The Pakistan Factor: A Challenge for India's Foreign Policy towards Central Asia

India shared a strong historical as well as cultural links with Central Asia from very ancient
times. Regions such as Kashmir valley and Ladakh have maintained close and intimate
relations with Central Asia from very long time. India always tried to further these old cultural
ties in contemporary times. Moreover, in present times, there is a concerted effort from both
countries to make their past ties deeper and stronger. India have vested interests in Central Asia
as it is strategically very important and relevant for India. India's neighbour, especially the
Pakistan is continuously becoming one of the biggest challenge for India in fostering its
Foreign policy towards Central Asia. This section therefore will see whether the Pakistan
creates problem for India in its foreign policy towards Central Asia or whether the Pakistan
factor has a minimal role.

After 1991, when five Central Asian Republics (CAR's) originated, both these two
arch-rival countries have adopted various policy approaches towards Central Asia. Both
Pakistan and India wanted to maintain a cordial relation with Central Asian republics by
developing such policies that would be in their interests. Generally, on one hand, we find that
the India's foreign policies towards Central Asia basically aimed at promoting its much needed
energy interests in Central Asia by devising a stable cooperation without creating any problem
to any country, whereas on other hand, Pakistan always tried to stick to such policy that
compensate or nullify its competitor's i.e. India's leverage in the Central Asia. The geo-strategic
location of Pakistan, besides providing continuous aid to and contacts with radical Islamists
organizations makes its difficult for the Central Asian countries to disregard it.

It was only after Cold War period that India initiated its efforts towards building a
coherent foreign policy towards Central Asia. Due to non-availability of enough financial aid
and absence of physical access, India was not able to maintain healthy relations with Central
Asia before 1991. Only major superpowers such as United States of America, China and Russia
emerged as the champions in the Central Asia regions and finally they became the major
players in the "Great Game" (Mohan, 2003: 222). India's foreign policy towards Central Asia
started with the visit of former Indian PM Narasimha Rao to Turmenistan in 1995 wherein he
emphasized on the following aspects: -

a) Firstly to maintain a cordial and peaceful relations with Central Asia without creating any
problem for the other countries bordering Central Asia.
b) To workout as an independent partner with utmost honesty and no selfish gains.

c) To carve out such policy that will boost India's energy demands.

These above points by PM have been analysed by many scholars and have been simplified by
them with some altercations, for instance scholar such as- M. Singh Roy (2008), India's foreign
policy towards Central Asia were based on the following themes: - Firstly, to encourage the
stability and partnership by emerging as a peaceful friend without creating any trouble for the
third country; secondly to lay thrust on India's commercial expansion with CAR's; thirdly to
find an alternative for the issues like- militancy, drug-trafficking, religious extremism and
lastly to cater India's energy requirements and demands in Central Asia by forging a capacity
building programmes, besides stressing for regional cooperation (Roy, 2011: 158).

Further, Roy states that for Central Asia, India was always seen as a friendly partner
which can play the role of a balancer (Roy, 2008: 111). Later, we observe that there was drastic
change in India's foreign policy towards Central Asia which was more focus-oriented after the
attack on US by Taliban in 2011 due to change in geo-political scenario in the world. India
now stressed on forging a new economic cooperation with Central Asia as part of a plan to start
an Asian Economic Community. There was emphasis on free trade zones among SAARC
countries along with the Gulf Cooperation Council and the relevance of India-ASEAN summit
level dialogues. All these helped in creating an Asian Economic Community which could be
extended to incorporate Central Asia as well.

The main security concern for India in Central Asia is the impact of religious extremism
and terrorism on India and its effects hampering in creating any productive policy towards
Central Asia. The continuous support and financial aid provided by Pakistan to the Taliban’s
in Afghanistan is one of the biggest obstacle for India in devising any stability in their relations
with Central Asia. Bearing all these in minds, Indian policy makers formulate new mechanisms
and agreements in Central Asia to tackle the challenges that arouse from the Afghanistan-
Pakistan region. Major powers like US have already left the Afghanistan while regional
countries continuously assimilate in creating new bilateral (Turkey-Iran; Afghanistan-
Pakistan), trilateral (Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan) and multilateral mechanisms (Russia-
Afghanistan-Pakistan-Tajikistan). India is also keen in signing new agreements with regional
countries, for instance efforts have been put forth towards trilateral meetings between India-
Pakistan-Afghanistan and India-Afghanistan-Iran.
India's support and its efforts in trying to control the situation in Afghanistan have been
acknowledged by the government of Afghanistan but the situation worsened with the support
provided by the government of Pakistan to the Taliban's residing in Afghanistan and thereby
making them stronger than the Afghan national army. Therefore, India's foreign policy towards
Central Asia have been devised owing to its security problems related to Pakistan and
Afghanistan.

Pakistan devised its Afghan policy keeping in view of India's influence in Afghanistan
and had always tried to strike-out a strategic balance with India. Pakistan's Afghan foreign
policy always centred around the fear of India and its role in promoting a stable government in
Afghanistan. All these gruesome measures undertaken by government of Pakistan created
problem for Indian policy makers in promoting a peaceful relation with the Central Asia.
Further, the situation become more averse for India when US government's new Afghanistan-
Pakistan strategy puts pressure on India during the Obama's regime. The role of Indian
government in promoting a stable government in Afghanistan was not recognised and given
any importance by the US, rather US government's this new policy was in favour of Pakistan.
The US adhered more on Pakistan in tackling with the Taliban issue and it trusted on the
Pakistan and its intelligence department, the ISI on the Afghan-Taliban issue. In words of
scholars such as Gundu and Schaffer, this new US government's Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy
"served as justification for Islamabad's continued support to the Taliban." (Gundu and Schaffer,
2008).

Indian presence in Central Asia were also affected with the formulation of four-party
alliance between Russia-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Tajikistan in 2010 that put India aloof from it.
With this new linkage between Russia and Pakistan, Pakistan could reconstruct its policies with
Russia and other Central Asian countries and could enhance its economic co-operation. Also
this closeness between Russia and Pakistan is not going to give any serious problems for India
as Russia being a close partner to India since a long time. There is no doubt however that
Russia, being a great partner will be in favour of India's role in the CAR's and of its full
membership in the SCO. Further, both of them are involved in the International North South
Transport Corridor (INSTC) that links India through land and sea routes to Iran, Central Asia
and Europe. The new Indian policy towards Central Asia should be more focussed against these
recent developments and should contain provisions for incorporating bilateral, trilateral and
multilateral partnerships with CAR's and other regional partners in times to come.