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“Foreign policy becomes theatre when desperation meets opportunism.” Dr. Frederic Grare
India’s recent outreach to Afghanistan is frequently described as “growing bonhomie.” In reality, it is a strategic alignment driven by opportunism, not shared values or genuine partnership. Both India and the Afghan regime operate out of desperation and self-interest, exploiting each other’s weaknesses while ignoring the broader implications for regional stability. What is being portrayed as friendship is, in fact, a transactional engagement built on fragility and opportunistic calculations.
Sanctioned Kabul: India Exploits Desperation
The October 2025 visit of Afghan Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi to New Delhi underscores the conditional and opportunistic nature of the engagement. Despite serving as the highest diplomatic representative of the Afghan regime, Muttaqi remains UN-sanctioned, facing travel bans, asset freezes, and an arms embargo. India’s facilitation of his visit required a special exemption from the UN Security Council, allowing New Delhi to legitimize a pariah regime while undermining international pressure and exploiting Afghanistan’s urgent need for recognition. As scholar Thomas Barfield notes, “Afghan foreign policy under the Emirate is dictated by survival, not ideology.” This reality highlights that India’s outreach is not grounded in principle but in the opportunity to influence a vulnerable regime for strategic gain.
Ideological Extremism as an Economic Liability
Afghanistan’s rigid internal policies are a direct obstacle to sustainable economic growth. Gender segregation, the exclusion of women from public life, restrictions on education, and the enforcement of strict Sharia laws have collapsed domestic markets for key consumer goods. For example, India’s top exports to Afghanistan in 2023 included women’s apparel valued at $19.3 million. Yet the regime’s ideological policies effectively eliminate the market segment required to sustain these industries. This demonstrates that Afghanistan’s internal governance acts as an economic throttle, ensuring that trade relations will always operate far below their potential. India’s assistance and trade, no matter how strategically structured, cannot compensate for this systemic dysfunction.
Economic Fragility and Dependence
Afghanistan’s economic position is acutely fragile. Over recent years, bilateral trade with India has been volatile and contracting. Exports from Afghanistan to India fell by 29.3%, from $66.2 million in September 2024 to $46.8 million in September 2025, while India’s exports to Afghanistan declined by 19.7%, dropping from $23.4 million to $18.8 million. Long-term trends reflect a persistent annualized decline of 6.88% over the past five years. Afghanistan’s dependence on external trade routes is costly, slow, and politically unstable. The regime’s hostility toward established regional partners forces reliance on opportunistic actors, creating self-inflicted economic vulnerabilities and ensuring that any “growth” achieved through India remains superficial and unsustainable.
India’s Strategic Exploitation
India leverages Afghanistan’s economic weakness and ideological rigidity to expand its influence in the region. While New Delhi presents itself as a stabilizing actor, in reality, it gains geopolitical leverage, diplomatic photo opportunities, and control over trade corridors. Afghanistan, on the other hand, gains temporary optics, aid, and recognition but remains trapped in dependence, unable to secure genuine economic or political stability. This transactional engagement exposes the regime’s vulnerabilities, revealing that Afghanistan’s apparent “partnerships” are founded on necessity rather than trust or mutual benefit.
Supporting Extremist Proxies: ISKP and TTP
India’s involvement with Afghanistan emboldens extremist groups operating within the country. The Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) has repeatedly carried out attacks across borders, including major incidents in Russia and Iran in 2024. Additionally, militant groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) continue cross-border operations with relative impunity. By supporting and indirectly facilitating these proxies, India’s policy not only destabilizes Afghanistan further but also turns Kabul into a launchpad for regional insecurity. The transactional engagement amplifies existing threats and exposes Afghanistan’s lack of effective control over extremist factions within its territory.
Ideology vs. Pragmatism: Afghanistan’s Hypocrisy
Afghanistan demonstrates a stark contrast between domestic policies and international diplomacy. Domestically, the regime enforces strict gender segregation, bans girls from schools, suppresses media freedom, and restricts civil liberties. Abroad, it compromises all rhetoric when India offers trade, recognition, or strategic support. During high-level visits to New Delhi, the regime maintains silence on regional human rights crises, drops anti-India slogans, and ignores international norms, exposing the opportunistic and hypocritical nature of its foreign policy. Stephen Walt aptly summarizes: “Interest-driven selective ethics define Afghan foreign policy.” This duplicity allows the regime to pursue short-term economic and diplomatic benefits while ignoring long-term principles and regional stability.
Case Study: Bamiyan: A Warning Ignored
The destruction of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001, carried out under a strict religious edict by the Taliban’s Supreme Leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, serves as a historical marker of Afghanistan’s ideological absolutism. The religiously justified act of cultural erasure remains a potent warning that the regime operates with uncompromising doctrinal rigidity. India’s willingness to partner with the same power structure today demonstrates its strategic opportunism rather than shared values or a commitment to heritage preservation. The engagement is rooted in exploiting Afghanistan’s isolation and desperation, not fostering principled cooperation.
Security Paradox Betting on Instability
India portrays its engagement with Afghanistan as a stabilizing move, yet it paradoxically partners with a regime linked to extremist organizations. Afghanistan maintains close ties with Al-Qaeda, providing a haven for networks that threaten regional security. Meanwhile, ISKP continues to conduct high-profile attacks, demonstrating Kabul’s inability to control violent actors. India’s decision to collaborate with such a regime, while framing its policy as counterterrorism-oriented, heightens regional insecurity. Furthermore, cross-border attacks traced to Afghan-based proxies during periods of heightened engagement illustrate the direct consequences of India’s transactional strategy. Rather than stabilizing the region, the relationship escalates tensions and exposes vulnerabilities.
Afghanistan’s Economic Dependence on Established Trade Routes
Despite the rhetoric of diversification, Afghanistan’s economy remains dependent on traditional trade corridors for essential goods, including food, fuel, and medical supplies. India’s attempts to substitute alternative routes, such as the Chabahar port, are inefficient, costly, and unable to meet the volume required to sustain Afghanistan’s economy. Afghanistan’s rejection of historically reliable regional partners in favor of opportunistic engagements only deepens its economic fragility. The regime’s hostility and isolationist policies create shortages, higher prices, and an unstable market, demonstrating a pattern of self-inflicted economic harm.
Conclusion: Opportunism, Fragility, and Self-Harm
The Afghanistan–India “relationship” is conditional, transactional, and opportunistic. Afghanistan compromises principle and long-term interests in pursuit of temporary aid and recognition, while India leverages Kabul for geopolitical influence. The engagement is not a model of stability, partnership, or mutual benefit but rather a theatre of opportunism and fragility. Afghanistan’s internal ideological rigidity, economic dependence, and inability to control extremist proxies make it an unreliable partner. India’s strategy, focused on exploiting these vulnerabilities, amplifies instability across the region. Ultimately, both actors are pursuing self-serving agendas, creating chaos and uncertainty while ignoring sustainable solutions or responsible governance.
“When survival and optics collide, ideology becomes disposable, and opportunism prevails.”
