Rahul Roy-Chaudhury
India has increased its engagement with the Taliban regime, as evidenced by Foreign Minister Muttaqi’s recent visit. This is a pragmatic move but will escalate tensions with Pakistan.
Crucial aspects of Muttaqi’s week-long visit to India were the meeting with his Indian counterpart, External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and his visit to the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary in northern India.
Muttaqi and Jaishankar met with their respective delegations on 10 October 2025. The joint statement that followed was practical and restrained. It emphasised trade (Indian companies were invited to bid for mining licences), connectivity (commencement of the India–Afghanistan air freight corridor) and cooperation on hydroelectric projects and humanitarian issues. The latter included building a 30-bed hospital in Kabul and five maternity health clinics in the provinces of Paktika, Khost and Paktia. Also notable is what the statement did not mention. As recently as 6 March 2024, the Indian representative on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) had stressed ‘the need to counter terrorism, bring in inclusive governance and safeguard the rights of women, children and minorities in Afghanistan’. Not only did the statement not address these concerns, but in previous bilateral interactions with Muttaqi, including India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri’s meeting with him in Dubai on 8 January 2025 and Jaishankar’s first phone call with Muttaqi on 15 May 2025, no reference to these issues was made either.
The Deoband seminary in northern India is considered the intellectual birthplace of the Taliban ideology. With a large crowd of clerics and students surrounding Muttaqi, the event was portrayed as an act of cultural hospitality, even as it created an opportunity for India’s religious engagement with the Taliban through faith and education.
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