional and global affairs, it seems necessary to elevate its level of official engagement with the Taliban to safeguard its long-standing investments in Afghanistan and protect its national and security interests amidst a complex backdrop of ongoing geopolitical factors.
Some of the key factors behind India’s move to engage with Taliban at a higher level highlighted by Shubhajit Roy are:
1.Iran has been weakened: Afghanistan’s neighbor, Iran, was considerably weakened in the latter half of 2024. Iran suffered a blow as Israel managed to decimate Hezbollah and Hamas, two of Tehran’s proxies. Tehran was now too preoccupied with re-establishing deterrence against Israel and putting its house in order to focus on the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
2. Russia is preoccupied with its own conflict: In the last three years, Russia has been caught up with its war in Ukraine, and has been trying to build bridges with the Taliban. President Vladimir Putin said in July 2024 that Taliban was now an ally in fighting terrorism.
3. China is making inroads in Afghanistan: China has become actively involved in Afghanistan, focusing on building infrastructure and accessing natural resources. In September 2023, it sent an ambassador to Kabul, and by early 2024, received a Taliban representative as its ambassador. This move has led Delhi to view Beijing as filling the void left by the United States, Europe, and the West. In this context, India is trying to ensure it does not fall behind China and is likely engaging with the Taliban.
4. Taliban’s benefactor and ally Pakistan has become an adversary: Pakistan, which celebrated the rise of the Taliban, is now in a fraught relationship with the Taliban. The tension between both have come to a stage where Kabul has claimed that Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Paktika province on December 24 resulted in the death of at least 51 people, including women and children.
These development, along with other factors such as Donald Trump’s return to the U.S. White House, have defined the current state of affairs—essentially placing Delhi at the center of engagement with the Taliban.
What next?
Afghanistan’s geopolitical significance goes beyond India and Pakistan. It is a multi-ethnic, landlocked country positioned at the crossroads of Central Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia. This strategic location has historically drawn the interest of major global and regional powers, making Afghanistan a focal point in global politics. Acknowledging Afghanistan’s significance, India has carefully crafted its policy towards the country.
Shantesh Kumar Singh wrote in India’s meeting with the Taliban is part of its commitment towards the Afghan people– “India has diligently crafted its policy towards Afghanistan by maintaining a balance between serving its national interest and at the same time meeting the needs of the Afghani population, showing its uncompromising conviction towards democratic values and humanitarian assistance.”
India’s commitment to Afghanistan and its people is evident through several key initiatives, including the Delaram-Zaranj highway, the Salma Dam, and the reconstruction of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health in Kabul, as well as the construction of a new parliament building. In this context, Shantesh Kumar Singh wrote “The latest meeting in Dubai, thus, holds hope for the future. On one hand, it showcases India’s commitment towards a stable relationship with Afghanistan, on the other, it gives a strategic advantage to India at a time when China is trying to make inroads through investments and projects.”
Keeping in mind the complex geopolitical chessboard, India should enhance humanitarian assistance and resume development projects in Afghanistan. Capitalising on traditional friendship, there is scope for Afghanistan to figure even more prominently in India’s “Act West” policy. The Taliban, after all, is here to stay.- Sujan R Chinoy
Express view on India-Taliban talks: Delhi must not give up core values, should underline concerns
“Governments might come and go in Kabul, but India’s ties with Afghanistan have largely retained their strategic character. India’s stepped-up engagement with the Taliban — marked by the recent meeting of Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri with the acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai — underlines this basic geopolitical reality of the Subcontinent.
Although the logic of geopolitics is moving Delhi closer to Kabul, there are two issues of concern for India. One, the domestic orientation of the Taliban regime — its repression of the population and intolerable oppression of women in particular, who are being denied basic rights such as education and minimal personal freedoms. To be sure, India does not have the power to alter the internal politics of Afghanistan; realism suggests that Delhi must deal with whichever government is in power in Kabul.”
Post Read Questions
Prelims
(1) Consider the following countries: (UPSC CSE 2022)
1. Azerbaijan
2. Kyrgyzstan
3. Tajikistan
4. Turkmenistan
5. Uzbekistan
Which of the above have borders with Afghanistan?
(a) 1, 2 and 5 only
(b) 1, 2, 3 and 4 only
(c) 3, 4 and 5 only
(d) 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
(2) Consider the following pairs:
1. Chabahar Port: Iran
2. Salma Dam: Aghanistan
3. Kursk: Russia
Which of the pairs given above are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(2) 2 and 3 only
(3) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Mains
The proposed withdrawal of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan in 2014 is fraught with major security implications for the countries of the region. Examine in light of the fact that India is faced with a plethora of challenges and needs to safeguard its own strategic interests. (UPSC CSE 2013)
(Sources: India-Taliban talks: Region in flux and 5 reasons behind Delhi’s decision to engage Kabul, The Taliban: Here are key facts about the militant group, Who are the Taliban–Part I, Explained: Engaging with the Taliban, India’s meeting with the Taliban is part of its commitment towards the Afghan people, Express view on India-Taliban talks: Delhi must not give up core values, should underline concerns, India-Taliban talks — realism in Acting West)
For your queries and suggestions write at roshni.yadav@indianexpress.com
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