Dr. Yelena I. Rudenko,
Senior Research Fellow,
Department of Central and South Asia,
R.B. Suleimenov Institute of Oriental Studies,
Almaty (Kazakhstan)
The issues of expectably or unexpectedly changed political and economic situations as well as of intraregional rivalry resulting in reciprocal loses occupy their due place in world science. One of the most vivid examples of the first case are Central Asian republics which after the collapse of the USSR suddenly entered global arena as full-fledged political and economic subjects (though many considered and consider them as objects), having clear desire to cooperate with almost everybody without any noticeable prejudice. The second case is represented by India and Pakistan, which also were eager to intensively cooperate with Central Asian states in various spheres, but due to some reasons remained without any tangible gains. In this regard, both Central and South Asian sides rather lost than succeeded. This paper is an attempt to briefly discuss and analyse some reasons of such a nuisance, which go back to the Soviet period but even more to the initial years of sovereign existence of Central Asian states.
Keywords: South Asia, Central Asia, cooperation, confrontation
Introduction
For a long time since the very moment the Central Asian republics gained political independence, their representatives as well as representatives of India and Pakistan from academic, business and policy-making circles have repeatedly made and continue to make persistent statements regarding the need of expanding, deepening and overall intensification of bilateral and multilateral cooperation between the states of the two regions. However, until now such a cooperation remains just superficial, covering a limited range of standard political, cultural and to lesser extent economic spheres; it does not include many eligible, not to say tempting, aspects and is largely stable in the negative sense, that is, simply makes no headways. The author of this paper believes that one of the main explanations for this phenomenon – in addition to a number of objective factors of political-strategic and economic character (first of all, the Afghan issue and the absence for this reason of adequate interregional transport infrastructure) – lies in the very problem of uncertainty, contradiction of priorities of such cooperation from its initial stages.
In view of this, the author makes an attempt to briefly analyze the primary perception and relevant statements about the nature of interaction between the countries of Central and South Asia. Firstly, these perceptions and statements formed that very backbone of problematic cooperation that takes place up to the present moment without having achieved its final statefulness and completeness, and secondly, they have largely reached the present day in a unchanged form and are often simply repeated from year to year and from research to research.
At that, the author considers it extremely important to turn to some samples of Indian-Pakistani expert views and analytical historiography of mostly 1990’s and early 2000’s on the topic of interaction of Central Asian republics with the leading states of South Asia during the Soviet period and in the first years of the former’s independence. It should be said that though over the time, the “flashy” rhetoric gave way to more calm and balanced reasoning, but its nature undergo not too much changes, at least in key aspects. It should also be acknowledged that the Central Asian historiography on this subject almost is nowhere in evidence, and existing available oral and written statements of representatives of Central Asian republics are in many ways either tracings or mirror images of views expressed by representatives of India and Pakistan.
Soviet Central Asia and India versus Pakistan
It seems necessary to make certain digression into the past and begin the envisaged survey with consideration of links between the state formations of the two regions since the time India and Pakistan gained independence, because the contradictory perception of these links (despite all their seeming unambiguousness!) has its origins in the separation of previously virtually unified British India into a number of sovereign states.
Indeed, the significance, intensity and content of contacts between Central and South Asia during the Soviet period are estimated by researchers in different ways, depending on initial personal position, the starting point of analysis and the particular aspect of interaction under consideration. Thus, some scientists and analysts believe that Central Asia was at that time completely closed to the world, including for the states of South Asia, because respective parent states (Soviet Union in Central and British Empire in South Asia) blocked their connections and contacts with each other and in general with the outside world. Others, on the contrary, argue that although Pakistan was isolated from the Soviet republics of Central Asia due to political tensions between him and the USSR, but India enjoyed the obvious advantage of access to Soviet Central Asia, and what is more, it were the Indo-Central Asian centuries-old ties that formed the backbone of Indo-Soviet relations!
