India has very old historical, political and cultural links with Afghanistan. All surviving heads of government or spouses have had Indian connections. Ex-king Zahir Shah’s father and brother were born in Dehra Dun, former president (Sigbetullah) Mojadidi’s ancestors are buried in Sirhind, former president Najibullah’s widow lives in Delhi and President Karzai was educated in Shimla

India has played a significant role in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Afghanistan. In 2011, India and Afghanistan entered into a Strategic Partnership Agreement which formalized a framework for cooperation in various areas between the two countries - political and security cooperation, trade and economic cooperation, capacity development and education, and social, cultural, civil society, and people-to-people relations. The Strategic Partnership Agreement also provides for assistance to help rebuild indigenous Afghan capacity in different areas, encouraging investment in Afghanistan's natural resources, providing duty-free access to the Indian market for Afghanistan's exports support for an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, broad-based and inclusive process of peace and reconciliation, and advocating the need for a sustained and long-term commitment to Afghanistan by the international community.

The US-led forces defeated the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001. It led to the establishment of a democratically-elected government there which ruled for approximately 20 years. In 2021, the Taliban returned to power again and the US-led forces withdrew completely from Afghanistan. During 2000 and 2021, a number of high-level, bilateral visits took place between the leaders of the two countries. During the period of 20 years (2001-2021), India has pledged and implemented development and reconstruction projects worth more than $3 billion. India undertook 400-plus projects in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan. The important projects include

1. Zaranj-Delaram Highway in southwestern Afghanistan 
2. Construction of the Afghan Parliament building in Kabul
3. Construction of Salma Dam - India's most expensive infrastructure project in Afghanistan - irrigation water and electricity project with an irrigation capacity of 200000 acres of farmlands
4. Restoration of Stor Palace in Kabul
5. Restoration of Indira Gandhi Institute for Child Health - the largest pediatric hospital in Afghanistan
6. Construction of transmission and telecommunication lines
7. Reconstruction and renovation of Habibia School in Kabul
8. The Afghan National Agricultural Sciences and Technology University established with India's assistance

After the re-emergence of the Taliban and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the relations took a U-turn. India's relations with the Taliban never remained good because of the Taliban's linkage with terrorism, discrimination against women, and patronage of opium cultivation. No doubt, Afghanistan is important to India due to its strategic location, nearness to Pakistan, India's connectivity to Central Asia, the significant Muslim population in India, and the Taliban's implications for India's security. 

India has played an active role in the development of Afghanistan based on the understanding that social and economic development in Afghanistan is crucial to regional stability. The principal objective of India’s development partnership is to assist in building indigenous Afghan capacity and institutions and to ensure that development touches all the regions of Afghanistan and encompasses all the sectors of development.

India has pursued a "soft power" strategy toward Afghanistan, sticking to civilian rather than military matters. In consonance with the priorities laid down by the Karzai government, Indian assistance has focused on building human capital and physical infrastructure, improving security, and helping the agricultural and other important sectors of the country's economy. The Indian government is building roads, providing medical facilities, and helping with educational programs in an effort to develop and enhance long-term Afghan capabilities.

Phases in relations

Till 1995

• The primacy for people-to-people relations stemmed from close fraternal feelings towards Pashtuns who were participants in India's freedom struggle.
• Secondly, India stuck to a line of non-interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs. Thus, following the Mujahideen takeover in Kabul in 1991, when individual groups gearing up for the looming intra-Afghan strife began to seek Indian patronage, New Delhi firmly discouraged such "feelers". India would not be a party to intra-Afghan strife. Thirdly, India consistently regarded that Afghan people should decide on their form of government by themselves through sustained intra-Afghan dialogue. India held to this line even when Peshawar-based Mujahideen groups, rooted in the culture of jihad, grabbed power.
• Finally, Indian policy called for an independent, non-aligned and strong Afghanistan that would be free from outside interference.

Post-1995

Since 1995, however, there have been departures in policy. These were initially digressions or marginal deviations. In September 1999, however, the then External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, openly called for a "pro-active" policy towards Afghanistan and underlined that India had vital interests in Afghanistan. When he said the days of India's "supine acceptance" of developments in Afghanistan were over, Mr. Singh was articulating an altogether new template of policy. Justifying the shift, he had said that India had evidence that Osama bin Laden was involved in the Kargil incursion - evidence "we will reveal at an appropriate time." Admittedly, there has been some degree of course correction in the period since June 2002 when Jaswant Singh left office as External Affairs Minister.

• Thus, India has picked up its moribund links with the majority Pashtun community. India's exclusive alliances with hand-picked non-Pashtun groups are giving way to even-handed dealings with all Afghan groups cutting across ethnic, religious, and regional divides.
• Civilian, humanitarian, people-to-people contact has been gaining ascendancy in India's diplomacy. Without doubt, India has begun to edge away from its all-embracing diplomatic cooperation with the United States on Afghanistan that was fostered under Jaswant Singh's watchful eye.

