Strategic Setbacks and Ideological Othering: A Corpus-Assisted Cda of Selected Indian News Reports After the U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan did not end India's strategic concerns; rather, it compelled Indian news discourse to reassess longstanding relations with Kabul, continued cooperation with Washington, and the political implications of the Taliban's return. This research article examines how selected reports in The Times of India and Hindustan Times, published between 15 August and 31 December 2021, constructed the withdrawal and its consequences through linguistic choices and discursive strategies. A specialised corpus of 167,282-word tokens is examined through frequency and concordance findings (AntConc 3.5.8), interpreted using Wodak's Discourse-Historical Approach and van Dijk's ideological square. The analysis indicates that coverage combined criticism of the manner and consequences of the American withdrawal with continued support for India–US coordination. The Taliban were predominantly associated with insecurity, restrictions and uncertainty, while Indian developmental engagement and humanitarian responsibilities were positively foregrounded. Concordances of withdrawal, Taliban, US/America, support, past and future illuminate these contrasting evaluations. Nomination, predication, argumentation and perspectivisation through topoi of threat, humanitarianism, history and advantage helped distinguish allies from perceived regional competitors. The article argues that Indian reporting did not simply portray a failed withdrawal: it sought to preserve the legitimacy of India's earlier Afghan engagement while negotiating the diplomatic and security challenges of a transformed regional order. However, these findings concern the selected news reports rather than Indian public opinion or official policy as a whole.