International politics in the realist school of thought is considered to be a reflection of humanity’s fallen nature and a proclivity towards sinful assertions of self-interest over the well-being of others. Even those who understand themselves to be motivated by the pursuit of justice and altruism must therefore make compromises in pursuit of those moral goods. This pattern, repeated innumerable times across history, is recurring in South Asia as India attempts to come to grips with the Taliban’s reemergence as the sole ruling party of Afghanistan.
What makes India’s predicament especially instructive is the way its moral and strategic traditions arrives at many of the same conclusions as Christian realism, despite emerging from a different civilizational and theological context. Both reject the belief that moral intention alone can overcome the tragic conditions of political life. Both assume that power, while dangerous, is unavoidable, and that refusing to exercise it responsibly can itself be a moral failure.
To understand the choices India faces and the ethical parallels between Christianity and Hinduism, we can turn to Reinhold Niebuhr and Kautilya, the former a prominent Christian theologian and the latter a figure from Indian diplomatic history. What Reinhold Niebuhr articulated through a Christian doctrine of sin, Kautilya expressed through a civilizational realism that assumes permanent rivalry, moral imperfection, and the inevitability of power politics. In different ways, both confront the same dilemma: how to act responsibly in a world where purity is unattainable and inaction can be as destructive as wrongdoing.
Historically, India had shied away from engaging with the Taliban, not only for its hard-line brand of Deobandi-Wahhabi Islam but also because it represents the ideological brainchild of the Pakistani deep state. Pakistan was instrumental in providing material and armed assistance to the Afghan Taliban which contributed to its victory and eventual seizure of power in the country in August 2021. However, since then Pakistan’s relations with the Afghan Taliban have plummeted thanks to the Afghan Taliban’s refusal to rein Pakistani Taliban fighters who are spreading chaos inside Pakistan.
India, while seeking to be a responsible state actor and shareholder in the international system, finds itself in the position of having to engage with the Taliban, perhaps the most infamous regime in the world, to avoid the situation in Afghanistan devolving into an even worse crisis.
Seeking Proximate Justice
In Moral Man and Immoral Society, Niebuhr highlighted that even as individuals may follow the principles of morality scrupulously, this does not translate to the context of larger societal formations like clan, tribe and community. Nation-states, the outcome of such societal formations, tend to operate in accordance with group egoism.
This group egoism leads to even responsible state actors to tragic choices. In Afghanistan, India faces such a tragic choice—non-engagement with the Taliban regime will leave the door open for a hostile actor like Pakistan to fill the vacuum, thereby undermining India’s strategic interests in such an important country; engagement, on the other hand, may lead to India being perceived as compromising her moral teachings by engaging with morally questionable entities.
In this context, India’s outreach to the Taliban is guided by the Niebuhrian goal of proximate justice. Kautilya proceeds from a strikingly similar assumption. The Arthashastra does not ask rulers to pursue moral perfection, but to prevent worse outcomes through prudent engagement, even with deeply flawed actors. Like Niebuhr, Kautilya treats moral compromise not as an endorsement of evil, but as an unavoidable condition of political responsibility. This idea manifests itself in India standing with the Afghan people no matter who is in power. India enjoys immense goodwill among the Afghan people and dealing with the Taliban in this case appears to be guided by New Delhi’s moral realist considerations.
In his book My Enemy’s Enemy: India in Afghanistan from the Soviet Invasion to the US Withdrawal, the academic Avinash Paliwal highlighted that India invested more than $3 billion in Afghanistan. This investment and the large number of projects which are the products of the investment were driven primarily by humanitarian considerations of the Afghan masses.
India’s engagement with the Taliban, hence, represents an earnest attempt on the part of New Delhi to maintain a presence in Afghanistan, albeit a cautious one, to ensure that the main recipients of the Indian economic and humanitarian largesse remain the ordinary Afghan populace. This is further evident from the fact that India became one of the earliest responders to a devastating earthquake that tore through Afghanistan in September of 2025 and to send much-needed aid to provide succor to the Afghan masses.
