India has had strong political and cultural links with Afghanistan. India-Afghanistan relations have improved substantially under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Pakistan has neither fulfilled its promise of convincing the Taliban on holding peace dialogue with the Afghan government nor has ceased to provide safe havens to the Taliban. Therefore, the Ghani government has sought a larger Indian role in reconstruction and capacity building in Afghanistan.
India has strategic interests in Afghanistan’s future and as its ally, India can have an edge over Pakistan. Over the years India has tried to build its camaraderie with Afghanistan through investing in infrastructure, education sector, irrigation development and power generation projects. But despite this association, India’s strategic, economic and security related interests depend on how the current Afghan government keeps the Taliban at bay after the Biden administration pulls its military presence from the region. Amid the swift withdrawal of troops by the United States and its allies from Afghanistan, the Taliban is flexing its military muscle to gain greater control of the country’s territory.
Harsh V. Pant, the director of research at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi and a professor of international relations at King’s College London while throwing light on the issue said, ” India-Afghanistan have maintained strong bilateral ties, with New Delhi often focusing on carrying out developmental projects based on the Afghan government’s requests. India has provided Afghanistan needed assistance in important sectors, such as education, health, irrigation, power generation, transport, rural development, and critical infrastructure building. In February, Afghanistan also received 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine from India, the first shot to arrive in the country. Ghani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during a virtual summit in the same month, also signed an agreement for the construction of the Shahtoot Dam near Kabul. The dam is expected to provide safe drinking water, water for irrigation, and electricity to its nearby areas. While India’s developmental cooperation has been its strongest soft-power asset in Afghanistan, it has also helped develop New Delhi’s strategic partnership with Washington, which has been appreciative of India’s work in the country.”
Prof. Pant said that India is continuously helping Afghanistan on the development front, but India has not yet taken any step on the security front. The US military’s stay in Afghanistan is an issue related to its security. If the US forces leave Afghanistan, there is a possibility of Taliban dominance there. In such a situation, it is natural for India to be worried about the development projects financed by it. If the Afghan army weakens and the Taliban becomes dominant, then all India’s hard work in Afghanistan may be in vain. Dealing with these situations is a big diplomatic challenge for India.
Prof. Pant said that apart from development works in Afghanistan, India also needs to increase regional cooperation with other neighboring countries. For this, India has intensified its diplomatic efforts. The visit of Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to Iran and Russia indicates that India has started work in this direction. India should also intensify dialogue with Turkey regarding Afghanistan as Turkey will have a bigger role in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US forces. India can consider the opening talks with Taliban as well. In November 2018, when Russia held talks with the Taliban, members of the Afghan High Peace Council, and other regional powers, India chose to send a nonofficial delegation of two diplomats to Moscow. In September 2020, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar joined the inaugural session of intra-Afghan talks in Doha, addressing the gathering via video and encouraging any peace process to be controlled by the Afghan people.
“India, has been wary of declarations that leave out Pakistan as a root cause of the continuing problem in Afghanistan. While Washington has periodically applied pressure on Islamabad to do more to root out terrorism at home, others have been hesitant to touch the issue at all. Yet India is right that until Pakistan stops providing safe havens to senior Taliban leaders, their families, and the Haqqani network, Afghanistan can never be a stable, peaceful nation”, Prof. Pant added.