Delhi’s Double Game: Courting the Taliban to Counter Pakistan

Only days after issuing hostile remarks toward Pakistan on October 3, 2025, India is preparing to host an unlikely guest, Afghan Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. This comes after the United Nations Security Council temporarily lifted a travel ban on Muttaqi, allowing him to visit India from October 9 to 16, following his participation in the Moscow Regional Summit. What makes this visit remarkable is not just that it is the first by a senior Taliban official to India since 2021, but that it exposes New Delhi’s shifting regional strategy: from condemning the Taliban as terrorists alongside the United States to now courting them as partners, a pivot designed less for Afghan peace and more to undermine Pakistan’s western flank.

India’s Sudden Warmth Toward the Taliban

India presents this engagement as a diplomatic outreach to “stabilize the region” and “support the Afghan people.” But in geopolitical reality, it is a strategic maneuver. After years of isolation following the U.S. withdrawal, India’s re-entry into Afghan politics comes with clear objectives: protect its multi-billion-dollar investments, secure access to Central Asia through Iran, and contain Pakistan’s influence. Reports by Reuters and Arab News confirm that the UN Sanctions Committee granted a short-term travel exemption for Muttaqi, allowing him to visit New Delhi between October 9 and 16. This follows a series of quiet diplomatic contacts earlier in 2025, when India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met Muttaqi in Dubai, after which the Taliban described India as a “significant regional and economic partner.” These developments mark a complete reversal from India’s stance during the U.S.-led occupation, when New Delhi backed anti-Taliban factions and frequently accused Pakistan of “harboring extremism.” India’s outreach is therefore not born out of goodwill; it is a strategic necessity. With over USD 3 billion invested in Afghanistan across 500 projects, including the Salma Dam, the Delaram–Zaranj highway, and the Afghan Parliament building, India cannot afford to lose influence to Pakistan or China. The Taliban’s return left New Delhi sidelined; this visit is India’s attempt to re-enter Kabul’s power circles and restore leverage that once helped it corner Pakistan diplomatically.

No State Spends Billions Without a Motive

India’s footprint in Afghanistan is often portrayed as development aid, but the scale of investment reveals deeper motives. According to India’s Ministry of External Affairs, over USD 3 billion has been spent in “reconstruction,” covering schools, roads, hospitals, and energy projects in all 34 provinces. Yet every major Indian project carries clear strategic significance:

• The Delaram–Zaranj Highway, built by India’s Border Roads Organisation, connects Afghanistan to Iran’s Chabahar Port, bypassing Pakistan entirely and giving India land access to Central Asia.
• The Salma Dam, completed at a cost of nearly USD 290 million, gives India indirect leverage over western Afghanistan’s irrigation and power systems.
• The Afghan Parliament building, a USD 90 million project, embeds Indian political symbolism at the core of Kabul’s governance.

These are not acts of charity. As former Indian National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon noted, “Afghanistan’s stability is vital to India’s security interests.” And ex–Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran admitted that India’s objective was “to prevent Afghanistan’s re-emergence as a sanctuary for anti-India forces.” In short, India’s investments were never apolitical, they were instruments of influence.

From Allies of Washington to Friends of the Taliban

India’s pivot is especially ironic given its earlier hostility toward the Taliban. During the U.S.-led war, New Delhi positioned itself as Washington’s closest South Asian partner, supporting the Karzai and Ghani governments and funding anti-Taliban militias. Indian officials routinely accused Pakistan of supporting terrorism while portraying India as Afghanistan’s “natural ally.” Today, those same institutions have collapsed, yet India now turns to the very force it once condemned. This shift is not ideological but transactional. With the United States out and China and Pakistan emerging as the Taliban’s key interlocutors, India risks strategic isolation. Courting the Taliban is New Delhi’s way to avoid being cut out of the post-war order, even if it means legitimizing a group it helped Washington fight for two decades.

Strained Ties Between Islamabad and Kabul

Pakistan’s publicly stated objective is straightforward: it wants a stable Afghanistan that ensures peace along its western border and advances the welfare of the Afghan people. Islamabad argues that a stable, connected Afghanistan is essential for regional trade, security, and the prosperity of Afghans and Pakistanis alike. Yet, relations between Pakistan and the Taliban have cooled in recent years, primarily because Islamabad’s key security and political demands remain unmet. Pakistan expects the Taliban to prevent the Fitna al Khawarij (FAK) from using Afghan soil for cross-border attacks, and cooperate on curbing militancy. Yet, according to the UN Security Council Monitoring Team (2024), the FAK continues to operate freely from eastern Afghanistan with little interference from Kabul. Economically, Islamabad wants to link Afghanistan with CPEC for regional integration, but the Taliban has leaned toward trade routes through Iran and India. What began as a relationship of religious and strategic alignment has evolved into one of guarded suspicion, a gap India is now keen to exploit.