India's interest in Afghanistan

Indian efforts in Afghanistan are underpinned by the following key objectives:

1. Negating influence of ISI backed Taliban: This area has acted as breeding ground and launch pad for anti-India activities.
2. Drug trafficking: India has the largest opiate-using population in the sub-region. Afghanistan’s opium make its way to the Indian market through the Indo-Pakistani border in the Punjab. Opium addiction has grown at an alarming rate, particularly amongst the youth in the border villages, inflicting tremendous damage on the country’s social fabric. The other disconcerting trend for India has been the strengthening linkages between drugs trafficking and the Taliban insurgency. The money generated from drugs-trafficking is being used to fund the supply of sophisticated arms and to win over foot soldiers for the insurgency by paying them a monthly salary.
3. Securing Afghanistan as a trade and energy corridor to Central Asia: A stable Afghanistan has the potential to serve as a key land bridge to facilitate India’s energy and commercial interests in hydrocarbon-rich Central Asia, thus facilitating the diversification of oil and gas supplies and reducing India’s excessive dependence on supplies from the Middle East. India joined the ambitious $7,500m TAPI (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India) pipeline initiative, which was envisaged to carry 30,000m cu feet of gas from the Daulatabad field in Turkmenistan
4. Potential of mineral wealth in Afghanistan: Afghanistan also has considerable amounts of untapped reserves of oil and natural gas, a vast array of industrial metals such as copper, gold, iron, cobalt and lithium. India has worked towards developing an alternative trade corridor going down to Chabahar, India hopes to achieve two objectives. It will provide land-locked Afghanistan with shorter and alternative access to the sea, thereby reducing its dependency on Pakistan
5. Bringing Afghanistan into trade linkages of South Asia: The decision to admit Afghanistan as a full member of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) at its 14th summit in New Delhi in April 2007 was as much strategic as it was commercial. On the commercial front, with the passage in 2006 of the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), which eases tariff barriers, sub continental trade is expected to benefit.

Challenges to Indian Policy

The key challenges facing Indian policy in Afghanistan can broadly be classified under two fronts: security and diplomacy.

1. Security: India has always been a target by ISI backed Taliban. Not only Indians in India, but Indians in Afghanistan were targeted numerous times and many Indians lost their lives in this. Pakistan’s main aim is to wipe off Indian leverage in Afghanistan. But if this is achieved then India shall suffer a lot.
2. Diplomacy: On the diplomatic plane, the challenges before India are threefold: encourage working towards evolving a multi-ethnic political solution to the Afghanistan, Understanding Taliban insurgency, India has to make creative moves in Afghanistan and India also needs to effectively leverage its soft power prowess in Afghanistan and reinforce it with a more active role in the country’s military sector.

In Taliban 2.0

• In February 2022, the Indian Foreign Secretary flaged-off a convoy of 50 trucks carrying 2500 MT of wheat to Afghanistan as humanitarian assistance. This aid fell under the 50000 MT of wheat that the Indian government promised to provide for the people of Afghanistan. The aid will be received by the UN World Food Programme in Afghanistan. 
• In a recent survey held in Afghanistan, 695 of Afghan people chose India as the best friend of Afghanistan.
• In August 2022, the Foreign Ministry spokesman of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan asked India to complete the various development projects in Afghnasitan including the Shahtoot Dam project which was agreed upon recently before the era of Taliban 2.0 started there.
• In January 2022, India donated 500000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Afghanistan as humanitarian aid.
• India reopened its embassy in Kabul in June 2022.

It is no surprise that India is showing greater intent to engage with the Afghan Taliban as compared to to other countries. The Taliban also are keen to establish diplomatic relations with regional states and international powers. Therefore, they are envisioning prospects of establishing diplomatic ties with India and seeking interantional recognition as the legitimate administration in Kabul. The worsening economic situation in Afghanistan, coupled with reluctance among states to trade and invest in the country, are key factors that are making Kabul keen to establish relations with India.

In a very important recent development, Afghanistan's Defence Minister Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob agreed to training of Afghan soldiers in India. It reflects Taliban's bid to seek international legitimacy and diplomatic recognition. India, who once left Afghanistan by thinking that current regime was likely going to foster safe heavens for anti-State entities, is once again trying to search for a new role in the country by developing diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime under the pretext of humanitarian assistance. Indian diplomatic delegation have also visited Kabul in recent months. The delegation was well received by the Afghan Taliban.

India's association with the US is growing. Taliban are critical of US drone attacks and freezing of Afghan assets. This could complicate things for India, especially given its consistent efforts to gain diplomatic and strategic space in Afghanistan. 

Chabahar Port

India, Iran, and Afghanistan have finalized the parameters of a trilateral agreement known as the Chabahar Agreement(2016), which will allow India access to Afghanistan via the strategically located Iranian port of Chabahar, which sits on the Gulf of Oman.It will allow Indian goods to reach Afghanistan without having to first bypass Pakistan, which has a limited trade relationship with New Delhi due to diplomatic tensions and a territorial dispute between the two countries.

India and Iran had first broached the idea of Indian access to Chabahar in 2003, when they agreed to jointly develop the port. In part due to increased Western sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program and India’s rapprochement with the United States following the landmark 2005 framework between the two countries, the development of Chabahar stagnated on the India-Iran agenda.

In May 2015, two months before world powers and Iran announced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear program, Indian Transportation Minister Nitin Gadkari visited Iran to sign a memorandum of understanding on Chabahar. The finalization of the Chabahar agreement is not only an important development in the India-Iran relationship, but it also shows that New Delhi is serious on delivering on its commitments in Afghanistan. In December 2015, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Afghanistan, he and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani discussed Chabahar and urged a conclusion of a final agreement.

The increase in connectivity afforded by the port could allow Afghan exports cheaper access to markets in India. Currently, an overwhelming amount of Afghan manufactured goods travel through Karachi, Pakistan. In February 2016, Afghan officials said that Afghan exports through Karachi had declined 40 percent amid political tensions between Kabul and Islamabad. Such problems are likely to go away after the operationalisation of the agreement.