Importance of
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan is one of
the most important countries in Central Asia. It lies mainly between two major
rivers, the Syr Darya (ancient Jaxartes River) to the northeast and the Amu
Darya (ancient Oxus River) to the southwest, though they only partly form its
boundaries. Between the two is the heartland of the region, the Ferghana
valley. Agriculture is based largely in the fertile Fergana Valley region
makes up a quarter of the Uzbek gross domestic product, with cotton and wheat
as primary exports. All of this has led Uzbekistan to be more
self-sufficient than many of its neighbors, which rely on foreign help for
energy and food. For example, Uzbekistan produces 85% of the wheat and 90%
of the rice and barley they consume. This historically has made the Uzbek
people one of the natural leaders in the region as it has all the essential
resources, required to drive its economic growth.
Uzbekistan also has the
largest population among the five Central Asian states — 30 million people and
growing rapidly. The Uzbek corridor through Bukhara, Tashkent and Samarkand
was the Silk Road for trade from Asia to the Middle East, South Asia and Europe
starting in the first millennium B.C.
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Uzbekistan is the
only Central Asian state to border all the other Central Asian states —
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan — and Afghanistan to its
south. Therefore, what happens in Uzbekistan can affect the wider region.
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History of relations
between India and Uzbekistan
Relations between India
and Uzbekistan can be traced to a time, that is as old as the Timurid Empire, comprising
modern-day Uzbekistan, Iran, the southern Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Afghanistan,
much of Central Asia, as well as parts of contemporary India, Pakistan, Syria
and Turkey.
The empire was founded
by Timur (also known as Tamerlane), a warlord of Turco-Mongol lineage, who
established the empire between 1370 and his death in 1405. In the 16th century,
Babur, a Timurid prince from Ferghana (modern Uzbekistan), invaded Kabulistan
(modern Afghanistan) and established a small kingdom there, and from there 20
years later he invaded India to establish the Mughal Empire. Mughal, the name
of the dynasty, is a variant of Mongol and was used in India to distinguish
immigrants or the recently immigrated from local Muslims. Because Babur’s
father, Umar Sheikh Mirza, was directly descended from Timur (1336–1405), the
great Central Asia empire builder, it is more accurate to call the dynasty
Timurid, the name by which it was known to Indians of the period.
Muhammad Zahir al-Din
Babur always wanted to go to Samarkand. However, he could never expand
Westwards due to the strong armies of Safavid empire in Persia.
Source: Time in Early
Modern Islam
Calendar, Ceremony, and
Chronology in the Safavid, Mughal and Ottoman Empires, February 2013, pp 21-47,
Cambridge University Press
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Turkey, Russia, and
Iran all have claims in Eurasia by virtue of their history. Turkey sees
Eurasia as a part of Ottoman empire, Iran sees as a part of
Seljuk/Safavid/Fatimid empire whereas Russia sees it as a part of its Soviet
empire. Everyone wants to dominate either politically, economically or
militarily. (Sounds familiar right? This is analogous to Akhand Bharat theory
of Rastriya Swayam Sewak Sangh)
A new entrant among
all of them is Saudi Arabia that is more interested in spreading
Wahhabi/Salafi school of thought.
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Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad
ibn Aḥmad Al-Bīrūnī, known as Biruni or Al-Biruni in English language, was an
Iranian scholar and polymath. He was from Khwarazm – a region which
encompasses modern-day western Uzbekistan, and northern Turkmenistan.
His book on Indian
culture is by far the most important of his encyclopaedic works. Its
expressive title, Taḥqīq mā li-l-hind min maqūlah maqbūlah fī al-ʿaql aw
mardhūlah (“Verifying All That the Indians Recount, the Reasonable and the
Unreasonable”), says it all; it includes all the lore that al-Bīrūnī could
gather about India and its science, religion, literature, and customs.
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From the Silk Road to
the Soviet Union
The people of Uzbek are
inherently fractured along geographic, ethnic and intra-ethnic lines. These
divisions are commonly referred to in the country as clans. Most Uzbeks see
themselves as part of a clan before considering themselves part of a single
nation.
