[Answered] Critically analyze the proposition that engaging with the Taliban constitutes complicity, not diplomacy. Justify the ethical and diplomatic imperative of prioritizing Afghan women’s rights in India’s policy.

Introduction

According to UN Women (2024), Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls are banned from secondary and higher education, symbolizing state-sponsored gender apartheid under Taliban rule since 2021.

India’s Engagement with the Taliban

1. India’s recent diplomatic outreach to the Taliban — including participation of Taliban officials in events at New Delhi (2025) — reflects a pragmatic shift to secure regional stability and humanitarian access.
2. However, such engagement risks legitimizing a regime systematically erasing women from public life — raising questions about ethical diplomacy, normative legitimacy, and India’s commitment to gender justice under its constitutional and international obligations.

Taliban’s Record of Gender Apartheid

Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban have institutionalized gender persecution, which the UN Human Rights Council (2024) classified as a crime against humanity.

Key manifestations:

1. Education Ban: 1.1 million girls deprived of schooling (UNESCO, 2024).
2. Employment Erasure: Over 80% of women journalists and 60% of female employees dismissed (Afghanistan Media Support Organisation, 2025).
3. Public Space Restrictions: Women banned from parks, gyms, and long-distance travel without a male guardian.
4. Legal Codification: The Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Law (2024) forbids women’s voices in public broadcasting, an act of institutional misogyny.

Such measures amount to gender apartheid, a system of domination denying women their personhood, political agency, and visibility.

Complicity vs. Diplomacy — The Dilemma

Engagement without accountability risks crossing the line from pragmatism to complicity.

1. Diplomatic Realism: Proponents argue engagement ensures humanitarian coordination, counterterrorism cooperation, and regional security under India’s “Neighbourhood First” and strategic autonomy doctrines.
2. Complicity: However, when engagement is devoid of normative conditionality i.e., no public condemnation or demand for women’s rights, it normalizes gender persecution. It undermines India’s soft power built on democratic values and gender equality. It contradicts India’s role in UN Women’s Executive Board and its constitutional mandate of Article 15(3) (special provisions for women). It violates principles of constructivist diplomacy, where norms and identity shape legitimacy, not merely strategic convenience. As former UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet warned, “Silence in the face of systemic gender oppression amounts to moral complicity.”

India’s Diplomatic Imperative

India must adopt a feminist foreign policy approach, balancing realism with moral responsibility.

1.  Foundations: Uphold the “Responsibility to Protect (R2P)” principle for gender persecution victims. Align with CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women).
2. Conditional Engagement: Dialogue must explicitly demand restoration of girls’ education and women’s employment as preconditions for aid or recognition.
3. Humanitarian Channels: Direct support to Afghan women-led NGOs, teachers, and journalists through UN OCHA or SAARC Development Fund.
4. Diplomatic Signaling: Use platforms like G20, BRICS, and UNGA to internationalize gender persecution in Afghanistan.
5. Knowledge Diplomacy: Scholarships and remote education programs for Afghan girls via India’s SWAYAM and IGNOU digital learning platforms.
6. Such actions combine moral leadership with strategic foresight, reinforcing India’s image as a responsible democracy in the Global South.

Global Precedents and Lessons

1. Nordic States’ feminist foreign policy links aid to gender rights, an instructive model.
2. South Africa’s anti-apartheid diplomacy demonstrates how moral isolation, not engagement, catalyzes internal reform.
3. Thus, diplomatic recognition without reform risks entrenching oppression rather than moderating it.

Conclusion

As we know silence enables tyranny. India’s diplomacy must defend Afghan women’s voices, for justice anywhere safeguards freedom everywhere.