{"id":303226,"date":"2025-12-07T12:34:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T12:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/303226\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T12:34:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T12:34:12","slug":"new-road-to-kabul-india-balances-commerce-strategy-and-afghan-voices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/303226\/","title":{"rendered":"New road to Kabul: India balances commerce, strategy and Afghan voices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mushtaq Karim (name changed), 34, stood behind his display of apricots, figs, cherries and dates\u2014chatting, joking and highlighting the nutritional value of the produce. At the bustling India<\/a> International Trade Fair in Delhi<\/a>, the stall where he worked as a salesman was among a dozen Afghan booths drawing eager visitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeh anjeer Kandahar se laya hoon\u2014 flight se, Dubai hote hue (We have brought these figs from Kandahar\u2014by flight, via Dubai),\u201d he tells a customer, offering a piece of fig to taste.<\/p>\n

Karim once worked as a government driver under the erstwhile Ashraf Ghani regime in Kabul, but a bomb blast and mounting threats from the Taliban<\/a> forced him to flee to Delhi on an Air India flight\u2014two years before the Taliban seized the city in 2021. His wife, whose father and brother were brutally killed by Taliban fighters for aiding Americans, had already taken refuge in Delhi, making his transition to an unfamiliar city a little easier. Karim quickly picked up Hindi and earned a modest livelihood, doing odd jobs.
His family is now scattered across three geographies. His wife, whom he says is \u201cvery fluent\u201d in English, has migrated to America. His ailing mother remains in Kabul.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat New Delhi has improved its ties with the Taliban is good news for us, and it means better business for Afghans struggling in India. But many of us\u2014the victims\u2014can never be friends with the Taliban,\u201d he says, calling the current regime bewakoof, \u201cidiotic\u201d, unworthy of respect.<\/p>\n

\"ETLive Events
His anger sharpened when the conversation turned to Pakistan<\/a>. He alleged its authorities were \u201cmercilessly killing our Afghan brothers and sisters, even our brightest cricketers\u201d, referring to the air raids that killed cricket players in Paktika province in October.
In the wake of the shifting Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship, New Delhi is opening the door to Taliban. This outreach is dictated by strategy, not by India\u2019s nostalgia and demand for much-loved Afghan dried fruits and hing (asafoetida).
During Afghanistan<\/a>\u2019s Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi\u2019s six-day visit to India in October, both sides hailed the launch of an India-Afghanistan air-freight corridor, with carriers such as Ariana Afghan Airlines and Kam Air beginning to ferry goods. The Taliban minister went a step further, inviting Indian companies to invest in Afghanistan\u2019s mining sector\u2014an attractive proposition for India Inc, as the battle-scarred nation sits on an estimated $1 trillion worth of untapped mineral reserves, including copper, cobalt and lithium, all vital for clean-energy technology.
A month later, another senior Taliban leader, Commerce and Industry Minister Alhaj Nooruddin Azizi, arrived in New Delhi with a trade delegation, marking progress toward the possibility of regular air-cargo services on Kabul-Delhi and KabulAmritsar routes. Azizi also visited the India International Trade Fair, where Afghan traders, including Karim\u2019s employer, had set up stalls.<\/p>\n

CHANGING LANDSCAPE
Meanwhile, in October, New Delhi upgraded its technical mission in Kabul to a fullfledged embassy, effectively raising the level of diplomatic engagement with the Taliban\u2014a predominantly Pashtun, fundamentalist outfit that reclaimed power in 2021, reinstating an Islamic emirate after two decades.<\/p>\n

\"NewAgencies
\u201cNew Delhi must continue to nurture people-to-people ties and sustain trade between India and Afghanistan, while keeping its dealings with the Taliban regime at an operational level to meet our strategic needs,\u201d says Gautam Mukhopadhaya, former Indian ambassador to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

He adds that India and Afghanistan have long shared a natural affinity\u2014 one that has resurfaced in recent months\u2014and argues that regional developments, particularly Pakistan\u2019s terrorist attacks in Pahalgam in Kashmir and air raids on Afghan civilians, have played a role in reshaping the diplomatic landscape.<\/p>\n

\u201cPakistan viewed the Taliban takeover of 2021 as a strategic victory. But India, which had no ties with the Taliban until then, built up a relationship with it cautiously and incrementally to the point that today India is back in the game,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The former diplomat cautions, however, that there is still no clarity on how far New Delhi is prepared to go in formally recognising the Taliban, considering, for instance, the regime\u2019s policy towards women. The Taliban government denies girls access to education above secondary school and restricts women from occupying public offices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no pressure on our government to establish de jure diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime. For now, I expect the current de facto arrangement to continue,\u201d says Mukhopadhaya.<\/p>\n

Russia is among the few countries that kept its embassy in Kabul open after the Taliban takeover and in July this year it became the first to formally recognise the regime.<\/p>\n