It should be noted that even with respect to India, the second, that is, optimistic, opinion refers primarily to cultural and scientific contacts, while the first, that is, pessimistic view corresponds with political-economic interaction. And even J. Nehru’s trip to the Central Asian republics in 1955 is considered by most researchers rather as a mere cultural event, although some Kazakhstani authors are of the opinion that this visit of Indian Prime Minister can be compared in economic terms with the significance of the Great Silk Road (Zhakenov, 2006, p. 26-27), and in political – with laying of present-day foundation of India’s cooperation with subsequently independent republics of Central Asia.
Yet the most objective view seems to be that even indirectly interacting with the Soviet republics of Central Asia, India was aware that they were both Soviet and Asian. That is why it could not offer them, say, her experience of mixed economy, but representatives of these republics were invited to the 1947 Inter-Asian Conference, during which issues of future development of all Asian states as a single historical, geographical and cultural-civilizational bloc were considered.
Though, it should be pointed out that some problems and contradictions that exist in India’s current interaction with the states of Central Asia have their roots yet in Soviet-Indian relations. Thus, as American researcher L.A. Veit wrote, the Soviet trade policy towards India did not bring the latter all these benefits that the rhetoric of bilateral trade agreements provided for, and some provisions on comprehensive political understanding between the USSR and India did not always fully correspond to reality. In fact, positive Indian-Soviet relations largely depended on external factors, primarily on China-Pakistan-American covert alliance in South Asia. In particular, during almost the entire period of India’s positive interaction with the USSR, the latter used it as a counterweight to China (Veit, 1976, p. 159-161) that, in principle, can be said about one of the implicit goals of modern Central Asian republics – to exploit relations with India with a purpose of mere containing the Chinese factor.
At the same time, contrary to widely held opinion that during the period of 1947-1991, relationship between Pakistan and the USSR was extremely negative and that therefore the Central Asian Soviet republics were completely closed for Pakistan, this provision cannot be recognized as absolutely true. Indeed, the relations of the USSR and Pakistan throughout virtually entire this period tended to deteriorate and even aggravate due to mutual discontent with both domestic and foreign policies, while Pakistan’s contacts with the United States, on the contrary, tended to strengthen. Nevertheless, at certain moments of that period Pakistan used to lose support of the United States and, conversely, experienced a warming of its relations with the Soviet Union. Moreover, the ambassadors of the USSR to Pakistan were sometimes representatives of Central Asian Soviet republics, that is, Muslims (Jalalzai, 2004, p. 320). Therefore, it is unreasonable to talk about the complete absence of contacts between Pakistan and the republics of Central Asia during Soviet period.
In addition, it is believed that the meeting of Indian and Pakistani leaders in the Central Asian city of Tashkent in 1965, which ended with signing of the Tashkent Peace Declaration, played a special role in perception of Soviet Central Asia by representatives of two South Asian states. Moreover, stressing the fact of Uzbekistan’s close ties with South Asian region which took shape long before the latter was divided into opposing states, the Soviet leadership got an opportunity to treat both Indian and Pakistani delegation that arrived in Tashkent in equally positive manner.
Thus, due to the ambiguous historiographic assessment of interaction of India and Pakistan with Central Asian republics during Soviet period, it is impossible to draw concrete final conclusions about how positive (in case of India) or negative (in case of Pakistan) was a role of that period in establishing Central Asian-Indian and Central Asian-Pakistani relations at the present stage.
India and Pakistan: who, what and for what needed in independent Central Asia?
Initial stages of establishing ties and development of cooperation between the two leading South Asian states and the newly independent republics of Central Asia were and are also assessed in different ways (and, unfortunately, only considerable mutual suspicions and accusations between India and Pakistan in this regard were always in place in amazingly similar and comparable manner).
