The upcoming visit of Afghanistan’s Minister of Industry and Commerce, Nooruddin Azizi, to New Delhi is more than just a diplomatic formality. It feels like a page torn from a book of realpolitik, one where old enemies are quietly reassessed and past ideologies are shelved in favor of present necessities. This visit, coming hot on the heels of the Afghan Taliban Foreign Minister’s unprecedented eight-day trip to India, signals a dramatic and pragmatic shift that deserves a closer look.

For over two decades, the Taliban’s propaganda machine worked tirelessly to paint India as a Hindu “kafir” state, a nation of “idol-worshippers” that was undermining Islam in Afghanistan. Indian consulates were framed as hubs of espionage. Yet, here we are today, watching the same Emirate dispatch its ministers to that very “idol-worshipping” state, not with theological debates, but with shopping lists for markets, dams, and investments. The irony is profound. This is the same group that once justified the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas as a war on an “un-Islamic” and “Buddhist-Hindu” civilization, and is now courting a country that proudly positions itself as the protector........

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