The specter of Chinese dominance in the East realm raises India’s position in Eurasia as a counterbalance to China. This is a notion that has been adopted by her Western partners. Central Asia has abundant energy resources and is strategically located. Its history as a nexus for trade and competition makes it an attractive economic partner. The revival of the Chabahar project in May 2024, with a $10bn Indian investment, coincided with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts. This timing raised interest in India's shift away from the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (2023). India’s silken ambitions for a new connectivity route are like threads being woven into a grand tapestry, but geopolitical tangles continually threaten to unravel it.
The trade that prospered between India and Central Asia during the zenith of the Soviet period remains a key reason for pursuing stronger trade relations today. The influx of foreign aid to India and agricultural raw materials into the Soviet Union made for a promising early relationship, seeing a trade turnover of 4.8 times between 1965 and 1980. However, the post 1990 power vacuum - caused by the decline of the USSR - resulted in a fraught rupee-ruble exchange rate, thus deteriorating the India-Russia relationship. Countries like Germany and China capitalized on opportunities in the Russian market, intensifying competition for a nascent India fierce.
Following the USSR’s dissolution, new geopolitical realities took shape, including an interest in Russia’s near abroad by China and Pakistan. These interventions by rival powers into Central Asia spurred New Delhi’s interest in cultivating new economic connectivity routes in Eurasia. These routes aimed to develop Central Asian markets and establish diplomatic ties, while addressing security concerns/leitmotif in the region. In the framework of economic corridors, India and Central Asia’s economic connectivity hinges on New Delhi’s strategic autonomy, whether that is prioritizing Western prerogatives or Eurasian geo-economic accessibility.
Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar describes India’s strategic rhetoric as being characterized by political dexterity under the philosophy of “reach out in as many directions as possible and maximize its gains.” India aims to navigate a complex geopolitical landscape, reaping the benefits of connectivity without the necessary draws of adversarial competition, regardless of either her cooperation with adversarial powers, such as Russia and the US, or another. The Central Asian republics also share New Delhi’s approach, often noted as heralders of multi-vector foreign policy in their complex neighborhood, straddling Russian, Chinese, and self-motivated interests simultaneously. This alignment of foreign policies offers an endemic, interregional framework to examine her national agenda, namely, to access Central Asian markets, energy resources, and blunt China’s strides in the game of corridors. This framework helps us understand India’s complex geopolitical interactions – reorientation is a key strategy within this prism, enforcing the notion that New Delhi has diverse options for engaging in Eurasia, or choosing not to do so.
Two trade corridors - the INSTC and IMEC - have come to define India-Eurasian connectivity. India’s connectivity interests in Central Asia fall under the triad ABC umbrella of initiatives: access energy reservoirs/markets, bilateral relations with the Central Asian republics, and Chinese competition. India’s energy deficiency as a growing nation is a critical driver for its desire to access the Central Asian energy market. These drivers are not without significant buffers, such as contrarian powers that impede Indian access to Central Asia.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are geographical and political constraints for India-Central Asia connectivity due to security concerns and strained bilateral relations. Other Eurasian routes do not achieve the same efficiency as traversing straight through Pakistan, which serves as a costly geopolitical blockade for India in other Silk Route endeavors. TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline) is an example of embryonic interregional cooperation between India and Pakistan due to uncertain commercial value and logistics of rivalry coordination. China’s geopolitical primacy in the East pushes India to race ahead in the great game of corridors, where each move reshapes the Eurasian chessboard. This impetus comes especially as a facet of New Delhi’s multipolar world view. India’s leadership in corridor implementation with the Central Asian republics seeks to establish regional clout through enhanced bilateral relations, especially when juxtaposed with China’s BRI. The constraints to improved Central Asian bilateral relations and ameliorated Chinese competition lie in India’s wavering commitment to corridor funding and partners.
