India and SCO: Greater Engagement in Extended Neighbourhood

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a good start by displaying foreign policy focus on the country’s immediate neighbourhood. He has also shown foresight by linking his South Asia diplomacy with the drive for economic prosperity of India and the region. His recent bilateral visits to Bhutan and Nepal have been marked out as successes and signal his intention to deliver on his vision of regional integration. Prime Minister Modi’s call to develop a satellite by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to serve civilian purposes for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations is an imaginative step that further consolidates the government’s commitment to play a role in the development of the region.

While the Modi government’s focus on SAARC and Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) countries is important,  it should also include Central Asia within its matrix of co-development. Geo-strategically, Central Asia constitutes a part of India’s extended neighbourhood and it is, therefore, necessary to safeguard our legitimate national interests in the region. Central Asia is strategically located and without a doubt, its strategic importance in international affairs has been steadily growing. For India, Central Asia is important because of old cultural and civilizational linkages, the region’s strategic location, energy resources and trade opportunities. Central Asia’s energy reserves will be vital to the global economy over the coming decades. In the post-cold war world order, Central Asian countries continue to share strong cultural identity and linkages with Russia. On the other hand, these countries are heavily dependent on China for trade. India’s role in Central Asia has been nebulous; however, due to changed geo-politics and geo-economics, it has become imperative for India to play a role of a balancing power in the region.

The discourse on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and its role in Eurasia has been fragmented by two opposing views. The Chinese and the Russian scholars view that the SCO has evolved from being merely a mechanism engaged in settling the border issues to becoming a regional organization, addressing the security problems and enhancing economic cooperation in the region. The Western discourse, however, has tended to see the SCO as a mechanism to counter-balance the influence of the United States in the region. Some scholars have even questioned the value of the organisation by calling it “nothing more than window dressing”. However, through the years, the SCO’s effectiveness has become prominent as a security manager and a forum for economic cooperation. Doubts regarding the viability of the SCO have given way to an acknowledgement of its increasing influence and tangible presence on the ground. Presently, the Central Asian Republics (CARs) are over dependent on China for trade and investment, along with a tendency to balance China by shifting towards Russia. The lack of a multipolar security order in Central Asia necessitates the role of India as a full-member state in the organization that will bolster the SCO’s effectiveness towards maintaining a multi-polar order.

Connect Central Asia Policy

The new government should give fresh impetus and flesh to ‘Connect Central Asia Policy’ with resources and effective implementation processes. After the disintegration of the USSR, the Central Asian countries have focused on nation building and statehood and have made significant economic progress. However, these countries continue to face challenges of rivalries and competition due to water scarcity, border disputes, extremism and fundamentalism, drug trafficking, environmental degradation and migration. As India places a strong emphasis of securing a safer Indian subcontinent, collaboration with CARs nations on key areas of security, energy, economics and trade has become imperative. The SCO is an increasingly relevant institution due to the deepening mutual interests of its member states.

Central Asia is also a theatre of cooperation and competition between China and Russia. Both these counties share immense common interests in maintaining the political status quo in Central Asia and thus, allowing mutual access to the region’s energy reserves. Recently, Russia and China inked a multi-billion dollar oil pipeline deal. Combating forces of international terrorism in this region has also cemented their relationship. In the backdrop of the withdrawal of the Allied forces from Central Asia, India remains concerned with the security and stability of Afghanistan and the ambient Af-Pak region. India has vital stakes in maintaining peace and stability in Afghanistan which often reels from the nefarious drug trafficking and terrorist activities emanating from Central Asia. Since India has long been a victim of terrorism, India holds a firm position that only multilateral efforts and integrated actions can help effectively counter these negative forces including the related evils of drug trafficking and small arms proliferation. This has prodded India to deepen security-related cooperation with the SCO in general and with the Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS), in particular.

