India’s ‘Connect Central Asia Policy’: Emerging Economic and Security Dimensions

Abstract

Central Asia is strategically positioned as an access between Europe and Asia and offers extensive potential for trade, investment and growth. The region is richly endowed with commodities such as crude oil, natural gas, cotton, gold, copper, aluminum and iron. The increasing importance of the region's oil and gas resources has generated new rivalries among external powers. A scramble for resources has begun in the Central Asia between Russia and other external players like US, China resulting in a Great Game rivalry. India wants to gain a foothold in the region for its huge energy reserves and also to secure a stable extended neighbourhood in Afghanistan. Today in the post-cold war years, India is increasingly looking toward Central Asia as both a reliable source of oil and natural gas and a focus of its strategic interests in Asia. Trade and economic ties with the landlocked Central Asia are point of interest for India. In this age of globalization, economic ties hold the key to any bilateral, trilateral and multilateral cooperation. Both India and Central Asia share common perceptions about the need to have friendship and mutually advantageous economic relations especially in the backdrop of globalization. Through its 'connect Central Asia Policy', New Delhi aims to actively take part in Central Asia's regional cooperation and security arrangements. This paper attempts to highlight the need for India's holistic approach towards Central Asia with in a neo-liberal framework in the context of globalization.