The completion of the International North-South Transport Corridor (ratified 2000), a joint corridor endeavor primarily between New Delhi, Tehran, and Moscow, is the most direct venture for India to access Central Asia. The corridor is currently active through the Iranian Bandar Abbas port, which connects Mumbai’s exports into Russia via Azerbaijan to the West, and the Central Asian nations to the East. For India, there are several drivers for INSTC completion:
- Access Central Asian markets in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan and establish optimized Eurasian regional connectivity
- India’s moves are an attempt to tip the scales against China’s Belt & Road juggernaut, pushing back in a high-stakes tug-of-war for influence in the region
- Bypass the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)
- Cooperation with Russia, Iran, Afghanistan (all under sanctions) to establish Indo-Pacific ethos and hold a larger geopolitical stake
- Assume responsibilities as a production hub for Europe via Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia
The key drivers of this initiative are Kazakh/Turkmen markets, posturing Eurasian connectivity as a strategic interest for New Delhi. With a growing energy demand and desire to engage in the Eastern hemisphere, Central Asia holds great leverage in Indian geostrategy and economics as a part of her extended neighborhood. However, Central Asian opportunities for India are not without the constraints of Chinese expansionism, as evidenced by Kazakh BRI participation and diplomatic engagements such as C5+1. The corridor bypasses Pakistan however, which has historically held up Indian goods going to Afghanistan, demonstrating a continued schism in regional dynamics between India and Pakistan, but also a driver for the completion of the route. The pro-Russian lobby and Russian cooperation are also significant drivers for the INSTC beyond facilitated Eurasian market access for India. Washington’s impetus for confronting the ‘DragonBear’ alliance (of China and Russia), coupled with Russia-India interactions under sanctions, could drive a schism in India’s regional involvement. New Delhi’s overarching desire to connect Central Asian markets with domestic ones, counter Chinese growth, and grow neighborhood credibility with Russia, are all significant motivators for the INSTC. While Beijing’s elevated position in the region and Russian sanctions detract from the effort, New Delhi’s passive status in Chabahar funding and strategic alteration towards the Western India-Middle East-Europe Corridor flags a concrete shift in Central Asia connectivity plans.
The feasibility of the NSTC depends on funding the port of Chabahar, an Iranian port that would allow Indian merchants access into Central Asia via Afghanistan. Despite Taliban cooperation, issues with private investments in Chabahar due to Iranian and Russian sanctions, as well as insurgency movements in Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan region detract from the project. Chabahar is the linchpin in India’s grand Central Asian design, its success or failure determining whether the Indian Ocean becomes a battleground or a bridge for Eurasian trade. Notwithstanding fresh sanctions in Russia and Iran, and regional conflict, which curb sustainable port financing procedures, the NSTC is a key corridor for Indian investment in Central Asia. India’s bountiful early investments in Chabahar, ranging from $80mn USD to $170mn USD, indicate the port’s importance, with additional efforts made in an India-Uzbekistan-Iran-Afghanistan Joint Working Group (JWG) declaration to commit to port development. However, despite significant drivers for the operationality of the port for New Delhi, Tehran, and Kabul, including decreased transport times, augmented South Asian-Central Asian integration, and improved bilateral relations, several constraints have been associated with Chabahar’s financing. Primarily, US sanctions on Iran made the port appear less attractive to private investors. This presents a two-fold issue that deters headway in Chabahar’s utilization – a lack of stable funding, and sanctions on Iran and Afghanistan, two key actors in the realization of the port. Sanctions on Iran especially resurface implications of Indian strategic autonomy and her Western partnership – a fraternal Iran-India relationship could ingress US decoupling from New Delhi, which would damage India’s regional clout in the Indo-Pacific. Chabahar could crystallize the INSTC as a key corridor for Indian commitment to Central Asia, but current Indian efforts to grapple with financial strife (sanctions, funding entities), Chinese undertakings at Gwadar, and regional conflict indicate a waning interest in rejuvenating the port.
Reflected reduced faith in Chabahar operation, New Delhi’s reorientation towards Western projects, such as the IMEC, clouds Central Asian connectivity aspirations in doubt, calling India’s geostrategy for Eurasia into question. Proposed at the G20 conference (2023) in New Delhi, the IMEC has two main goals: connect India, the Middle East, and Europe through non-traditional ways to fortify supply chains, and ease Middle Eastern tension through diplomacy. Importantly, the IMEC doesn’t access Central Asia. This repositioning postures New Delhi’s potential departure from NSTC development, which has been held up due to Iranian sanctions and regional conflict, and could be a step back in India’s future promises to Central Asia. The simultaneous occurrence of INSTC renewed opportunity and early IMEC prospects would allow for New Delhi to diversify her connectivity options, but deference to the Western initiative seems within Indian strategy currently. Whether this is a strategic maneuver by New Delhi to prioritize the Western bloc due to the preeminence of Chinese expansionism or Iranian fraternization is unclear. A lack of direct Eurasian access and potential disinterest in NSTC development flag a shift in geostrategy for New Delhi, the effects of which could sway Central Asia’s interest in alternative actors.
For India and Central Asia, proper development of these routes means enjoying lesser dependence on the Chinese economic orbit, effective energy and goods trade, and improved multilateral relations. While New Delhi has demonstrated a connective commitment to the Central Asian republics through the INSTC and Chabahar financing, their flippant reorientation towards towards and away from the project creates a slight ambivalence among American, Indian, and Central Asian contingents about their future plans in Eurasia.
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