Regarding India, the majority of Indian as well as a number of Pakistani researchers tend to argue that India was obviously not ready for the sudden disintegration of the USSR, weakening of ties along Moscow-Delhi line and the need to establish contacts separately with each of Central Asian countries to a large extent on a new basis. As Pakistani expert A. Rashid noted, “with the collapse of the Soviet Union, India had lost its major ally and it had few ties with the new Central Asian states… In South Asia India was hit hardest by the break-up of the Soviet Union and the independence of Central Asia” (Rashid, 1994, pp. 208, 219).
In addition, Indian and Pakistani researchers well understood that Central Asian republics also suddenly found themselves in a new situation. In the words of Indian scholar R. Khan, “the new leadership in the Central Asian republics obviously appear bewildered and overwhelmed by sudden realisation of their heavy responsibilities for nation building… They need considerable moral, political, diplomatic and above all tangible economic support from many countries” (Khan, 1992, p. 16) including, as it was initially sincerely believed by both sides, from India and Pakistan as well. At that, “the speed with which independence came gave no time to Central Asian leaders to formulate polices towards their neighbours. Thus their relations with the rest of the world were dominated not so much by what they wanted, but by what the rest of the world desired to do with Central Asia” (Rashid, 1994, p. 209). First of all, this was due to the abrupt departure of the state from the economy in post-Soviet republics, the wake of private sector both in Central Asia and India, and the emergence of completely new market conditions of cooperation for both sides. In connection with this, Indian economist G. Sachdeva stressed that while during the Soviet period all contacts between India and the Soviet republics were carried out exclusively through Moscow, and the nature of Indian-Soviet trade and economic relations of that time largely determined the specifics of these contacts, then in the post-socialist period such relations with Central Asian states have significantly weakened: Indian private sector apparently lagged with benefit from economic transformations in Eurasia, and similarly, companies from the Central Asian region did not turned to noticeable advantages from significant expansion of Indian economy (Sachdeva, 2006, p. 72). Pakistani analyst M.H. Nuri added to this that though “these Muslim republics have been very recently baptized into the traditions of democracy, liberal values and free economy”, but new prospects for them will be based upon economic pragmatism, and not on political and ideological considerations (Nuri, 1992-93, p. 90), that is, not on any traditions of Soviet-Indian friendship.
Indian authors usually note that Pakistan, unlike India, well expected the dissolution of the USSR and from the very beginning was more prompt in establishing relations with sovereign Central Asian republics, becoming the first state to recognize their independence a few days before the official collapse of the USSR.
Pakistani side itself, in principle, has never denied this assumption. “The first to leap into the region in competition with each other for influence and leverage were Turkey, Iran and Pakistan” (Rashid, 1994, p. 209). “Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and many other countries are jostling for influence in the region which may soon put Indian claims in doubt” (Nuri, 1992-93, p. 76).
At the same time, although many Pakistani researchers admit that their country was indeed more ready and, as a result, more speedy in establishing new contacts with Central Asian states, but most of them note that India in fact also was very active in this regard. True, as early as January 1992, an Indian non-governmental delegation went to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in order to find out the prospects for cooperation between independent Central Asian republics and India. It is then that Indian experts also began to talk about a need to closely monitor all the changes occurring in the five countries of Central Asia so that India knew how to relate them to her own national and regional interests, taking into account the need to preserve peace, stability and security in the space of South and Central Asia.
In addition, India discovered certain advantage in various previously concluded Soviet-Indian economic agreements (including even India’s rupee debt not fully paid to the Soviet Union), which through inertia continued to be complied with for some time after the collapse of the USSR. So, on February 22, 1992, Russia and India signed the Protocol on India’s trade with the CIS states, according to which a share of Kazakhstan was 100 billion rupees. On the basis of this Protocol, India then signed a separate trade agreement with Kazakhstan – including with a view to prevent similar actions on the side of Pakistan.
Finally it should be noted that Indian analysts just ascertain the fact that over forty-year tradition of Soviet-Indian friendly relations helped their country in quick establishing new contacts with the now independent states of Central Asia, whereas Pakistani researchers consider this circumstance as a very important advantage that their country did not have.