With that said, India’s dealings with the Taliban must not be read as an endorsement of the Taliban regime in any manner. India is following the Niebuhrian template in this context: engagement means neither diplomatic recognition nor approval of the shabby human rights record of the group.
While the humanitarian consideration is the primary goal, another motivator driving India’s moral realist policy in Afghanistan is the issue of security. For Reinhold Niebuhr, the refusal to act in the face of foreseeable harm isn’t moral restraint but an abdication. Kautilya institutionalizes this insight through danda; the disciplined use of coercion, not as cruelty, but as a tragic necessity to prevent greater disorder. Therefore, India’s engagement with the Taliban is driven by the need to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a hotbed of terrorist activities via groups such as ISIS-K, Al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba among others.
Much like the uneasy alliance between the US and the Soviet Union in the Second World War, India’s outreach to the Taliban signals necessity rather than approval.
Strategic Realism in Practice
Having provided a Niebuhrian analysis of India’s moral compulsions in Afghanistan, it is essential to complement it with the strategic realist considerations that inform India’s moralpolitik framework as articulated by Kautilya, an ancient Indian statesman and political personality. Kautilya, like Niebuhr, begins from the premise that states operate in a morally compromised world where abstention from power can itself be an immoral choice. India’s situation in Afghanistan represents the classic Kautilyan ground for following a balanced and morally consistent foreign policy. Where Niebuhr warns against the pride of moralism detached from power, Kautilya warns against sentimentality that ignores the conditions of survival.
India’s relationship with the Taliban can be explained using Kautilya’s Mandala theory. This theory represents a concentric circle of states where the core circle manifests itself through the Vijigishu, a Sanskrit word denoting the geopolitical actor seeking self-preservation without moral compromise, in this case India. The next circle is the Ari, Sanskrit for “foe”; in India’s case the foe is Pakistan. The next circle which supersedes the Ari is the Mitra, a Sanskrit word for ally. India’s ally in this case is the Taliban which is being used by India to counter Pakistan. Importantly, Mandala theory is not a rejection of morality but an attempt to situate it within a tragic political landscape. Allies and adversaries are not chosen based on virtue, but on their capacity to prevent worse outcomes. This mirrors Niebuhr’s insistence that moral responsibility in politics consists not in choosing the good, but in choosing the least unjust option available.
In order to enhance the influence of a state among other states, Kautilya outlined, in the Arthashastra the idea of Shadgunya Niti or six-fold policy. These are—Sandhi (peace), Asana (neutrality), Vigraha (war), Yana (preparing for war), Samshraya (seeking alliance) and Dvaidhibhava (dual policy). In the Afghan context, India is following a dual policy—alliance with the Afghan Taliban and hostility towards Pakistan. This is being done to counter the historically strong Pakistani influence with the Taliban and enable India to regain strategic depth in Afghanistan.
In order to solidify the dual policy, India is following what Kautilya outlined as the four upayas or expedients. These are—Sama (conciliation)—India’s diplomatic outreach through the visit of high level Taliban dignitaries and engagement in other sectors is its outcome; Dana (concession or gifts)—India’s humanitarian assistance to Afghans apart from granting student and medical visas is the manifestation of this strategy; Bheda (dissension)—using the Taliban to undermine Pakistan’s anti-Afghanistan, anti-India designs; Danda (punishment through coercion)—launching targeted anti-terror operations against Pakistani state sponsored terrorists, is a good example.
Through Kautilya, India is undertaking a strategically realist approach that is aimed at ensuring a number of objectives: protecting her financial and strategic interests, ensuring that Afghan soil can’t be used for terrorist activities and, most importantly, keeping her pro-India image intact among the Afghan masses.
Remaining Morally Consistent
In dealing with the Taliban, India is well aware of Reinhold Niebuhr’s idea that perfect justice is an illusion and so the most responsible state actors can hope for is proximate justice. Kautilya, operating from a similar framework, recognized the necessity of engagement with the Taliban for strategic purposes while simultaneously working to ensure the most good for the Afghan people. Across civilizational and theological divides, Niebuhr and Kautilya converge on the same hard truth: political life is irreducibly tragic, moral purity is unattainable, and responsible statecraft consists in navigating that tragedy without surrendering either conscience or power.