With clan struggles
continuing to define the power players and sectors in Uzbekistan, powers
outside of the country will try to take advantage of the divisions, as they
have in the past. If outsiders can exploit Uzbekistan's internal divisions
effectively, they can increase their influence in this important Central Asian
state.
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Outside powers tend
to bypass the central authority (union government) by directly engaging with
various communities that owe loyalty to them. Remember how the British ruled
India?
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Meanwhile, after the
Muslim Turks conquered Constantinople, new ocean trade routes were getting
discovered to establish the route from Europe to India and China in the 17th
and the 18th Century, to circumvent the Silk Route. (Remember Vasco
Da Gama??)
As European-dominated
ocean transport expanded, trading centers were destroyed. One of them was
Samarkand. With the loss of revenue that Uzbekistan could earn upon the Silk
route, it got weakened. Couple this with Russia interference and conquest of
Uzbekistan by engaging with clans loyal to itself., they could expand their
empire in the 19th and 20th century. Later, the Soviet
government established the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and merged the Uzbek
republic into the former Soviet Union (former U.S.S.R.) in 1924. Uzbekistan
declared its independence from the Soviet Union on August 31, 1991. The capital
is Tashkent (Toshkent).
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India and Pakistan
signed armistice in Tashkent on 10 January 1966 that resolved the
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.
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Mineral resources of Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan holds the
world's 18th largest natural gas reserves and is a major exporter of
electricity produced from both natural gas and hydropower. The country also
holds large mineral deposits, ranking the 10th largest in gold, 11th in uranium
and 10th in copper.
Uzbekistan has both coal,
oil and gas. However, their volume is only enough to make Uzbekistan
self-sufficient. There is no surplus left to be exported. In future, if any
surplus amount of oil and gas is discovered in Uzbekistan, we can connect it
with the proposed TAPI gas pipeline project.
Other than fossil
duels, Uzbekistan is bestowed with huge amount of uranium that can be exported
to other energy hungry nations – struggling to make a transition towards clean
energy. Nuclear energy is one among the sources for clean energy, free from
carbon emission. With Integrated policy in existence since the year 2005, the
government of India in the 2014, signed an agreement with Uzbekistan to supply up
to 2,000 metric tons of Uranium ore concentrate to India over the next four
years (2014-2018). With Uzbekistan, we have also decided to create a strategic
nuclear fuel reserve for next ten years. This was agreed to in the year 2017.
Economic opportunities
In terms of economy,
Uzbekistan is a special case since it is going for import substitution
strategy. Uzbekistan has the best quality of human capital with 97% literacy as
education was largely government funded. As of now, Uzbekistan hosts a very
young demographic dividend, that is becoming restless due to scarcity of decent
jobs and respectable sources of employment. Estimates by international
financial institutions suggest that Uzbekistan needs to grow at double digit
growth rates to create that many jobs to absorb new labor entrants. The Uzbek
government is therefore trying to industrialize aggressively. It has persuaded
South Korean and Chinese car manufacturers to produce both electric power and
conventionally powered vehicles locally. This policy to attract more
investments has also driven Uzbekistan to improve its economic relations with
India as India serves as both a source of FDI and a large market.
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Uzbekistan is trying
to extend trans-Afghan connectivity to Iran’ port of Chabahar and Pakistan’
port of Gwadar, to improve its access to the sea and exports to the Gulf. To
do the same, it is trying to extend railroad connectivity to Herat and Kabul.
Herat is connected to rail-road network of Iran (and thereby Chabahar port) while
Kabul is connected to rail-road network of Pakistan (and thereby Gwadar). Through
Kabul, Uzbekistan will also be able to participate in Afghanistan India air
corridor, thereby allowing its exports to travel along the routes to India and
vice versa.
This key rail link
extension project connecting Uzbekistan and Afghanistan could see
collaboration between Beijing and New Delhi. This can serve as a demonstration of "China-India Plus" model which was recently proposed by Beijing
enabling the two Asian giants to cooperate in development and connectivity
projects in other countries.
In the year 2011, US
led NATO coalition in Afghanistan and Asian Development Bank (ADB) completed
the construction of Termez Hairatan border crossing that connects Uzbekistan
to Mazar e Sharif. Currently, this road is the main transit road to cargo
from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan.
