Uzbekistan and India share a tradition of secularism and accommodating the interests and aspirations of diverse ethnic groups.
PRIME MINISTER Manmohan Singh’s official visit to the capital of Uzbekistan might have seemed a flying visit tagged on to a major visit to Germany. It was marked by an hour’s meeting with President Islam Karimov; quick delegation-level meetings; and the signing of six memoranda of understanding on such matters as establishing an Entrepreneurship Development Centre at Tashkent, cooperation in the field of oil, natural gas, geology, natural resources, and agricultural research, and partnership between Delhi University and the Tashkent Institute of Oriental Studies. Uzbekistan readily accepted India’s offer to set up satellite-based tele-education and telemedicine connectivity between the two countries; and Dr. Singh and Uzbekistan’s Prime Minister, Shavkat Mirziyayev, jointly inaugurated an India-Uzbekistan centre for information technology named after Jawaharlal Nehru.
Uzbekistan, with a population of 26 million, is Central Asia’s leading power. Once part of the Soviet Union, it became independent on September 1, 1991 and immediately joined the Commonwealth of Independent States. Its executive President, Mr. Karimov, a soft-spoken strongman, has been in the driving seat since 1990, when he was chosen President of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. The government has tried to balance relations with the United States and Russia. It made common cause with the former in the military invasion of Afghanistan and the continuing fight against the Taliban. It has also received substantial economic aid from Washington. But more recently — “doing a 180 degree turn,” according to an informed senior Indian official — the Karimov regime has moved closer to Russia, which it perhaps sees as its strategic bulwark. It takes membership of the CIS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation seriously.
Future economic powerhouse
For the region, Uzbekistan — whose economy grew by 7.2 per cent and agricultural production by no less than 6.2 per cent in 2005 — is a potential medium-sized economic powerhouse of the not-too-distant future. It is rich in petroleum resources: second only to Russia among the CIS’ natural gas producing countries and one of the world’s top 10 natural gas producers. It has an estimated 594 million barrels of proven oil reserves. But Uzbekistan also has an abundance of mineral resources. Among other things, it is a large producer and exporter of gold and copper, and has the world’s seventh largest uranium deposits. Its agriculture and agricultural processing industry are relatively advanced. The development strategy of Mr. Karimov’s People’s Democratic Party government is claimed to be “building a socially oriented market economy,” and transforming an economy dependent on agriculture and the extraction of natural resources to a modern industrial economy.
The economic dimension aside, Uzbekistan and India share a tradition of secularism and accommodating the interests and aspirations of diverse ethnic groups. President Karimov and other Uzbek leaders have, on several occasions, publicly spoken of their admiration for the Indian model of a secular and democratic state. Notwithstanding its 90 per cent Muslim population, Uzbekistan has no state religion. Indeed its government cracks down on not just religious fundamentalism and extremism, but also any mixing up of religion and politics.
The challenge of forging fresh ideas and instrumentalities for action against terrorism seems high on the agenda of Tashkent’s equation with New Delhi. Uzbekistan has faced a major challenge on this front — with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Taliban’s close ally and collaborator, and the Jordan-based Hizb-u-Tahrir figuring on the world terrorist map and other religious extremist groups working underground against the government. The Karimov regime’s uncompromising fight against religion-based extremism and terrorism has involved a major cost: there are several complaints by international human rights NGOs against the regime, including allegations of arbitrary arrest, torture, and extra-judicial killings.
India, of course, does not wish to engage in any bilateral or international controversy over this issue. The joint statement issued at the end of Prime Minister Singh’s official discussions simply noted that the two countries “once again underlined their resolve, on a long term basis, to fight against terrorism, which is one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.” The India-Uzbekistan Joint Working Group on Combating International Terrorism, which met last in New Delhi in October, will meet fairly soon in Tashkent.
History and civilisational affinities are a strong background presence for any Indian visitor to Central Asia. Recent history took the Prime Minister to the Shastri Monument — to pay tribute to a simple bust of Jawaharlal Nehru’s successor who died in a Tashkent dacha on January 11, 1966. The memorial, located in a park and maintained neatly, is worthy of a man who was known for his personal integrity, his quick decision-making, his no-frills style. Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri flew in here to participate in Soviet-mediated peace talks with Pakistan’s Ayub Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This was three months after India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire, at the insistence of the United Nations Security Council, to end the second India-Pakistan war over Kashmir.
The core of the formula that emerged out of the Tashkent negotiations was this: the belligerents agreed to restore the status quo ante and to resolve the issues between them by negotiations. Specifically, this meant India agreeing to hand back Haji Pir and Tithwa, two posts won by the Indian Army in the 1965 war, and Pakistan committing itself formally not to resort to arms. Returning the territory captured proved a wrenching decision for Shastri because it was unpopular with public opinion in India and (it was said) even with his wife, Lalita, who refused to speak to him when he called from Tashkent. But Shastri, in his quest for peace, did what he thought was right as well as realistic. His death, coming unexpectedly, set the stage for the rise of Indira Gandhi and her family in India’s political theatre.
But older historical associations beckon. Babur — descended from Chaghatai Mughals on his mother’s side and from Timur on his father’s side but who always considered himself a Timurid Turk — was born in Andijan, capital of the mineral-rich Andijan Province, located some 360 km to the east of Tashkent, in the Fergana Valley along the ancient Silk Route. His Babur Nama, an autobiographical and literary treasure, has a fascinating account of life, geography, customs, kingdoms, conflicts, (then-discovered) natural resources of 15th-16th century Fergana and Samarkhand and Tashkent and the “dominion of Kabul” — before the founder of India’s Mughal Empire turns his eagle eye and military and political genius to India.
