The United States (US) and Pakistan developed a relationship during the Musharraf era of simultaneous cooperation and coercion against each other. Pakistan helped both the US and the Taliban in their war in Afghanistan. The US aided and reimbursed Pakistan, but also violated its sovereignty on a sustained basis. Realism, Liberalism and prominent varieties of Constructivism do not explain this interaction. The explanation offered here is that each state had certain persistent concepts it applied repeatedly as new situations arose. The concepts are drawn empirically from the policy discourses of the two states after the Musharraf coup, the 9/11 attacks, and during the middle 2000s when Pakistan's focus on Kashmir diminished but Taliban attacks in Afghanistan intensified. These concepts highlighted some aspects of these situations and occluded others. These descriptions of situations using these concepts formed episodes in situational narratives. The situational narratives do explain the observed interaction.

India is faced with a conundrum—how to engage with an Afghanistan that is once again led by the Taliban. The question is less about whether to engage and more about how to engage. To understand this turn of events that is both surprising and yet seemingly inevitable, this article examines India’s policies vis-à-vis the Taliban since its early rise to power in 1990. It examines this relationship in four phases which correlate with the fortunes of the Taliban as an opposition and a governing regime, contending that these phases are characterised; by a potential discourse of engagement that does not translate into policy outcomes; distancing and opposition; gradual indirect acquiesce to its growing presence; and finally, détente of sorts without formal recognition. These policy transitions are a consequence of regional and global power play as well as domestic preoccupations of India. They span India’s secular and Hindutva-driven domestic narratives of self. The significance of this article lies in casting a broad overview of the existing literature and identifying patterns of engagement.

This article explores the following question: are India’s relations with Pakistan more confrontational and less cooperative when the political elite constituting the government espouses religious–cultural identity narratives as opposed to one that articulates a secular conception of self? In order to understand whether and how national narratives play a role in shaping interstate politics, I analyse national identity discourses and events (1990–2003). My findings indicate that while the political elite articulating a religious–cultural identity undertook more assertive forms of coercive diplomacy in the period under consideration, it was not unrestrained, because at the same time, this very political elite also engaged in more cooperative actions vis-à-vis Pakistan, in contrast to parties articulating a secular self. These findings contribute to our understanding of Indo-Pak relations and to the discussion on the relevance of identity within constructivism in IR theory.

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