(Hairatan is a town
on the Uzbek-Afghan border and Mazar-e-Sharif
is a major city in northern Afghanistan)
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Another interesting
reason, that is driving Uzbekistan to improve relations with India is that it
doesn’t want to be overly dependent on China for investments that coming as a
part of Belt and Road initiative. Like many other countries in Central Asia, Uzbekistan
has also adopted Multi-vector policy to diversify its relations with other
countries and does not want to become overwhelmingly dependent only on one
country.
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The specialization of
the Uzbek economy was determined by the planners based on the overall interest
and needs of the Soviet Union, and it was to become an integral part of the Soviet
socialist economy. Their strategy of Soviet economic development regarding
Uzbekistan was intensive development of cotton production and of the consumer-oriented
light industrial activities (for e.g. paper and paper products, ceramics,
textile, leather and leather goods).
Certain industries
were also developed. In a sense this strategy of development for Central Asia
was at variance with the overall Soviet strategy of development with emphasis
on heavy industry. In the initial period, the source of accumulation of
capital was in the form of transfer of resources from the Centre, i.e. Moscow,
towards the Central Asian Republics (CARs). More than 60 percent of the
resources required for economic development was transferred from the central
budget to Uzbekistan and other republics. As a result, in the pre-war period
very few industries were set up, producing and so on.
Large resources were
spent for building of irrigation canals, production of chemicals and fertilizers
for intensive cultivation of cotton. One of the major casualties due to this
planning without considering the impact on environment was the complete
drying up of Aral Sea.
 
However, with the
exploration of non-ferrous and precious minerals in Uzbekistan, the attention
shifted towards the development of large industrial plants. Subsequently, new
electric stations were constructed at Navoi and Tashkent, hydroelectric
stations at Charvak and Bozsuki, Fergana oil processing plant, superphosphate
plant at Samarkand, heavy engineering units at Tashkent, metallurgical
combine at Almalik, Navoi chemical combine, and so on.
The rapid and
forcible industrialization of the Soviet era (with a strong focus on military
needs) was associated with huge structural distortions and microeconomic
ineffectiveness. Imbalance in development, resulting from overemphasis on cotton
cultivation for instance, led to the shift in cultivation from food grains
vital for food security to an intensive cultivation of cotton. This made the
republic dependent for food grains on other republics. Only' in the 80s was
this mistake realized. The lack of processing facilities for agricultural
produce turned the state mainly into a supplier of raw materials like cotton
and other minerals to the Soviet Union. Inadequate training and education in
technical fields forced the republic to depend on external cadres which
caused social tensions in the recent years.
After the dissolution
of the Soviet Union, the industries and supply chains connecting the local
industries with Moscow got cut-off. Many industrial enterprises in Central
Asia lost their previous markets and were unable to compete under the new
market conditions. Partial de-industrialization in the post-Soviet period was
thus no surprise leading to wide scale poverty and despair among these
countries. Uzbekistan suffered less economic shock from the dissolution of
the Soviet Union than did most other former Soviet republics because it
produces large amounts of cotton and gold, commodities of value on world
markets, and because the government stressed development of
import-replacement industries in the post-Soviet era.
As a result, on the
eve of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Uzbek economy had several
branches of industry which were fairly well developed. They were electricity
generation, steel processing, non-ferrous metallurgy, and precious mineral
industries particularly gold and silver, etc. There was an aviation industry
in the republic. However, many of these industries were developed only during
60s and 70s and later. As part of the reforms, it is planned to develop a
strategy for the formation of the aerospace industry for 2018-2035.
After a painful
transition period, growth picked up in 2000s, largely driven by growing
exports of commodities such as oil and natural gas (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan
and Uzbekistan), aluminum (Tajikistan), gold (Kyrgyzstan), cotton (Tajikistan
and Uzbekistan) and other metals (Kazakhstan), to increase revenue via
exports and eliminate the Soviet era need to import oil. However, after
experiencing more than a decade of growth based on commodity exports like hydrocarbons
and metals, the Central Asian countries are faced with increasing challenges
resulting from falling commodity prices, declining trade and lower migrant
remittances from Russia and Kazakhstan.