Indian and Pakistani researchers also ambiguously assess the initial priorities in establishment of new relations between their countries and the newly independent Central Asian republics.
Regarding India, some experts are inclined to assert that economic aspect prevailed over political one: India was primarily interested in trade and economic cooperation with Central Asian states, and interpreted various political (including ethnic, confessional, etc.) factors only based upon her own economic interests. Other analysts, on the contrary, believe that during the 1990s, India seriously thought not about any attractive oil and gas sector in Central Asia, but about preventing the situation of political instability within the region – that is, politics prevailed over economy, and only when political situation in Central Asia proved to be stable, India began to pay due attention to economic relations with its countries.
It is worth mentioning that initially India has not intended to offer Central Asian republics her experience of economic development – a practice that was in place later on. That time Indians believed that these republics do not need to borrow and follow the Indian socio-economic model, since they can simply maintain their existed achievements in the sphere of material prosperity – mass education, full employment, health and housing provision systems, cheap public transport and so on, and utilize them in their further development. Moreover, as was stated above, many of both Indians and Pakistanis expressed clearly sceptical – and in fact correct – views that Indian image (including its economic aspects) in Central Asia began to change rapidly with the end of the Soviet period since, having an increased opportunity to freely choose partners, the republics of this region no longer had to rely solely upon India.
As for the initial prerequisites and priorities for establishing contacts between Central Asian republics and Pakistan, the overwhelming majority of researchers agree that political factor (including certainly the question of religion) was undoubtedly the dominant one.
So, according to Indian researcher P. Stobdan, “for a number of reasons, Central Asia became a key and crucial element in the formation of the post Cold-War foreign policy of Pakistan”. This manifested in the calls of Pakistani side to resume interrupted historical ties, up to the fact that “many Pakistani families try to link their ancestral past with Central Asia”, in the ideas of the ‘Muslim brotherhood’, since it was believed that “the Islamisation of the Central Asian states would strengthen and rationalise Pakistan’s own existence as a nation-state”, as well as in employment by Pakistan of religious factor in order to create personal ‘strategic depth’ in Central Asia (Stobdan, 1993, pp. 1109, 1112). Obviously, the latter reason has always been of special concern to India. In particular, some Indian researchers, as was expressed in the work by A. Dhaka, unequivocally decided that with the emergence in 1991 of five nominally Muslim neighbours, Pakistani politicians immediately drew in their minds the ‘axis of security’ stretching from Pakistan to Turkey (Dhaka, 2005, p. 152). Moreover, based on the analysis of certain statements of Pakistani side, some representatives of India have even formed an extreme opinion according to which Pakistan’s interest in this neighbouring region was primarily caused merely by its outspoken “sheer jealousy over India’s advantage vis-a-vis Pakistan in Central Asia… determined by its rivalry with India” (Stobdan, 1993, pp. 1109, 1112-1113).
Majority of Pakistani authors, as a rule, did not deny in this regard the priority of political factor, including in the way similar to how Indian side perceived it. For example, in the words of F.A. Hashim and A. Rashid, “Central Asia is going to play a very important part in Pakistan’s foreign policy in the future. If it is tackled in the proper way, it will balance Pakistan’s existing tensions with India” (Hashim, 1992, p. 19). Moreover, as proves work by N. Ghufran (Ghufran, 1997), some Pakistani experts even urged the leadership of their state to move away from excessive accentuation of political (along with religious) interests at the expense of economic factor, which otherwise had a negative effect both on direct interaction of Pakistan with the states of Central Asia and on its overall reputation in the eyes of the world community. And although some Pakistani representatives actually tried to demonstrate their state’s interest in the Central Asian region primarily from economic point of view, but such attempts were usually not very successful. However, the economic factor in Pakistan’s relations with Central Asian republics at the initial stage indeed took place; among other things, according to A. Rashid, “with the winding down of the Afghan war and Islamabad’s growing problems with Washington over its nuclear weapons programme, Pakistan hoped to revive its fortunes in the West by selling its new geo-strategic importance as the gateway to Central Asia for Western business” (Rashid, 1994, p. 214).
