Engagement with Kabul or Indian overtures to Taliban

New Delhi [India], July 19 : India's overture to the Taliban has come in the midst of what appears to be a softening of the Taliban's attitude towards the US, its bugbear.
Just about a week after issuing all kinds of warnings to the US against "interfering" in Afghanistan's internal affairs, the head of the Afghan Taliban, Sheikh Hibatullah Akhundzada, said at a religious gathering that Kabul wanted good relations with Washington. He also said that Afghanistan (Taliban) will not allow the Afghan soil to be used against its "neighbours" which surely includes India.
The recluse Akhundzada had used strong language in his earlier statements hitting out at the US. 'Even if you use the atomic bomb against us, we will not deviate from Islam or Sharia,' he had said once.
Needless to say, a realization is dawning on the Taliban that its isolation in the world has to end for the good of its people whose sufferings have multiplied several-fold in less than a year.
The Taliban may not agree to removing curbs on individual liberty and allowing the education of women but it has understood that without meeting in whatever manner some of the "conditions" the Taliban regime cannot do any good to the Afghans.
It was against this background that the recent visit to Kabul of an Indian delegation led by a Joint Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs took place ostensibly to discuss humanitarian aid from India but more likely to test the waters for restoring some kind of diplomatic relationship!
A "technical" team of Indian officials has stayed behind in Kabul to oversee the flow of Indian aid in the coming months. It has been performing some counselor functions too, like issuing visas to Afghans.
The facade of posting a permanent "technical" team of Indians may have to be maintained till New Delhi extends formal diplomatic recognition to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. By all accounts, that day is not very near. But it does not mean that India and Afghanistan will observe a policy no contact.
India has strong stakes and strategic interests in Afghanistan. The two countries have very ancient historic and cultural ties. Despite all the efforts of Pakistan, India-Afghanistan relations at people-to-people level have remained good, surviving Taliban rule in the 1990s and since August last year.
Continuous vacuum at the diplomatic level poses a danger to India's interests and can devalue the years of goodwill for India among the ordinary Afghans. India has been the largest donor in Afghanistan among the countries in the region, doling out about $3 billion, and it is the fifth largest donor (for Afghanistan) in the world.
India's help has been diverse, ranging from building infrastructure to sending teams of medical staff and food. A spanking new Parliament building in Kabul is a gift from India, though ironically it will look incongruous in a country that refuses to practice democracy.
Afghans have been coming to India for medical treatment. Afghan students in large numbers have been enrolled in Indian colleges and universities. The Indian Military Academy (Dehradun) has been regularly accepting Afghan cadets. India has been among the more generous suppliers of humanitarian aid to the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
Trade between the two countries has not blossomed largely because of Pakistan's obduracy, refusing to open its land route to Indian exports to Afghanistan. This kind of pettiness is a direct result of Islamabad's policy of blind hostility with New Delhi.
But India cannot let a third country (Pakistan) stand in the way of developing relations with Afghanistan. The longer India stays away from Kabul officially the more Pakistan will try to damage the people oriented India-Afghanistan ties.
In the past, Pakistan had cultivated the Taliban profitably, recruiting mercenaries for proxy war with India. But now things do not look as smooth for Pakistan as they were in the 1980s or 1990s. In fact, relations between the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan are not rosy either.
There is an anti-Pakistan section within the Taliban. That is why Pakistan has not been able to persuade Kabul to uproot the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from its soil notwithstanding the facilitation role it is playing for TTP-Pak talks.
Clearly, while Pakistan may have still retained some influence over the Afghan Taliban it is not strong enough to allow Pakistan or its ISI to order masses of Taliban cadres to head for India on murderous missions.
The return of the Taliban in Kabul was expected to lead to a Chinese hold over Afghanistan's mineral wealth while overwhelming the country with cheap Chinese goods. The Chinese influence in the country has not eroded pro-India sentiments among the ordinary Afghans but a prolonged absence may.
China, like the rest of the world, has not recognized the Taliban regime; nor has Pakistan. Strangely, both countries are in the forefront of the campaign seeking urgent recognition of the Taliban. The calls have fallen on deaf ears.
Both China and Pakistan are scared of global fallout if they go ahead and recognize the Taliban regime ahead of the rest of the world.
On its part, India need not be in a hurry to recognize the Taliban. It depends on strategic and geo-political timing. India can continue to be engaged with Kabul in the meanwhile, not as a 'preaching' country of the West but as a friendly South Asian with fraternal ties with the Afghans.