An ecosystem will call them brutal misogynists and theocratic tyrants, and we should not touch them with the proverbial barge pole. The labels are not unjustified. The Taliban are a medieval militia. There’s virtually nothing redeemable about them. They’ve flogged, beheaded, and tyrannised to grab and retain power. No one gets a fair handshake unless you’re male, unshaven, and blinded by cruelty, misogyny, homophobia, and just about every other sociopathic inclination going around. But that doesn’t mean India must not do business with the Taliban. Reasons of state, in fact, compel us to hold our noses and engage them but not endorse them.

Here are five reasons.

First, the Taliban are in total control of Afghanistan. An alliance with them allows India to comprehensively outflank Pakistan, which, as we know, is the greater evil, de facto led by a genocidal general who has dehumanised Hindus and nihilistically vowed to remove India from the face of the Earth.

Second, the Taliban are virtually daggers drawn with Pakistan. Their frequent raids across the Durand Line keep Pakistan’s western front hot. This means the generals in Rawalpindi are stretched, distracted, and perpetually on tenterhooks as this militia and its cohorts bleed Pakistan through a thousand cuts. That serves India well; it reduces the bandwidth of the Pakistani armed forces to counter........

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