Visit of SCO’s Secretary General  to India

The visit of the Secretary General of the SCO, Mr. Dmitry Fedorovich, to New Delhi on February 23-24, 2014 was significant as it vindicated the growing importance of India in the SCO and also acknowledged that India is mandated to play an important role post the withdrawal of the US-led NATO troops. The Secretary General’s visit provided an impetus to further strengthen the institutional linkages between India and the SCO and both the sides held comprehensive discussions on the various dimensions of India’s current and prospective association with the organisation.  During the visit, the SCO’s Secretary-General held comprehensive discussions with Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh on ways to tackle counter-terrorism and narco-trafficking in the region, in the context of the evolving situation in Afghanistan.[1] The visit was significant as it highlighted the importance of the SCO in India’s larger relations with Central Asia and South Asia. The trip came against the backdrop of momentous changes unfolding in Afghanistan, a nascent democracy. New Delhi is keen to become a full member of the six-nation group and the visit of the SCO secretary general was an important step, indicating the importance the organisation attached to India post-2014. Including India in the SCO as a full member would help make the organization attain tenable security architecture in the region.

Cooperation on Trade and Energy

Central Asian countries, being rich in hydrocarbons and uranium, see a huge market base in India – an energy deficient country. India has been unable to exploit the full potential of its relations with the Central Asian nations and there is scope for Indian and Central Asian economies to be economically more integrated. Greater engagement of India and CARs will undoubtedly add to the SCO’s capability to enhance regional economic prosperity and security.

Sustaining India’s interest to engage with the Central Asian and Russian markets, an Indian organisation, Federation of Freight Forwarders of India (FFFAI), has been investing in the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) – a multi-modal network which would connect India to Central Asia through Iran: Nhava Sheva (Mumbai)-Bandar Abbas (Iran)-Tehran-Bandar Anzali (Iran)-Astrakhan (Russia).^[2] This route will help India to bypass Pakistan to reach Central Asia- a challenge India has been long grappling. India’s state owned oil and gas company, OVL-Videsh, negotiated an acquisition of a stake in the Satpayev oilfield in Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea in 2005. State enterprises of India and Kazakhstan entered into an agreement for the supply of uranium for India’s civilian nuclear energy programme in 2009. India’s state-owned ONGC entered into exploration agreements with Uzbekistan for gas in 2011.^[3]

India has also been looking at newer vistas of energy cooperation in the region with Turkmenistan — a Caspian Sea littoral state located in India’s strategic neighbourhood and rich in natural gas. Four countries, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (TAPI), are working together on a proposed gas pipeline 1735 kms long which will begin from the Doveletabad gasfield and end in Fazilka on the Punjab border. The oil pipeline is expected to be operational by 2017 and at its peak the oil pipeline is expected to pump 33 billion cubic metres of gas a year to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.^[4]  Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmonov had requested the Government of India to establish a hospital in southern Tajikistan (Farkhor) that would treat both the military as well as civilians. The Indian Army doctors and their support staff established a full-fledged 25-bed field hospital, with medical and surgical facilities, and ran it efficiently for several years.^[5] These goodwill gestures have helped consolidate India’s strategic footprints in Central Asia.

China has been following a strategic approach to Central Asia focused on trade, infrastructure and energy cooperation and has offered $10 billion grant and aid to SCO members. China has linked Central Asia with China’s western regions which could benefit from the Central Asian energy resources and thereby, launched on August 1, 2012, China Central Asia Gas Pipeline Project.^[6] Even though China has been more successful in engaging with the CARs expansively, India’s presence in Central Asia as a “knowledge economy” has generated immense goodwill in the region. India’s role in rolling out development courses of information technology across the Central Asian Universities has been widely acknowledged. Indian assisted IT projects in Central Asia include the opening of the Jawaharlal Nehru IT Centre in Tashkent in 2006, the Bedil India-Tajikistan Centre for IT in Dushanbe in July 2006, a NIIT centre in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 2006 and the India-Kyrgyz Centre for IT in Bishkek in August 2007.^[7]

