India & Afghanistan

Story hook

It is 15 August 2021. As India celebrates 75 years of Independence, Kabul falls. The Ashraf Ghani government evaporates in a morning. Taliban fighters drive into the Arg Presidential Palace. The US-Taliban Doha Agreement of 29 February 2020 has played out to its logical conclusion. Within weeks, India shuts its Kabul Embassy and evacuates personnel via Operation Devi Shakti (16 August - 22 August 2021), pulling out >800 Indian and Afghan nationals.

For India, the immediate question is brutal: 20 years and $3 billion of development assistance — the Salma (Afghan-India Friendship) Dam, the new Afghan Parliament building, 200+ scholarship programmes — were all underwritten on the assumption that a Republican, India-friendly Kabul would persist. Now it doesn't.

Fast-forward to 8 January 2025. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri sits across the table from the Taliban's Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai. India has not recognised the Taliban regime. But this is the highest-level Indian engagement with the Taliban since the 2021 takeover — discussions on humanitarian aid, Chabahar port use, cross-border terror (TTP) and release of Indian-origin fishermen detained by Pakistan via Afghan intermediaries. India is back in Kabul through a "technical mission" — neither recognition nor disengagement, but pragmatic engagement.

Why this matters for UPSC

Afghanistan tests India's strategic autonomy in real time. Mains GS-II has asked about post-2021 recalibration almost every year since. Prelims has tested Chabahar, INSTC, Salma Dam. Interview boards probe the recognition question and the counter-terror calculus (TTP vs LeT/JeM linkages).