India's Central Asia Strategy Demands Pragmatic Realism Over Romance

Gist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming visits to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan underscore the need for a recalibrated Indian approach toward a rapidly transforming Central Asia. The region is evolving from a passive collection of post-Soviet states into an assertive, geopolitically diverse bloc that actively courts multiple global powers while integrating closer with the Middle East. Consequently, India must discard grand but geographically unviable connectivity ambitions in favor of modest, sustained political engagement and a practical economic agenda. Background Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 , five landlocked republics emerged: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan . Early geopolitical strategies, such as the US Bush administration's 2006 reorganization of its State Department, attempted to use Afghanistan as a natural bridge connecting South and Central Asia. India's historical attempts to connect with the region have been perpetually constrained by a lack of direct overland access, primarily due to blockades by Pakistan and chronic instability in Afghanistan . To bypass these geographic hurdles, India invested in maritime and overland workarounds like the Chabahar Port in Iran and the International North-South…