New Delhi: When Afghanistan’s Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi stepped onto the grounds of Darul Uloom Deoband in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district, he was doing more than gesturing at diplomatic symbolism. The Taliban minister, experts point out, was reigniting old cultural, civilisational, and theological bridges—ones that stretch back centuries.
In fact, Muttaqi’s visit points to the potential soft power linkages that India is looking to lean into as it moves to create a working relationship with the Taliban.
“Deoband is our Madar-e-Ilmi (Mother of Knowledge),” Muttaqi said, as he made the visit to the Islamic seminary. Muttaqi, an alumnus of Pakistan’s Darul Uloom Haqqania, whose ideological foundation can be traced to Darul Uloom Deoband, thanked the organisation for a “grand” welcome and the “affection shown by the people”.
On its part, the Darul Uloom Deoband conferred the honorary title of ‘Qasmi’ on Muttaqi denoting his academic connection to the institution.
Thousands of onlookers jostled to catch a glimpse of Muttaqi, with many making a beeline in the balconies and corridors. Unable to handle the crowd and fearing a stampede, a decision was made to cancel the public address by Muttaqi.
Deoband PRO Ashraf Usmani, also the media in-charge of Muttaqi’s Saturday programme, told ThePrint that the address had to be cancelled as they felt they would not be able to control the crowd which had been surging since morning.
Explaining the Indian government’s cautious approach, Soumya Awasthi, a Fellow at Observer Research Foundation (ORF), explains that it wanted to test the waters before diving into reestablishing ties and hence the visit comes after almost four years of the Taliban coming into power in Afghanistan.
For context, Samajwadi Party MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq was booked on sedition charges in 2021 for allegedly drawing a parallel between the struggle of Indian freedom fighters and the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. The Sambhal MP later denied making any such statement.
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‘Potential revival of lost tradition’
The visit, according to geopolitical experts, is significant on multiple levels—religious, historical, and geopolitical. It represents not only a revival of age-old educational and spiritual links but also a new chapter in diplomatic engagement between India and the Taliban regime.
Sidharth Raimedhi, a fellow at Council for Strategic and Defense Research (CSDR), says the visit represents the potential revival of a lost tradition, whereby Afghan students would travel to Deoband to receive religious education.
This scholarly flow, he says, was disrupted in 1979 when students started going to Darul Uloom Haqqania (Khyber-Pakhtunkwa, Pakistan) instead.
Set up in 1866, the seminary has a long history in being the centre for Islam and academia in South Asia, especially as the world transformed during the 20th century.
In 1947, cleric Abdul Haq Akorwi had established Darul Uloom Haqqania in Pakistan’s Akora Khattak, along the lines of the Darul Uloom Deoband. Abdul Haq, a student of the seminary at Deoband, had left India following Partition.
ThePrint reported in March how Taliban leaders were nurtured at the Darul Uloom Haqqania at Akora Khattak in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkwa province. The Darul Uloom Haqqania counts the Taliban bigwigs among its alumni, including Sirajuddin Haqqani, the architect of the organisation’s suicide-bombing campaign and his former boss Akhtar Mansour, as well as al-Qaida’s former regional head Sanaul Haq. Haqqani is now the Afghan minister of interior affairs in the Taliban regime.
“The Haqqania seminary played a pivotal ideological/religious role in the conduct of the global jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Muttaqi’s visit comes in the backdrop of increasingly strained ties with Pakistan and the Haqqania seminary slowly becoming a casualty of the same. The Deoband visit represents diversification of the Taliban’s religious linkages to seminaries in the sub-continent, on top of its current efforts at indigenisation,” Raimedhi says.
He explains that symbolically, what the visit represents is also a ‘direct engagement’ between Indian and Taliban-led Afghanistan on religious issues—an emphasis on the Taliban’s reverence for Indian religious traditions and institutions, bypassing Pakistan to a degree, and an Indian acknowledgement of the Taliban as a legitimate political force with linkages to Indian history and culture that re-enforces moderation over radicalism.
“The response of Maulana Syed Arshad Madani (the principal of Darul Uloom Deoband) to the Taliban takeover in 2021 is worth recalling in this context, as he had welcomed the Taliban victory while advising faith-based pragmatism, inclusivity and adherence to just norms. Hence, it is the perfect analogy for evolving larger political shifts in North-Western larger South Asia as well,” Raimedhi adds.
Tracing the history of Darul Uloom and giving context to Deoband’s founding and evolution, Soumya Awasthi of ORF says the Darul Uloom Deoband was established in 1866, against the backdrop of the 1857 War of Independence, to protect Islam and unite Indian Muslims against British rule. It also supported the broader Indian freedom movement, even assisting the Hindus in their protests.
The Silk Letter Movement connected Deoband with Afghanistan during the Khilafat Movement in the 1920s, Awasthi, the author of ‘Diverse Narratives and Shared Beliefs: Classical to Hybrid Deoband Islam in South Asia’, says.
Making a clear distinction between the Indian Deobandi which she terms as “classical”, Awasthi classifies the seminary in Pakistan and Afghanistan as “neo-Deobandi” since “it walks away from the true tenets of Deobandi Islam”. There is a strain of Wahhabism (another conservative movement within Sunni Islam) in the Pakistan seminary, she adds.
“After the Partition, some Deobandis moved to Pakistan and retained the name, though their ideology adapted to Pakistan’s religious-political identity. In Pakistan, Deobandis became politically active—supporting Zia-ul-Haq’s military coup, participating in Islamisation policies, and helping shape laws, including blasphemy laws.”
