Who is PM Modi’s “William Casey”? Will India’s enormous economic power, achieved with Washington’s help, now be used against the US itself?
By Abdul Quddoos
False friends double the blow when storms hit. This timeless truth now echoes hauntingly through the corridors of South Asia’s shifting alliances, as the United States finds its decades of goodwill toward India turning into a weapon forged against itself. What a serious irony it is that the United States and the Western world, through 25 years of extraordinary diplomatic, trade, and defense favors, built India into a major economic and military power to counter China—but once India gained that economic and defense strength, instead of promoting the “Quad” as an American ally, it set it aside and raised the BRICS banner.
And now, as U.S. President Donald Trump has called for the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan to be handed back to the United States, India’s Modi government has openly aligned itself with the Afghan Taliban government. This alliance between the two extremists, Narendra Modi and Mullah Hibatullah, has given Afghanistan a new resolve. As the saying goes, when two strong forces unite, their intensity multiplies; empowered by this alliance, the Taliban have openly challenged President Trump, declaring that the Kabul government will under no circumstances hand over the Bagram Air Base to the U.S. Countries across the region are observing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s overt hostility toward the U.S. on both global and regional levels with surprise and concern.
By positioning itself as the frontline state of an anti-American strategic bloc in South and Central Asia, India invited the Afghan interim Taliban government’s Foreign Minister, Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi, to New Delhi on a six-day visit starting October 10, 2025, during this visit multiple covert and overt agreements were made. India is signaling that it will stand at the forefront among nations resisting the U.S. military’s return to the region, alongside Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi—angry over the tariff war initiated by President Donald Trump—has collaborated with the Afghan interim Taliban government to encircle Pakistan on both its eastern and western borders. This sudden Indian maneuver places President Trump’s favored Field Marshal, General Asim Munir, in grave danger of a two-front conflict.
During Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi’s recent visit to India, several tactical and aggressive decisions emerged. Chief among them, India has set aside its policy of secularism and initiated a new strategic activity that glamorizes militancy in religious seminaries, adopting a strategy against the U.S. and the West reminiscent of the one used by President Ronald Reagan during the Soviet-Afghan guerrilla war, when jihadist thought rooted in militancy was promoted in Islamic countries’ seminaries. This strategy successfully contributed to undermining the Soviet Union.
The trap that the U.S. dug for the Soviet Union 47 years ago is now being dug by India for the United States—and ironically, the economic and defense strength fueling this endeavor was itself provided by the U.S. From 1981 to 1987, the services provided to President Ronald Reagan by CIA Director William Casey are today being provided by India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The history of American favors to India is long-standing but accelerated significantly during the 1999 Kargil War. The U.S. manipulated Pakistan to ensure India’s victory in that conflict, and subsequently, India’s defense, economic, and diplomatic patronage received an extraordinary boost.
By granting India exceptional trade concessions, the U.S. laid a foundation that strengthened India’s economy, allowing it to develop rapidly. To position India against China, the U.S. even turned away from its long-time ally, Pakistan. As a result, Pakistan sank into economic decline, while India’s economy and foreign exchange reserves grew at an astonishing rate.
In 1999, India’s foreign exchange reserves were just $35 billion; by 2025, they have soared to $700 billion. India’s economy in 1999 was $459 billion, ranking 17th globally; today, in 2025, it has reached $4.13 trillion, making it the fifth-largest economy in the world.
There was a time when U.S. and Indian foreign and defense ministers engaged in multiple rounds of 2+2 dialogues in Washington and New Delhi, but all that is now history. India prides itself on its strategic and diplomatic acrobatics: for the first 50 years, it extracted extraordinary defense and economic benefits from the Soviet Union and Russia, and in the past 25 years, it has gained special trade and economic advantages from the U.S. and Western countries, while continuing to purchase cheap oil from Russia. Now, New Delhi is once again looking toward Russia and China, turning away from the U.S.
How much India will gain or lose from this new policy shift will only be revealed over time, but one thing is certain: by using its religious seminaries to foster militancy (Talibanization), India is playing with fire. The Muslim population in India is estimated at between 200 and 250 million. For such a large population to be exposed to militancy is nothing short of a volcano. If extremist ideology spreads across this demographic, Talibanization could ultimately prove disastrous for India’s own existence, security, and unity.
In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the largest source of militancy is the Deobandi school of thought, whose vast network of religious seminaries traces back to India’s Darul Uloom Deoband, located in the town of Deoband, Saharanpur district, Uttar Pradesh. Established in 1866 during British India, this seminary played a frontline role in movements from supporting the Ottoman Caliphate during World War I to resistance against the British Raj.
Remarkably, for the past 47 years, this seminary and its network were largely untouched by the militancy spreading in Islamic countries’ seminaries. Yet suddenly, as the alleged new brainchild of Ajit Doval, the Afghan Taliban foreign minister Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi was invited and warmly received, giving the seminary an entirely new turn. In the 78 years since India’s independence, this is the first visit of a militant cleric to Darul Uloom Deoband, and it is being observed with surprise and concern in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and India itself. Combined, the Muslim populations of these four countries exceed 700 million, making the seminary’s shift toward militancy a significant strategic change that cannot be ignored.
For the first time in its 78-year history, India has glamorized a militant religious seminary system. This new development is likely to instill in students the notion that militancy can bring prestige, power, and influence, spreading extremist thought across India’s religious schools.
For half a century, Indian seminaries and their students remained far from such ideology. Through Talibanization, India has undertaken a major long-term strategic risk for temporary tactical gain. Today, hundreds of thousands of seminary students in India stand on the threshold of a new era, providing future recruitment opportunities for ISIS-Khorasan and Kashmiri jihadist organizations.
India’s engagement with the Afghan Taliban, breaking a 20-year relationship with the secular Ashraf Ghani government, may bring some tactical advantage. However, in the long run, it could also entail extraordinary strategic costs with far-reaching consequences. This policy shift can rightly be called a strategic blunder by the Modi government. In effect, the government has released the genie of Islamic militancy it itself unleashed.
Ajit Doval’s “Great Game,” which glamorizes militancy at Darul Uloom Deoband, will certainly further encourage militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But by pushing India’s 200 million Muslims down the path of extremism, the Modi government is not only endangering its own country’s security and unity — if this contagion spreads, major regional powers like China and Russia will also feel its heat. This process could also become fresh fuel for groups such as ISIS–Khorasan and the Turkistan Islamic Movement in Central Asia.
Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi’s visit freed this “devil” from its bottle, leaving the whole region struggling in the mire of terrorism and proxy wars, unable to escape. Instead of learning from Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s bitter experiences, India has chosen to fuel its own trial by fire—a stance far removed from that of a prudent nation.
About the Author:
Abdul Qudoos is a senior investigative journalist with over 35 years of experience in Pakistan’s Urdu national journalism. He writes a regular column titled Qalam Kahani in Daily Ausaf. Email: surkhposh1@gmail.com Read more of his work at: https://share.google/3WL4UbdbipoExhcwE https://epaper.dailyausaf.com/popup.php?newssrc=issues/2025-10-09/235309/p4_06.gif
