The unprecedented visit of Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi to India could reshape regional power dynamics

It’s a seismic shift. Mawlawi Muttaqi’s visit to India points to a diplomatic thaw that’s shaking up South Asia’s fragile fault lines. More on the how and why of it in just a bit but first a quick word about the man at the centre of it all. Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi is the Taliban’s acting foreign minister. Mawlawi is a title; it means an Islamic scholar of repute. Born in 1970 in Afghanistan’s dusty Helmand province, Muttaqi cut his teeth as a young Jihadi fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. He fled to Pakistan as a refugee; steeped himself in religious studies.

In October 1996, following the Taliban’s conquest of Kabul, he became the Acting Minister of Infor

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