India’s outreach to the Taliban encountered a minor hiccup last week when New Delhi was unable to secure a waiver from the UN 1988 Sanctions Committee for Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi’s visit. The committee, currently chaired by Pakistan, stalled what would have been the first ministerial-level engagement in Delhi since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. While a procedural obstacle rather than a strategic reversal, the episode underscores the contested nature of engaging Kabul under Taliban rule and the geopolitical constraints India must navigate.

The immediate significance of the waiver denial lies in two dimensions. First, it demonstrates that while India is willing to test deeper waters with Kabul, multilateral politics still place limits on the pace of that outreach. Second, Pakistan’s chairmanship of the sanctions committee provides Islamabad with a procedural tool to frustrate New Delhi’s diplomatic moves, even as Pakistan itself grapples with the blowback of TTP violence across its western frontier.

Yet, for India, its relationship with Afghanistan is not a tactical convenience but a strategic necessity. Kabul sits at the intersection of India’s regional and security interests: it is a buffer against Pakistan’s western flank, a gateway to Central Asia through Iran’s Chabahar port and a critical node in counterterrorism efforts to contain ISIS-K and prevent sanctuary for anti-India groups like LeT and JeM. Sustained engagement, however calibrated, is therefore essential to ensure India retains influence in a theatre where Russia and China are advancing rapidly and where U.S. intentions remain uncertain.

Afghanistan in a Multipolar Contest

As the global order shifts toward multipolarity, Afghanistan is fast becoming a test case of how regional and great powers assert influence in overlapping spheres. Each capital has its own calculus in Kabul, and together they shape the space available for India’s diplomacy.

Russia has moved first, granting formal recognition to the Taliban in July 2025. Moscow’s interests are driven by hard security, preventing ISIS-K and other extremist groups from spilling into Central Asia and ultimately Russia itself. Recognition also re-establishes Russia as a political broker in South and Central Asia. For India, this opens avenues of cooperation with Moscow on counterterrorism, but also raises the stakes: if recognition trends harden, India must avoid being left as a reluctant latecomer.

China has already placed an ambassador in Kabul, deepened minerals diplomacy and envisions Afghanistan as an extension of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Beijing’s approach blends commercial interests such as copper, lithium, rare earths, with strategic leverage, aiming to knit Kabul into its BRI orbit. For India, this carries the dual risk of encirclement and economic marginalization, unless it sustains its own lines of engagement and leverages connectivity through Chabahar.

Pakistan, ironically both chair of the UN sanctions committee and a state under pressure from TTP violence, faces a paradox. Its historic pursuit of “strategic depth” in Afghanistan has mutated into a strategic headache. Kabul’s reluctance to curb TTP sanctuaries complicates Pakistan’s security calculus, yet Islamabad still seeks to deny India diplomatic space. For New Delhi, this means any gains in Kabul are also a way of eroding Islamabad’s leverage.

The United States, meanwhile, remains ambivalent. Rhetoric from Donald Trump about “retaking Bagram” and recovering “$80 billion” in arms left behind under Biden plays well in domestic politics, but little of it translates into policy reality. Washington’s actual posture is narrower: counterterrorism vigilance, financial pressure on the Taliban and conditional engagement. For India, this inconsistency is a reminder that U.S. policy cannot be relied upon to anchor its Afghan strategy.

Iran and the Gulf states also loom large. Iran’s Chabahar port is India’s logistical lifeline to Afghanistan and Central Asia, but its vulnerability to shifting U.S. sanctions makes it a fragile artery. Meanwhile, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia shape the Taliban’s external economic space through aid, investment, and diplomatic cover are actors India cannot ignore if it wants to sustain relevance in Kabul.

Calibrated Realpolitik: India’s Path Forward

The setback over Muttaqi’s travel waiver was a reminder that India’s Afghanistan policy will be tested by both procedural obstacles and geopolitical rivalries. Yet it does not alter the fundamentals: Afghanistan is too strategic for India to treat as a secondary concern. What matters is not recognition of the Taliban regime, but retention of influence in a space where Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, the Gulf, and even a hesitant United States are all playing for advantage.

For New Delhi, the path forward is clear. First, preserve and expand its humanitarian and developmental footprint including scholarships, healthcare and aid which builds long-term goodwill with the Afghan people regardless of regime change. Second, insulate and operationalize the Chabahar as the Central Asia corridor as a counterweight to CPEC, working with Iran and willing Central Asian partners to keep connectivity options alive. Third, deepen quiet security cooperation with Kabul on counterterrorism and narcotics, ensuring Afghanistan does not again become a sanctuary for anti-India groups. And finally, coordinate where possible with Russia and other stakeholders on shared concerns such as ISIS-K, while carefully maintaining India’s independent voice.

India’s approach, therefore, is not one of recognition but of positioning. By practicing calibrated realpolitik, New Delhi ensures it is not a rule-taker in Kabul as recognition trends advance, but a player with its own equities to protect. The lesson of the minor hiccup at the UN is not India’s weakness, but the necessity of staying engaged strategically, not tactically in Afghanistan, precisely as the world fragments into multipolar competition.

Sumeer Bhasin

Sumeer Bhasin is a geopolitical analyst and strategic advisor with over three decades of global experience. He writes on South Asia, multipolarity and civilizational statecraft for platforms such as India Foundation’s Chintan, Gateway House, Eurasia Review and Organiser. He has written on the U.S.–Taliban deal, the Af-Pak region, and India’s role in an emerging multipolar order. He also comments actively on X (@sam_bhasin).