Why India Is Embracing the Taliban

Happymon Jacob

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Jacob is a visiting professor at Shiv Nadar University, the founder of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, and editor of India’s World magazine.

Anand Prakash (left), an Indian official at the Ministry of External Affairs with Afghanistan's Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi (center) at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi on Oct. 13, 2025.Anushree Fadnavis—Reuters

Trump suggests military strikes in Venezuela may come soon, Democrats accuse Kristi Noem of violating the Hatch Act, and moreThe Taliban evokes bitter memories in India. The Islamists were seen as complicit in India’s worst plane hijack in 1999 and the 2008 attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, which killed several Indian citizens, including two senior diplomats. It is for these and other reasons that the Afghan Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi’s trip to Delhi is so remarkable.

Muttaqi, who is still on the U.N. sanctions list, had to get a travel exemption to arrive in India last Thursday for a week-long visit. India referred to him as the Afghan foreign minister, allowed him to hold press conferences at the Afghan embassy premises in Delhi that are still manned by officers of the previous Western-backed government, and had its foreign minister S. Jaishankar share the stage with him. Delhi also plans to reopen its embassy in Kabul soon.

But as Muttaqi went about a public relations blitz in India and held talks with Indian officials, deadly clashes erupted along the Durand Line border between Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent days. The timing alongside Muttaqi’s visit to India—Pakistan’s arch-rival—underscores the complex India-Afghanistan-Pakistan geopolitics at play.

Why is Delhi reaching out to Kabul?

India has maintained relations with the Taliban ever since it seized power in Kabul four years ago. But a series of regional developments has led to the unprecedented change in India’s policy toward the Taliban we are seeing today. The military conflict between India and Pakistan earlier this year, China’s active and growing support for Pakistan, Russia’s lukewarm response to that war despite its historical defense ties to India, and Washington’s recent embrace of Pakistan have created a sense of unease and claustrophobia in Delhi.