“No part of Afghanistan today is untouched by the 400-plus projects that India has undertaken in all 34 of Afghanistan’s provinces.”
— Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar at the Afghanistan Conference in Geneva, November 2020
Post the 9/11 attacks, India re-established relations with Afghanistan and offered development assistance, under the protective umbrella of the US presence. It built roads, dams, electricity transmission lines and substations, schools and hospitals, with an assistance worth over $3 billion.
While bilateral trade is now worth $1 billion, the 2011 India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement was aimed at pronounced Indian assistance in rebuilding Afghanistan’s infrastructure and institutions, for better education and provide technical assistance for capacity-building, encourage investment and make duty-free access to the Indian market possible.
The 2011 India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement recommitted Indian assistance to help rebuild Afghanistan’s infrastructure and institutions
The Taliban is forging ahead in Afghanistan, preparing to take over after the US and NATO forces leave, launching military offensives. As a result, let alone even a diplomatic presence, India may now have no role to play in that in a reversal of nearly 20 years of rebuilding a relationship that goes back centuries.
Afghanistan is important to India’s strategic interests in the region, assuming more importance for being the only SAARC nation with much affection for India.
While only Pakistan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia kept their ties with the previous Taliban regime, after a break between 1996 and 2001, India joined the world in shunning it.
“No part of Afghanistan today is untouched by the 400-plus projects that India has undertaken in all 34 of Afghanistan’s provinces”, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said. He was speaking at the Afghanistan Conference in Geneva in November 2020. As a consequence, the fate of these projects is now in jeopardy.
Afghan exports, mainly fresh and dried fruit mostly comes overland through the Wagah border; Pakistan has permitted Afghan trade with India through its territory. Indian exports, mainly pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, computers and related materials, cement, and sugar are through government-to-government contracts with Indian companies.
With the help of an air freight corridor in 2017, it was in 2019-20, that bilateral trade crossed $1.3 billion, Afghan government officials said. This was despite the denial of an overland route by Pakistan.
