India-Afghanistan Relations in Changing Regional Geopolitics

Abstract

Afghanistan’s recent political transformations starkly confirm the country’s inevitable connectedness to volatile global geopolitics, currently witnessing the transformation of the role of the entire South Asian region within global geostrategic re-alignments. The US disengagement from Afghanistan put India and China into a new competitive scenario of cultivating their respective relations with Afghanistan. Before this complex backdrop, the article focuses on India’s policy options in Afghanistan, but first of necessity engages briefly with the changing regional geo-politics and the emerging new world order. In light of these new geopolitical realities, it becomes evident that despite much distrust and many misgivings, India’s Afghanistan policies have to be robust, focused on defending its geopolitical interests and concerns against China’s expansionist clout, while seeking to promote a multipolar world order, a strategy that appears like a reincarnation of India’s earlier path of non-alignment.