Association with the Taliban means compromising with an extreme and hard-line ideology

This article was last updated on October 20, 2025

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Association with the Taliban means compromising with an extreme and hard-line ideology.

               Afghanistan’s Taliban Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, recently concluded a weeklong visit to India. This was the first official trip by any senior Taliban leader since the extremist group forcibly seized power of Afghanistan in August 2021. As Muttaqi remains on the United Nations’ sanctions list, the UN Security Council’s Taliban Sanctions Committee granted him a special exemption specifically for his visit to India. It is noteworthy that India had shut down its embassy in Kabul after the Taliban takeover in 2021. However, his visit became possible only after two key diplomatic contacts — one between India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and Muttaqi in Dubai in January 2025, and a phone conversation between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Muttaqi in May 2025. So far, Russia remains the only country to have formally recognized the Taliban regime that ousted Afghanistan’s democratic government in 2021. India, too, has not yet extended official recognition to the current Taliban administration. Even so, New Delhi’s willingness to engage the Taliban on matters of trade, development, assistance, and security suggests a pragmatic but controversial shift — one that might appear to follow the logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” However, the Taliban’s long record of repression and brutality makes it difficult to either forgive their past crimes or trust their intentions. That is why, despite the Indian government’s reception of the Taliban delegation, a significant section of the Indian public remains uneasy — and even disapproving — of growing ties between India and the Taliban regime.

             Under the protection of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the Taliban once wrote a dark and horrifying chapter of terror and fanaticism that the world can never forget. Recall February 2001, when the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Omar, issued a malicious decree ordering the destruction of all statues across Afghanistan. Following this order, Taliban militants blew up two gigantic Buddha statues carved into the cliffs of the Bamiyan Valley — masterpieces created in the 6th century CE. These were among the tallest standing Buddha figures in the world, measuring approximately 180 and 125 feet in height. The Taliban’s reckless act shocked the global community, as those statues were 1,500 years old and formed a vital part of human civilization’s heritage. Around the same period, other Buddhist artifacts preserved in the National Museum of Afghanistan were also destroyed. This cultural vandalism sparked outrage worldwide. The United Nations, UNESCO, India, Japan, Sri Lanka, and several other nations strongly condemned the Taliban’s barbaric act. UNESCO described it as a “crime against culture.” Can the world ever forget this act — born out of the same ideology of hatred that still defines the Taliban?

                          Can the nation ever forget the Kandahar hijacking of December 24, 1999—a tragic episode when Indian Airlines Flight IC-814, en route from Kathmandu to New Delhi, was seized by the Pakistan-based terrorist organization Harkat-ul-Mujahideen? The aircraft carried 176 passengers and 15 crew members, totaling 191 people on board. The hijackers forced the plane to travel through Amritsar, Lahore, and Dubai before finally landing in Kandahar, Afghanistan, then under Taliban control. The Kandahar hijacking became a defining incident that deeply influenced India’s national security policies, its counter terrorism strategy, and its diplomatic stance in global affairs. This event still stands as a grim chapter in India’s fight against terrorism. After this crisis the then Indian(Vajpayee) government was compelled to release dreaded terrorists like Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar from Indian prisons. The Taliban played a crucial role in supporting the hijackers, which is precisely why the aircraft was ultimately taken to Kandhar. Can the nation ever erase the memory of such a tragedy?

             The world is already well aware of the Taliban’s twisted and inhumane mindset regarding women. It was the Taliban who, on 9 October 2012, shot Malala Yusufzai a 15-year-old girl from a Pashtun family—after asking her name as she was returning home by school bus in Swat district. Recall how an armed, masked Taliban militant boarded the bus and shouted, “Which one of you is Malala? Speak up, or I’ll shoot you all.” Once Malala was identified, he shot her near her left eye, the bullet passing through her neck and lodging in her shoulder. Two other school girls, Kainat Riaz and Shazia Ramzan, were also injured in this attack. The assault was Taliban retaliation against Malala’s activism for girls’ education. At the time, the spokesperson for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility, labelling Malala a “symbol of infidels” and accusing her of spreading anti-Islamic views. The Taliban have also destroyed or set fire to hundreds of girls’ schools.

           The Taliban’s attitude toward education is well known. Under their rule, girls are barred from pursuing secondary or higher education beyond the sixth grade. Universities too have closed their doors to female students, and now even books authored by women have been banned. Today, nearly 1.1 million girls in Afghanistan are out of school, making it the only country in the world to impose a total ban on girls’ education. This has led not only to a rise in child marriages but also to a decline in female literacy, which has fallen below 30 percent. Women have been dismissed from most jobs, including in the civil service, non-governmental organizations, media, and even beauty salons. They have also been excluded from medical education, further weakening the country’s healthcare system. Afghanistan already had one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates — a figure that has now worsened under these oppressive policies.

           The Taliban’s anti-women mindset was recently evident even in New Delhi when, during the first press conference of Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, women journalists were barred from attending. However, following widespread global criticism, female reporters were allowed in the next day. Those who preach terrorism and extremism—whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or anywhere else in the world—are enemies of humanity. What’s equally astonishing is that the present Indian government, whose leaders once vehemently condemned the Taliban, now seems eager to welcome them and improve relations. Meanwhile, the “Indian broker media” continues to justify and promote the supposed “benefits” of these unholy ties, when in truth, engaging with the Taliban means compromising with an extremist ideology.   Contact:- tjafri1@gmail.com

 Author

Tanveer Jafri