As the Taliban marks five years of rule in Kabul this month, India's Ministry of External Affairs has signalled a notable increase in pragmatic engagement with the Taliban authorities — a shift that reflects both strategic necessity and a long, turbulent history between New Delhi and Kabul. India's diplomatic footprint in Afghanistan has survived Soviet withdrawal, civil war, two Taliban regimes, and a deadly embassy bombing, making it one of South Asia's most resilient bilateral relationships.

The Soviet Era and India's Steadfast Presence

India's commitment to Afghanistan predates the current geopolitical chessboard by decades. The Indian embassy in Kabul kept the Tricolour flying even through the chaos that followed the withdrawal of Soviet troops, which began in mid-1988 and stretched over a year. The Soviet intervention — launched to prop up a Communist-led government in Kabul — was ultimately broken by mujahideen resistance, a coalition of guerrilla groups trained and armed by Pakistan with covert backing from the United States.

The mechanics of that covert operation, involving America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Pakistan Army's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), were documented by Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, then head of the ISI's Afghan Bureau, in the book Afghanistan: The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower, co-written with British soldier-author Mark Adkin. The decade-long conflict bled the Soviet economy dry, earning it the grim sobriquet of the 'Soviet Union's Vietnam'.

The First Taliban Takeover and Embassy Closure

The post-Soviet collapse of order in Afghanistan forced India into a difficult position. Deposed President Mohammad Najibullah took refuge in a United Nations compound housing the Office of the Secretary-General in Afghanistan and Pakistan (OSGAP), where he remained for four years after a failed escape attempt. When the Taliban seized Kabul for the first time in 1996, they executed Najibullah. Shortly before that episode, India shuttered its embassy in September 1996, acting on the advice of Afghan ministers and officials who were themselves retreating to the relative safety of the northern mountains.

Following the fall of the first Taliban regime, India re-established diplomatic relations with the successor government, provided substantial aid, and participated actively in Afghanistan's reconstruction — a period of deep engagement that shaped New Delhi's enduring strategic interest in the country.

The 2008 Embassy Bombing

That engagement came at a steep human cost. On 7 July 2008, a suicide bomber detonated an IED-laden vehicle at the entrance of the Indian embassy in Kabul, killing 59 people, including four Indian officials and a local driver. More than 150 people, among them five Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel, sustained serious injuries. Despite the severity of the attack, the mission continued its operations — a testament, officials have noted, to India's long-term commitment to Afghanistan.

Taliban 2.0 and India's Return to Kabul

History repeated itself in 2021, when the Taliban's swift return to power — coinciding with the withdrawal of US-led forces after two decades — forced India to close its embassy once again. The mission reopened in 2025, marking the first high-level engagement between India and Afghanistan since Taliban 2.0 consolidated power. The reopening is widely seen as a significant recalibration, reflecting New Delhi's recognition that ignoring Kabul carries its own strategic risks.

The Pashtun Factor and Pakistan's Waning Influence

India's relationship with Afghan factions has never been uniform. Pakistan-backed Pashtun commanders of the mujahideen era — including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf — were openly hostile to New Delhi, with many of their fighters reportedly invoking the 'Kashmir war'. Some Afghan fighters were, according to reports, among terrorists apprehended or killed in Jammu and Kashmir. By contrast, Tajik and Uzbek commanders such as Ahmad Shah Masood and Abdul Rashid Dostum welcomed Indian humanitarian assistance.

Notably, even within the current Taliban leadership, there has been a discernible cooling toward Islamabad. Analysts attribute this largely to the long-standing Pashtun grievance over the Durand Line, drawn by British diplomat Sir Henry Mortimer Durand in 1893, which Pashtuns argue divided their communities arbitrarily. The ongoing turmoil in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — formerly the North-West Frontier Province — has deepened those fault lines. For Taliban 2.0, Pakistan's overbearing posture has reportedly proved more of an obstacle to governance than a source of support, creating an opening that India appears to be carefully exploiting.

As the Taliban's fifth year in power draws attention to Kabul's evolving foreign policy alignments, India's incremental re-engagement stands as both a pragmatic hedge and a continuation of a diplomatic tradition that has outlasted empires, superpowers, and multiple changes of regime.