The Cold War era saw the rise of many Deobandi-inspired madrasas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, which became breeding grounds for the Mujahideen and later the Taliban, she says. “However, this was a hybrid ideology mixing Deobandi teachings with Pashtun tribal and Wahhabi-Salafi elements, diverging from the original Indian Deoband ethos.”
“Many Afghan Deobandi madrasas claim affiliation with Indian Deoband but are not officially linked; it’s like adopting a university’s methods without formal membership. Indian Deoband has always avoided politics and inciting protests, maintaining peaceful dissent. This ideological divergence explains how Indian and Pakistani/Afghan Deobandis have taken very different paths.”
Awasthi says today, the Taliban still claim ties to Deoband and in that context, Muttaqi’s visit to Deoband is important. “He may be trying to revive the connection and seek guidance. This visit could open a dialogue that includes not only Deoband scholars, but also human rights experts and constitutional thinkers, to influence Afghanistan toward pluralism and women’s rights,” she adds.
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‘Low-hanging fruit’
Geopolitical expert Bashir Ali Abbas says allowing Muttaqi’s visit to Darul Uloom Deoband shows India’s willingness and ability to maximise its sources of trust with the Taliban and leverage a geopolitical window, especially when the Pakistan-Afghanistan relations are spiraling.
However, he has a word of caution. “It’s a low-hanging fruit to reaffirm that India has civilisational bridges to Afghanistan. But there is also a strong cost. It risks legitimising a violent outgrowth of Deobandism, which has harmed India in the past, and which is responsible for imposing medieval norms on the Afghan people,” he says.
“Darul Uloom itself has constantly tried to separate itself from Pakistan’s and Taliban’s actions in the past, even though it has served as an institutional ideologue for the Taliban’s theological base.”
The senior research associate at CSDR further states that while Darul Uloom tries to distance itself from Pakistan’s and Taliban’s past actions, it remains part of the Taliban’s theological base. “It’s imperative to ensure that engagement with the Taliban does not dilute India’s position on several regressive elements of the Taliban’s way of doing things, even as we look to leverage a geopolitical window,” he adds.
However, Ashraf Usmani, representative of Darul Uloom, highlights the deep Indo-Afghan friendship while dissociating the seminary from Taliban extremism. “India and Afghanistan share an age-old relationship and during the freedom struggle, Darul Uloom and its ancestors fought the British and supported the government-in-exile in Kabul,” he said.
Reiterating the words of Muttaqi, Usmani also terms Darul Uloom as the mother institution. “Afghanistan has been a steadfast friend of India. Darul Uloom is the mother institution of a wide stream of Islamic thought that reaches even as far as interior South Africa. But that does not mean all linked groups share direct relations.”
Meanwhile, Muttaqi’s visit also saw criticism from a section of the political opposition in India over the lack of invites for women journalists to a press conference at the Afghan embassy Friday.
“In India, Deoband has never banned women from working in mixed environments. They only advise modest Islamic dress—like wearing a hijab—not full burqas as required by the Taliban. Indian Deobandis accept that women can work with men if they follow the Islamic dress code. If such moderate teachings can be shared with the Taliban, it could encourage social reform. If the Taliban really want to align themselves with Deoband, they should reflect its inclusive and peaceful values,” Awasthi says.
Muttaqi’s visit, she says, can open dialogue involving not only Deoband scholars but also human rights and constitutional thinkers to steer Afghanistan towards pluralism and women’s rights. “Therefore, India should see Muttaqi’s visit as a positive step—a chance to promote dialogue, mutual understanding, and potentially a more tolerant Afghan society.”
Reflecting on the visit and how the Indian government has hosted Muttaqi, BJP minority morcha national chief Jamal Siddiqui says the party has no issues with Muslims and Islam as is alleged.
“The BJP has no problem with Islam. What concerns us is those who spread radicalism and anarchy in Islam’s name. Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi enjoys strong relations with Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, reflecting India’s inclusive diplomacy,” he tells ThePrint.
There exists a risk that China or Pakistan may misuse Afghanistan and hence it is imperative to engage with them, he says.
The Taliban has also increasingly been courted by both Russia and China. While China was the first country to accredit a Taliban-appointed ambassador in January 2024, Russia was the first country to formally recognise the Taliban in July this year.
“Kaatein se kaatein ko nikal rahein hai (this visit is about removing thorns with thorns). We are not giving them a free pass, but are hopeful they (the Taliban) will reform and act like a responsible nation. Deoband has a global following as a respected university of Islamic learning. This move will send a positive message,” he adds.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi says that he had been advocating ties with the Taliban for a long time but the BJP had earlier slammed him for talking about the Taliban. “I welcome the visit to India and we should have full diplomatic relations with them. One of the two countries that outrightly condemned the Pahalgam attack was Afghanistan. As far as I know when the Taliban government came in they told the Indian government not to stop their humanitarian work,” he tells ThePrint.
Owaisi also stresses on the importance of the Chabahar Port in Iran, and says that India can establish a route to Afghanistan from there, which will strengthen Delhi’s position over China and Pakistan.
“India is quite popular among Afghanis. China is also doing something or the other which is not right … we should go ahead with Chabahar port whether the US says or not,” he adds.
In 2016, the Lok Sabha MP says, he had said in Parliament that the Taliban would come, and the Indian government must negotiate with them. “I stood in Parliament in 2016 and said that the Taliban would come. So you should negotiate with them. Then the people of the BJP had abused me.”
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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