Thus, from the foregoing it can be clearly seen that two major South Asian states from the very beginning turned out to be relative rivals in Central Asia, although there were also statements about the importance and even necessity of Indian-Pakistani cooperation in this region. For instance, despite his rough anti-Pakistani statements, P. Stobdan finally with satisfaction cited his unnamed Pakistani colleague that “Pakistan is perhaps in a very good position to take the lead in getting countries like … even India to approach Central Asia not in a manner of competition but in a manner of cooperation” (cited from Stobdan, 1993, p. 1123). Unfortunately, such examples are rather a drop in the ocean.
In majority of cases, there can be made other examples of controversy about perspectives (as well as obstacles) of interaction between the countries of Central and South Asia, reflected in articles and studies by Indian and Pakistani scientists and analysts, but even more existing in the minds of representatives of business and government of their countries, including these related to the most recent years.
To mutual regret (but, possibly, also to some happiness) most of these and other conflicting opinions proved to be devoid of any valuable practical meaning. Will India, as Pakistani side was afraid of, be able to maintain its former attractive image in Central Asia? No, she failed – and even largely lost this image not only in Central Asia, but also in Russia (and let everybody forget about the once notorious Delhi-Moscow line). Will Pakistan, as Indian side feared of, succeed in dissemination of Islamic ideas in Central Asia? No, he did not succeed – and even India itself can learn a lot from Central Asian republics in terms of sustainable secular values. Will India create in the eyes of Central Asians an unfavourable image of Pakistan as a source of multifaceted threat? No – this was much better done by the US after the events of 2001. Will Pakistan cooperate in Central Asia with China with prejudice to Indian interests? No – China manages well in this region without any Pakistani participation (and even without any serious trouble for India). Will Pakistan benefit from the membership of Central Asian states in the ECO? No, this organization has never been taken seriously by these states, and at present there is even a question of what is the use of joint membership of India and Pakistan in the SCO. And so on and so forth.
As the objective reality showed quite soon, only conclusions of Indian and Pakistani authors about the initial unpreparedness of Central Asian republics for sudden independence and about India’s loss of many it had there during the Soviet period proved to be true. Subsequently, India acquired back in all aspects much less than she expected herself and than Pakistani side feared of in this regard. Pakistan on his part merely did not acquire anything in independent Central Asia – if it can be said so, he came there empty-handed and remained with empty hands as well. In this regard, all the above-mentioned inferences, assumptions, let alone mutual Indian-Pakistani suspicions and accusations, proved to be more than vain. And while these two South Asian countries closely and distrustfully monitored each other’s actions and intensions in the Central Asian region, it can already be confidently stated that they both once simply found themselves as mere losers there. The Central Asian republics also suffered a relative loss, since in the long run they achieved neither from India, nor from Pakistan any of those mutual benefits that at that time they somehow hoped to achieve. Perhaps, the result could be more positive if intra-regional South Asian rivalry receded before the prospects of interregional South-Central Asian cooperation.
For the sake of justice, it should be noted that the views and opinions of representatives of Central Asian republics regarding their versatile cooperation with India and Pakistan also have always been and remain quite discrepant.
Thus, if some of them do not pay any serious attention to bilateral opposition of the two South Asian states and call for interaction with both on the basis of exclusively pragmatic interests, others warn against over-active cooperation with Pakistan at least in political and strategic spheres, considering it a potential source of Islamic and other threats for Central Asia.
If some in Central Asia express the need for cooperation with India and Pakistan in all possible spheres, others say that because of Afghan problem and the lack of adequate transport infrastructure, such cooperation in all or at least in some respects is impossible in principle, and therefore both South Asian states should for a while be excluded from the list of first-priority partners.
