Afghanistan: Is India warming up to Taliban?

A recent report by the Taliban-controlled Bakhtar News Agency stated that the Islamic fundamentalist regime has appointed Ikramuddin Kamil, a post-doctoral student of international law from New Delhi's South Asia University, as its envoy in Mumbai. 

While Indian officials have yet to officially comment, the agency quoted sources in the Taliban "Foreign Ministry" as confirming Kamil's appointment as "the acting consul of the Islamic Emirate" who will be in charge of Afghanistan's consular services and representing Kabul's interests in the Indian metropolis.

"He is currently in Mumbai, where he is fulfilling his duties as a diplomat," the agency said of Kamil this week.

Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban's deputy foreign minister for political affairs, also posted on X about Kamil's appointment to the consulate in Mumbai.

India sends diplomat to Kabul

The Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, but have yet to gain recognition from any other country in the world. At the same time, multiple countries have boosted their ties with the regime without recognizing it, including India, which has a strategic plan to expand its footprint in Afghanistan.

The news of Kamil's posting in Mumbai comes just days after a senior official from India's Foreign Ministry visited Afghanistan. J P Singh, the head of India's diplomatic division for Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran (PAI), met Afghanistan's "acting defense minister" Mullah Muhammad Yaqoob — the son of the Taliban's late founder Mullah Muhammad Omar — as well as former President Hamid Karzai and other senior ministers during his visit last week.

A spokesman for India's Foreign Ministry said the talks had focused on "India's humanitarian assistance that we are providing to people in Afghanistan" and the ways "the business community in Afghanistan" could use Iran's Chabahar port for international trade. India views the port as a strategic location, and it signed a deal with Iran earlier this year to develop and operate the site over the next decade.

Engaging without recognition

In recent years, New Delhi has been carefully calibrating its moves towards Kabul to avoid recognizing the Taliban as legitimate and yet engage them to protect its interests in Afghanistan.

In June 2022, India sent a "technical team" to Kabul to coorinate the delivery of humanitarian assistance and to see how New Delhi could support the Afghan people. Since the opening of the technical mission, the Taliban have been demanding to place their own representative in Delhi.

Then, in January this year, India participated in the Regional Cooperation Initiative meeting convened by the Taliban in Kabul that included representatives from several countries, including China, Russia, Pakistan, and Iran.

Afghanistan reduced to a 'non-issue'

India has been working to gradually regain the strategic influence in Kabul that it lost when the Taliban took power in August 2021, Afghanistan expert Shanthie Mariet D'Souza told DW.

"It may pave the way for activating its trade linkages with Central Asian countries through the Chabahar port in Iran and the territory of Afghanistan and deny Pakistan the strategic depth that it has been seeking since the ascent of the Taliban in Afghanistan," said D'Souza, who serves as the head of Mantraya Institute of Strategic Studies in India.

The Taliban also want to "deepen their relationship" with India, according to the Afghanistan expert.

D'Souza acknowledged that the Taliban's quest for legitimacy would get a boost with India's rapprochement.

"However, the reality is that the West and the US have effectively reduced Afghanistan to a non-issue aside from occasional mentions of the violations of girls' and women's rights. In contrast, nearly all of Afghanistan's regional neighbors have recognized the wisdom of engaging with the Islamic Emirate, even without officially recognizing it," said D'Souza.

And even on the issues such as the discrimination of women, having "a strong presence in Kabul" would allow India to influence the Taliban policies better than "taking a sulking and detached stance," she said.

New Delhi wants to minimize threats

Ajay Bisaria, a former high commissioner to Pakistan, believes that the presence of an Afghan official in Mumbai will be of practical help to the Afghan community, which is bereft of any representative to deal with issues concerning their home country.

"This is part of India's policy of calibrated and pragmatic engagement with the de facto rulers of Afghanistan. India has a technical team in place in Kabul and has engaged at the official level with the Taliban on multiple occasions," Bisaria told DW.

In his estimate, India's minimum expectation would be that the Taliban will not take any steps to threaten India's security as they did in the 1990s and ideally also protect India's interests in Afghanistan.

Iran and China already welcomed Taliban envoys

Afghanistan's embassy in New Delhi ceased operations in October last year. The embassy cited a series of issues, including a lack of cooperation from the Indian government. The previous ambassador, Farid Mamundzay — who was appointed by the government of former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani — left India and never returned, creating a leadership void.

India's former envoy to Iran Gaddam Dharmendra told DW that the latest news of the new Mumbai envoy represents a hard-headed, pragmatic move.

"The Taliban-Pakistan relations are strained. And Iran and China have permitted the Taliban to operate the embassies in Tehran and Beijing. So, it makes sense for us to leverage our national interest," said Dharmendra.

Edited by: Darko Janjevic