In the same period
between 1990s till 2014, these countries also provided a renewed thrust on
the expansion of grain cultivation to achieve food security. This helped
Uzbekistan and other CARs to reduce food import bills. Although cotton
remains the most valuable agricultural product for Uzbekistan, its output has
declined since the mid-1990s.
The major obstacles
to political reform and structural diversification to move away from
commodity-based growth strategies to market-oriented economic growth model in
the five Central Asian economies are internal and external geopolitical
factors. This is coupled with deeply embedded institutional weaknesses within
each country and is particularly true in areas where economic management
interacts with authoritarian political systems and imperfect legal
institutions.
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Under the leadership
of Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who took the helm in 2016 following the death of
former president Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan is now among the world’s
fastest-growing economies.
The government is
making three fundamental shifts to the economy:
1. from a command-and-control to a market-based economy;
2. from a rent-seeking public sector-dominated to a private sector-driven
economy;
3. and from being inward-looking and isolationist to outward looking and
open.
Following such
reforms, government data shows that the number of tourist arrivals has more
than doubled in 2018 and the foreign direct investments have increased
four-fold in the first half of 2019 compared to a year ago. Significant
challenges still remain. Even today, Uzbekistan one of the least
energy-efficient countries in the world.
“Uzbekistan Is the
Hidden Gem in China's New Silk Road.”
Rainer Michael Preiss
September 9, 2019,
Forbes.com
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Uzbekistan and
India-EaEU PTA
Uzbekistan borders all
the countries. This gives a lot of potential for trade, transport and financial
hub. However, since Uzbekistan is not a member of Eurasian Economic Union (EaEu),
with which India intends to sign a Free Trade agreement (FTA) or a Preferential
trade agreement (PTA). This serves as a major irritant for India.
With the retreat of USA
from Afghanistan, Russia wants to re-fill that geopolitical vacuum as a
reliable security provider in Eurasia. Soviet aggression in Ukraine in 2013 and
Georgia in 2008, shows that Vladmir Putin has big plans to restore former Soviet
Union. Uzbekistan believes that the Eurasian Economic Union bloc (EaEU) is a
part of this project to ‘re-Sovietize’ the region. Uzbekistan is also
suspicious of Russian military assistance and economic assistance to Kyrgystan
and Tajikistan, with whom Uzbekistan shares riparian issues. These two
countries are trying to build for Roghun and Kamrabata dam in the upstream,
that may reduce the flow of water in the downstream where Uzbekistan is
located. Tajikistan borders Uzbekistan to the North.
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Uzbekistan is a
relatively strong country in the region, by virtue of its economic potential
and lesser amount of dependence on Russia for remittances to drive its GDP.
It has therefore developed a propensity to remain relatively independent from
any other power. Along these lines. it has always tried to resist control by
the Russian Empire and the former Soviet Union.
More recently, this
tendency has flared up amid Russia's attempts to increase its influence in
Central Asia again. Uzbekistan has rebuffed Russia's resurgence by pulling
out of alliance structures (such as the Collective Security Treaty
Organization) and increased hostilities with its more Russia-friendly
neighbors, like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
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Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan relations
Tajikistan borders by Afghanistan
to the South. It is mostly hilly and suffers from lack of infrastructure
connectivity with the other Eurasian countries. The bulk of its border
security is provided by the Russians that want to restrict the movement of
drugs moving up north and affecting the citizens of the Russian federation.
With extraordinary potential to produce hydropower, Tajikistan has made big
plans to tap the same and export electricity to other countries under the
CASA-1000 project and solve the problem of electricity shortage in its own
country.
On account of its
geography, Uzbekistan shares the downstream of Amu Darya compared to Tajikistan
which is in the upstream. Hence, when Tajikistan decided to construct the
Roghun dam, Uzbekistan protested by cutting off all the electricity lines
that connected Tajikistan to the electricity grids of Turkmenistan via
Uzbekistan. It also dismantled the railway tracks that connected Uzbekistan
with Tajikistan, blocked all its exports passing along its borders and
stopped supplying hydrocarbons.