As for economic aspect of interaction with South Asia, some Central Asian representatives claim that there are immense prospects in this regard, while others call for better orienting to the developed West or at least to China, but not to the ‘poor and underdeveloped’ India and Pakistan.
Enumeration of such contradictory views and opinions can be continued further. At that, if representatives of Central Asian academic circles are more likely to adhere to positive, optimistic points of view, then businessmen and politicians tend to attach more importance to the negative sides. This is not surprising – while scientists and experts simply state the facts and freely search for prospects, representatives of the state and business are more focused on problematic aspects in order to avoid possible unexpected risks. The main problem, however, is that such a contradiction in almost unchanged form, unfortunately, exists by the present time and there are not seen any ways to end with it in immediate future.
Instead of Conclusion
Despite someone may not attach due importance to the discussed issues, but it is obvious that as their outcome, such confusion, muddle, incoherence, inconsistency and even rivalry in actual priorities of India and Pakistan in Central Asia and of Central Asian republics in South Asia, expressed in the views of their scientists and analysts, among other factors resulted and continue to result in the fact that relations of the two leading countries of South Asia with the Central Asian states are of stable but largely inconsequent nature. The most unpleasant thing is that so far neither India nor Pakistan has been able to formulate any precise and clear strategies for cooperation with the countries of Central Asian region in various fields. On their hand, the republics of Central Asia have never even raised the question of any need to formulate such strategies for interaction with South Asia.
Moreover, this short paper does not touch upon the issues of inconsistency in the perception by separate states and peoples of the two regions of mutual foreign economic orientations, internal and external political preferences, including membership in various interregional organizations and so on. Here one can also identify more than enough differences, which, among other things, cause overall weakness of interaction between the countries of Central and South Asia in the sphere of maintaining interregional security and positive stability.
Consequently, cooperation of Central and South Asia in various fields occurs on the principle of “here and now, and then come what may”, that is, without elaboration of any long-term programs and mechanisms for more steady and beneficial interaction (Indian ‘Look-North’ policy is also futile in the regard). Certainly, such kind of relationship cannot be effective, as is repeatedly confirmed by the reality.
Thus, it seems appropriate to stress that prior to any talks about what to do and how to act in order to expand, deepen and intensify cooperation between the countries of South and Central Asia, it is necessary to address those questions the answers to which have not been received so far. Is there indeed any need for such an expanded and in-depth cooperation (and not just notorious mutual understanding, good neighbourliness, stock membership in the UN, various bilateral documents signed and other secondary issues that have never objectively created neither troubles nor felicities)? If there indeed is such a need, how urgent it is and does it actually exist at the present stage (since reality indicates that so far the states of both regions are quite comfortable without it)? If such a need really exists right now, then which spheres should be started with, and which ones may yet not be paid undigested attention (since when the question of the need for ‘comprehensive and all-embracing’ interaction in all spheres is raised, then in reality it either results in absence of any perceivable interaction or such an interaction turns out to be amorphous and diffuse – in fact, this, unfortunately, is a case of present reality)? After clarifying all the top-priority areas for cooperation, it is necessary to start with identification of factors and circumstances that do and do not impede interaction in these very clarified areas – for example, the lack of interregional transport infrastructure is not an obstacle for political and strategic cooperation, while Indian-Pakistani frictions may not so much interfere with economic cooperation of both these states with Central Asian republics (for more discussions and recommendations in this regard see, for example, Rudenko, 2013). At that, it is desirable to pay special attention to the issue of not always correct and sometimes distorted mutual perception between the countries of South and Central Asia, discordant mutual views of the common interregional and international situation, because such errors and inaccuracies in perception complicate the common vision of the true picture of current and potential interaction as a whole. And only after all these steps are over, one can directly raise a question about what should be done (and what not to be done!) to activate cooperation in the initially identified and clarified areas.
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