“Afghanistan is a litmus test for India’s ascendance as a regional and global power.” Discuss. (2014, 10 Marks)
The claim echoes Harsh V. Pant’s article “India in Afghanistan: a test case for a rising power” (Contemporary South Asia, 2010), which argued that the success of India’s Afghan policy would go far to decide whether India could become a provider of regional security in South Asia. The logic is simple: a power that cannot shape outcomes on its periphery will struggle to be taken seriously beyond it.
Why Afghanistan is a test
- Regional pre-eminence: Afghanistan is where India’s claim to manage its extended neighbourhood meets Pakistan’s strategic depth doctrine; India’s central aim has been to stop Pakistan regaining a controlling role in Kabul.
- Security: keeping Afghan soil from sheltering Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, a lesson of the 1990s and the 1999 Kandahar hijacking.
- Gateway to Central Asia: energy (TAPI), uranium and markets lie beyond Afghanistan, and Chabahar tests whether India can build routes around a hostile neighbour.
- A distinctive model: over US$3 billion in roads, dams and training tested whether a development partnership without troops or conditions could compete with military power. C. Christine Fair (2010) likewise tied India’s Afghan engagement to its great-power ambitions, not only to Pakistan.
How India has fared
- Strengths: unmatched goodwill, Afghanistan’s first Strategic Partnership Agreement (2011), and the Zaranj–Delaram road and Parliament building as visible deliverables.
- Limits: dependence on the American presence, no seat in the Doha process, and the loss of its embassy in August 2021.
- Recovery: through engagement without recognition, India hosted acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi (October 2025), restored its embassy and accepted a Taliban chargé d’affaires (January 2026); an Afghan agriculture minister followed in July 2026. In 2025 Afghan exports to India overtook those to Pakistan.
Is the litmus test the right metaphor?
The statement assumes great-power status is earned in one theatre. Critics answer that India’s rise rests more on its economy, its maritime role in the Indo-Pacific and its standing in the G20 and the Global South; Afghanistan, which has defeated far greater powers, is an unfair yardstick. Yet the test exposes a real weakness: India’s access has relied on others, first the United States and now the Taliban’s quarrel with Pakistan.
Conclusion
Afghanistan is a demanding test of India’s capacity, not the sole measure of its rise. India has passed on persistence and legitimacy but not on leverage. Its ascent will be judged by whether it can build independent routes and influence there, not by goodwill alone.