What the Taliban Seeks to Gain from India

For the Taliban, engaging with India serves multiple objectives. Most immediately, it offers economic diversification at a time when Afghanistan’s economy is collapsing under sanctions. India can provide access to humanitarian aid, medical cooperation, and limited trade, all outside Pakistan’s control. Secondly, the visit offers political legitimacy: by meeting Indian officials, the Taliban signals to the international community that it can engage as a functional state actor. Third, closer ties with New Delhi give the Taliban strategic leverage against Pakistan, allowing it to balance relations whenever Islamabad exerts pressure over issue of militants like the FAK. Analysts from the International Crisis Group describe this as “multi-vector diplomacy”, Kabul’s effort to avoid dependence on any single country. In essence, the Taliban’s visit to India is about optics, money, and maneuvering space, not ideological alignment.

The Timing: Threats to Pakistan and a Handshake with Kabul

The irony of timing cannot be ignored. On October 3, Indian officials and media outlets escalated rhetoric against Pakistan, accusing Islamabad of “sponsoring cross-border militancy” and warning of “firm responses.” Yet, within days, New Delhi extended a diplomatic welcome to Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership, a group Pakistan has long accused India of using as a regional proxy. For years, Pakistan has presented evidence of India’s destabilizing role from Afghan soil. In 2017, 2020, and 2022, Islamabad submitted detailed dossiers to the United Nations, accusing RAW of funding and training militant groups, including the FAK and Baloch separatists. These dossiers, supported by forensic and financial trails, remain part of official UN records. The UN Monitoring Team’s 2023–2025 reports also confirm that FAK militants continue to operate from Afghan provinces such as Khost, Kunar, and Paktika, posing direct threats to Pakistan’s border security.

Why India’s “Engagement” Is Really Containment

India’s renewed diplomacy with the Taliban serves four clear goals:

1. To protect its sunk costs, billions in aid and infrastructure that could otherwise fall under Chinese or Pakistani influence.
2. To bypass Pakistan by expanding the Chabahar–Central Asia corridor, reducing Islamabad’s economic leverage.
3. To influence Taliban policy on militancy, potentially muting criticism of anti-Pakistan elements in exchange for aid.
4. To rebrand itself globally as a “stabilizing force” in Afghanistan, countering China’s influence while quietly isolating Pakistan.

The narrative of “regional cooperation” hides a hard truth: India’s engagement is a containment strategy. Its goal is to reclaim space in Afghanistan’s political theater and deny Pakistan the influence it naturally enjoys through history and geography.

Pakistan’s Way Forward

Through the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Islamabad has already extended trade and energy connectivity into Afghanistan, offering genuine regional integration, a move that clearly unsettles India, which prefers its rival Chabahar route to bypass Pakistan. Pakistan has also submitted multiple dossiers to the United Nations (2017, 2020, 2022) documenting Indian-sponsored terrorism from Afghan soil. Having sacrificed over 80,000 lives and endured more than USD 150 billion in economic losses from terrorism since 2001, Islamabad continues to respond with facts, partnerships, and a fortified western frontier. Its strategy now rests on documented evidence, multilateral diplomacy, and a policy of resilience rather than confrontation.

Conclusion

India’s invitation to the Taliban foreign minister just days after threatening Pakistan is not diplomacy, it is geopolitics wrapped in duplicity. By hosting Amir Khan Muttaqi, India seeks to reassert control in Kabul, secure trade routes, and pressure Islamabad indirectly. But Pakistan has seen this playbook before. The difference today is that the evidence, dossiers, and international reports increasingly validate Islamabad’s position. The visit may appear historic for India, but it also exposes a deeper contradiction, a democracy that once championed the “war on terror” now embraces those it condemned, all for strategic gain. For Pakistan, the path forward lies in diplomacy anchored in truth, cooperation, and strength, ensuring Afghanistan never again becomes a battleground for Indian influence.