The rising death toll across Afghanistan due to floods triggered by incessant heavy rainfall over the past nine days has been a cause of concern, and as a humanitarian gesture, India has rushed a fresh consignment of relief materials to its disaster-stricken neighbour. New Delhi demonstrated its commitment to extending humanitarian support to the people of Afghanistan in their hour of crisis. The Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) provided by India included essential materials such as kitchen sets, hygiene kits, plastic sheets, tarpaulins, sleeping bags, and more, as is the norm. India has been striving to be the region's "first responder" in HADR by leveraging its expertise in disaster management and logistics. It also projects India's soft power and is in sync with its "Neighbourhood First" policy and the much-touted ethos of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' (the world is one family) underlying its humanitarian action.
The present HADR to impoverished Afghanistan has been an integral part of bilateral relations in the best of times and not-so-best of times. The active engagement with the Taliban-ruled country was evident in the invitation extended to Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi to visit New Delhi, which fructified last October. Pragmatism and building on past goodwill helped break the ice, and the upgrading of its technical mission into an embassy to facilitate security and trade exchanges. The urgency shown by New Delhi in reviving ties with Afghanistan was to counter Chinese influence on the one hand and also to needle Pakistan in its strained relationship with Kabul. India, in fact, condemned the recent Pakistani airstrikes on Afghanistan by highlighting that they were happening during the holy month of Ramadan. There was a familiar ring to Islamabad's allegations that India was indulging in a proxy war to destabilise it. However, India too is treading with caution as it has constraints emanating from Afghanistan's dodgy and questionable track record in terms of the status of women, minorities and, broadly, human rights. But that has not prevented New Delhi from making friendly overtures in a pragmatic manner in the interests of promoting regional stability.
Similar agility was also shown in recalibrating ties with Bangladesh and Nepal, which witnessed political upheavals. The tumultuous and difficult relationship with these two countries has been a source of anxiety and worry, especially with China lurking in the background trying to expand its influence. But the change in governments offered India an opportunity to put the relationship back on an even keel, and considerable progress could be seen.
The above is in contrast with the widespread criticism India faced due to its indecision, its silence and delayed response to the US-Israel attacks on Iran, the killing of its supreme leader and others, the bombing of school children, and especially with regard to the torpedoing of an Iranian ship that India had hosted in a friendly naval exercise. What made it worse was that the attack happened in India's backyard, though in international waters. Since then, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has been on a damage-control mode, frantically holding high-level telephonic interactions with the Gulf countries and Iran. Initially, it was necessitated by the safety of the Indian diaspora, but later by maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz. Much more needs to be done to regain the lost ground.