The arrival of Afghanistan’s Minister of Public Health, Mawlawi Noor Jalal Jalali, in India for his first official visit marks a significant moment in the gradual re-engagement between New Delhi and Kabul under the Taliban administration.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) publicly welcomed the visit, signalling India’s intent to maintain and deepen sector-specific cooperation with Afghanistan, with healthcare emerging as a prominent and politically less contentious domain for collaboration.

MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, in a post on X, extended a “warm welcome” to Jalali, underscoring that the visit reflects India’s “enduring support for Afghanistan’s healthcare system”.

This language is consistent with India’s long-standing emphasis on humanitarian assistance and development partnership with Afghanistan, even after the political changes in Kabul in August 2021. By framing the engagement around health support, India positions the visit within a humanitarian and developmental narrative rather than a political endorsement.

The Afghan Health Minister’s visit is expected to focus on strengthening institutional linkages between healthcare systems of the two countries. Likely areas of discussion include capacity building of Afghan medical professionals, training programs in Indian medical institutions, supply of essential medicines and vaccines, telemedicine cooperation, and possible Indian support in rehabilitating or upgrading critical health infrastructure in Afghanistan.

Given Afghanistan’s fragile public health indicators and constrained resources since the Taliban takeover, India’s established capabilities in affordable healthcare and pharmaceuticals provide a natural basis for cooperation.

This visit does not occur in isolation; it follows a pattern of increasing official-level interactions between India and Afghanistan’s Taliban-led administration over the past few months. In October, Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, travelled to India in what was widely watched as a key diplomatic signal. That visit was notable as the first by an Afghan Foreign Minister to India since the Taliban assumed power, and it generated cautious interest among regional observers regarding the trajectory of India–Afghanistan engagement.

Jalali’s health-focused visit forms the humanitarian and social pillar of a broader, multi-dimensional engagement pattern. Health cooperation is likely being viewed by both sides as a relatively low-risk but high-impact sector. For India, the health sector allows it to maintain its role as a key development partner for the Afghan people without making formal political commitments on recognition. For Afghanistan, cooperation with India in healthcare can directly benefit its population, help alleviate shortages of medicines and skilled personnel, and provide visible gains that the authorities in Kabul can showcase domestically.

India has historically played a substantial role in Afghanistan’s development, including in healthcare. Prior to 2021, India offered hundreds of scholarships for Afghan students, including in medicine, and supported hospitals, clinics and health-related capacity building. During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, India supplied vaccines and essential drugs to Afghanistan. While the scale and modality of assistance have evolved post-2021, the underlying framework of India as a provider of affordable healthcare solutions remains intact.

The Afghan public health sector faces acute challenges: limited access to quality care, shortages of medicines and consumables, constraints on international funding flows, and significant human resource pressures with many professionals having left the country. Engagement with India offers potential avenues to address some of these gaps.

Discussions during Jalali’s visit may therefore cover new consignments of medicines, schemes for treatment of Afghan patients in Indian hospitals, mobile or telemedicine initiatives, and arrangements for training Afghan doctors, nurses and paramedics in Indian institutions under government or institutional programmes.

These developments also carry a wider geopolitical resonance. India has long viewed a stable, moderate and connected Afghanistan as essential for regional security and connectivity. After initially adopting a cautious and largely indirect approach following the Taliban takeover, New Delhi appears to be systematically expanding functional engagement in fields such as trade, humanitarian relief and now health. The sequence of visits by the Foreign Minister, the Industry and Commerce Minister, and now the Public Health Minister suggests a calibrated, sector-led approach rather than sudden political normalisation.

From Afghanistan’s perspective, diversifying external partnerships beyond a narrow circle of neighbours and traditional sponsors is strategically useful. India offers a large economy, established pharmaceutical industry, educational infrastructure and a sizable Afghan diaspora. These factors make expanded cooperation attractive, particularly in non-political sectors such as trade, health, education and cultural exchanges. Public statements by Afghan ministers during their India visits have consistently stressed “historical relations” and “bright future”, indicating a desire to revive at least some aspects of the pre-2021 partnership.

The emphasis on people-to-people ties in official Indian statements, including Piyush Goyal’s, fits into India’s broader Afghan policy narrative. It allows India to frame its engagement as being with the Afghan people rather than any particular regime, thereby preserving diplomatic flexibility. Health cooperation is an especially powerful expression of this approach, as it directly touches ordinary citizens and is widely seen as a humanitarian imperative.

Mawlawi Noor Jalal Jalali’s first official visit to India as Afghanistan’s Minister of Public Health, welcomed by the Ministry of External Affairs, reinforces a steadily widening track of pragmatic engagement between New Delhi and Kabul. Building on the earlier visits by the Afghan Foreign Minister in October and the Industry and Commerce Minister in November, this trip embeds the health sector alongside economics and diplomacy as a core area of cooperation.

While formal recognition and broader political questions remain unresolved, the pattern of high-level exchanges, public affirmations of a “bright” future for bilateral ties, and targeted cooperation in critical sectors like healthcare and trade collectively point to a deepening, interest-driven relationship anchored in humanitarian and economic priorities.

Based On ANI Report