Tajikistan,
therefore, wants to bypass Uzbekistan via Northern Afghanistan, to connect
itself with Turkmenistan. Together these countries are now developing a
Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan rail project via Anzhob tunnel that will
connect Dushanbe to Khujand.
While Kyrgyzstan is a
part of Eurasian Union project (EaEU), neither Tajikistan nor Uzbekistan are
members of it. As mentioned earlier, such bilateral issues dampen the
regional integration project among the countries in Eurasia.
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For Uzbekistan, EaEU
is akin to walling Central Asia into the former Soviet Union while SCO is
akin to opening Central Asia from the clutches of the former Soviet Union.
Ironically,
Uzbekistan was blocking India in SCO. This is believed to be due to the influence
that Pakistan enjoys in Uzbekistan. Pakistan uses Islam as a strategic tool
to increase its relations with other countries.
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India and SCO-RATs (Regional
Anti-Terrorist cell)
In the Xinjiang
province of China, the struggle to attain freedom from China is mixed with calls
to establish an independent Islamic state based on Sharia known as East
Turkmenistan. China considers this ‘East Turkmenistan Islamic Movement’ or ETIM
as a threat to its internal security. They use Afghanistan and Tajikistan as a
base to launch their attacks on China.
Tajikistan and Afghanistan
have weak economies and incapable governments. They serve as a refuge, an
incubator and a base for transnational extremist groups and armed militias. And
Uzbekistan shares borders with both of them.
By developing and
improving Uzbek capacity to maintain tight security along its borders with
Tajikistan and Afghanistan, China aims to prevent the movement of drugs and
extremist elements before they enter its borders. At the same time, Chinese
concerns on growing radicalization among the Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang
region, also finds a resonance with Uzbekistan’ concerns on growing radicalization
in Fergana valley and calls to establish a government based on Sharia.
Fergana valley is shared
between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Since Uzbekistan follows a
secular culture; it considers this ideology of ‘Islamic movement of Uzbekistan’
(IMU) as extremist. These insurgent groupings viz. IMU and ETIM, intermingle
with people sharing and supporting the Islamic state of Khorasan (IS-K)
movement in Afghanistan, where they share tactics and training.
China has therefore, established
the headquarters of Regional Anti-Terrorist Cell (RATs) under the mandate of
Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) in Uzbekistan. The flip side of this
phenomena is that, this disrupts intraregional trade among SCO member countries.
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Tajikistan and
Afghanistan suffer from human trafficking by militants who share ideologies
with Al Qaeda, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, East Turkmenistan Islamic
Movement, Hizb-ul-Tahrir, Islamic state of Khorasan etc. In the 2019,
peace agreement between USA and Taliban, USA has tried to gain assurances
from the Taliban that they won’t allow the Afghan soil to be used by
transnational militants and extremist elements.
China’ Silk Road Economic
Belt (SREB) bypasses Tajikistan and Afghanistan
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Now since India is a
member of SCO, can India, China and Uzbekistan work together to restrict the
growing tide of Wahhabism in Northern parts of Kashmir??
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India and Uzbekistan
on Tuesday decided to expand counter terror partnership and strengthen
information sharing and capacity building mechanism against the menace
The 8th meeting of
India-Uzbekistan Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism was held in New
Delhi on July 16, 2019. The meeting was cochaired by Mahaveer Singhvi, Joint
Secretary (Counter Terrorism), Ministry of External Affairs and Ambassador
Farhod Azriev of Uzbekistan.
The Joint Working
Group reviewed threats posed by terrorist groups worldwide and in their
respective regions including cross border terrorism. They exchanged views on
current counter-terrorism challenges including countering radicalization, combating
financing of terrorism, preventing use of internet for terrorist purposes and
returnee foreign terrorist fighters.
The two sides also
deliberated upon measures to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the sphere
of counter terrorism through information sharing, mutual capacity building
and sharing of best practices. Cooperation in multilateral fora including UN,
SCO-RATS and EAG was also discussed. RATS is based in Tashkent.
Source: Economic
Times
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