A few days back, India sent a diplomat to meet with the Taliban’s acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, in Kabul. The development has largely gone unnoticed. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t consequential. It is a surprise turn in a path towards normalising relations.

You may ask, isn’t India rewarding Islamist radicalism by engaging the Taliban? Why, after the Taliban bled us through the 90s culminating in the IC-814 hijacking, is India now cautiously opening channels with Afghanistan’s Islamic rulers?

The answer is post-Pahalgam necessity. And necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. And there’s something truly diplomatically inventive about India’s pivot towards the Taliban.

Though this author has always counselled against engaging the Taliban, it is true that New Delhi’s latest tactical gambit will help outflank Pakistan — and by extension, even blunt the emerging Pakistan–Turkey defence axis. Let’s break it........

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