HING-ED RELATIONSHIP
Despite the turbulence of the past four years, New Delhi and Kabul have managed to preserve a surprisingly resilient trading relationship. While India\u2019s exports to Afghanistan, dominated by pharmaceuticals and apparel, fell from $554 million in FY22 to $319 million in FY25, imports from Afghanistan surged by a robust 35%, from $511 million to $690 million. India\u2019s import basket continues to be led by figs, hing, raisins and apples.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should not view India-Afghanistan ties solely through the prism of trade balances. Maintaining a working relationship with the Taliban is strategically important for us, especially against the backdrop of their growing rift with Islamabad,\u201d says former Union<\/a> industry secretary Ajay Dua, adding that New Delhi\u2019s commercial ties with Kabul stretch back to time immemorial.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfghani foods\u2014fruits, hing and more\u2014enjoy deep culinary acceptance across India. Larger imports from Afghanistan suit both our palate and our pocket,\u201d he says. He points to yet another dimension of Afghanistan\u2019s importance: it offers India a gateway to the Central Asian region comprising Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n

Back in April, when India suffered one of its worst terrorist attacks in Pahalgam\u2014where Pakistan-backed terrorists killed over two dozen Hindu tourists\u2014the Taliban issued an unusually sharp condemnation, calling the assault an act that \u201cundermines efforts to maintain regional security and stability\u201d.<\/p>\n

ON THE OTHER SIDE
Meanwhile, Pakistan\u2019s relationship with Kabul has sharply deteriorated after the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)\u2014often described as the Pakistani Taliban\u2014carried out a series of attacks inside Pakistan, claiming more than 2,500 lives in 2024 alone. In retaliation, Pakistan launched air raids on Afghan border regions, which did not spare even women and children.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, Islamabad refused to reopen the crucial land route between Afghanistan and India via the Wagah border\u2014sealed since Operation Sindoor\u2014forcing New Delhi and Kabul to reroute their trade through Iran\u2019s Chabahar port, with only a handful of high-value goods like dried fruits still transported by air.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the hurdles that apple traders are facing due to blocked land routes, Afghan apples have made their way to Indian markets this year,\u201d says a big wholesaler at Delhi\u2019s Azadpur Mandi, requesting anonymity. \u201cOne Kabuli trader who approached me recently brought in nearly 30 containers of apples by ship. They sell cheaper in Mumbai\u2014around \u20b960-65 per kg in the wholesale market. By the time they reach Delhi, the price shoots up to nearly \u20b990,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

GOOD OL\u2019 TRADE
Even after the regime change in Kabul, many Delhi-based Kabuliwallahs\u2014the familiar term for Afghan traders in India\u2014have continued to run thriving businesses. Though they live in neighbourhoods such as Lajpat Nagar, Tilak Nagar and Malviya Nagar, their workplace remains Azadpur, Asia\u2019s largest fruit and vegetable market.<\/p>\n

Farhad Sulaiman, who sells dried fruits in Delhi under the brand name Afghan Roots, says he relies on Ariana Afghan Airlines and FlyDubai to bring in his produce. \u201cWe recently paid about $2.3 per kg to import dried fruits by air. It\u2019s a bit steep,\u201d he says, noting that Afghan anjeer (figs) remain the most sought-after dried fruit in India.<\/p>\n

In mid-November, Ariana Afghan Airlines\u2014the national carrier, which operates three flights a week between Kabul and New Delhi\u2014 announced a sharp reduction in freight charges. Following a decision taken by the Taliban government to bring down freight charges, the airline announced that \u201c1 kilogram of export commercial goods for the Delhi sector will be transported for 1 US dollar and 1 kilogram of import goods for 80 cents\u201d.<\/p>\n

Not all Kabuliwallahs stand with the Taliban, but in Delhi\u2019s bustling mandis\u2014 where hing and figs are prized\u2014 these traders are embracing the steps that have made their business easier. For them, the question of who controls Kabul is secondary; what matters is the incentive to work, trade and keep an old connection alive.<\/p>\n

For Karim, a refugee still hustling to survive in India\u2019s capital city, his disdain for the Taliban is outweighed\u2014at least for now\u2014by any advantage that New Delhi\u2019s warming ties with Kabul might bring. \u201cAt least until I manage to migrate to US or Canada,\u201d he says with a weary smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mushtaq Karim (name changed), 34, stood behind his display of apricots, figs, cherries and dates\u2014chatting, joking and highlighting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1641,84,26481,1294,308,121709,2321,1640,121708,56,20732,54,55],"class_list":["post-303226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-afghanistan","tag-business","tag-delhi","tag-economy","tag-india","tag-india-afghanistan-trade","tag-pakistan","tag-taliban","tag-tehrik","tag-uk","tag-union","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}