Afghanistan

India sees the SCO as a useful platform to discuss Afghanistan. Afghanistan lies in the heart of Asia and acts as a bridge, connecting not just Central and South Asia but also Eurasia and the Middle East. Afghanistan has historical and cultural linkages and shares close geographical proximity to the Central Asian nations. Post the withdrawal of the Allied forces, there are concerns if Afghanistan reels back into scourge of another civil war it would have a serious impact on the regional security situation. The SCO has closely cooperated with Afghanistan, providing economic assistance and has supported Afghanistan’s national reconciliation through multilateral channels. The Central Asian states are keen to play a more positive role in the Afghan state building process towards a more just and an equitable international order. The Central Asian nations have sought the platform of the SCO to help Afghanistan combat security challenges — one of the most serious threats which Afghanistan with a brittle democracy faces today.

India remains concerned about Afghanistan’s future and has supported the war-torn country to integrate into the regional economy. India recognises that with the development of Afghanistan’s road connectivity and trade links to Central Asian countries, there is a possibility of Afghanistan becoming a hub for trade, transportation and energy in the region. India holds the view that the SCO would be a useful platform to expand India’s developmental assistance to Afghanistan and has called for its greater role. By the year 2012, India spent USD 1.2 billion in Afghanistan and has pledged a total of USD 2 billion in developmental assistance.[8] India’s key projects in humanitarian assistance (such as food aid), infrastructure projects and capacity building in Afghanistan have been varied. These include  food assistance to primary school children and construction and rehabilitation of schools ($321 million disbursed); supply of 250,000 tonnes of wheat; construction of a power line from Pul-i-Khumri to Kabul ($120 million); construction of the Salma Dam Power Project ($130 million); construction of the parliament building ($27 million disbursed; budget $178 million); and rehabilitation of Delaram-Zaranj road ($150 million).[9] To address security challenges, the SCO members have a significant role to play in setting up security belts around Afghanistan to prevent spreading of terrorism and curtail proliferation of drug trafficking networks. Both India and Central Asian countries are hoping to closely cooperate on the SCO platform to maintain peace and stability in Afghanistan, which is essential for both.

A Multilateral Approach to Climate Change Initiatives

The Central Asian nations also suffer from water scarcity. Water distribution is a central question in the region. Central Asia has a growing population and water hungry resources extraction industry has complicated the situation even more. The region is divided into water rich upstream states and water poor downstream ones and disagreements over division of water leads to conflicts. For instance, lawmakers in Kyrgyzstan have threatened to cut water flow to semi-arid Uzbekistan in retaliation to Uzbekistan’s move to cut gas supplies to the Kyrgyz city of Osh in April.[10] Water scarcity has led to a delicate security fabric among the Central Asian countries.

In an expedition to Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, (organised with the support of India’s Ministry of External Affairs), an Indian delegation to Urugench University in Uzbekistan was briefed about the critical levels of drying of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. The drying of the rivers and the Ural Sea has proved as a challenge to Uzbekistan, one of the world’s largest exporters of cotton, as cotton plantation requires huge amounts of water. Addressing climate change challenges would require multilateral efforts and India can play a pivotal role in aiding Central Asian countries to develop resilience with sophisticated satellite based data to adapt to climate changes. India and the Central Asian countries should hold a strategic dialogue and cooperate in the fields of education, medicine, IT, joint expeditions in archaeology and joint mineral explorations. These initiatives could be rolled out in a full-fledged manner within the institutional framework of the SCO. However, this also calls for a more comprehensive and expanded role of India as a full member in the SCO.

To conclude, even though the reforms of the SCO members’ states have been unmistakably slow, one could be optimistic about the SCO slowly yet steadily readjusting its principles and vision to become a more effective body to address the numerous security and developmental challenges. India stands ready to play a larger role in the SCO as a full member. India, under the leadership of the new government, is poised to pursue a dynamic and an economics-driven diplomacy to bolster India’s standing in the international arena, which is witnessing a seismic shift in power from the West to the rest.

(Sylvia Mishra is a Researcher at ICRIER Wadhwani Chair in India US Policy Studies. An excerpt of this article was presented by her at the John Hopkins Nanjing University Conference on Building an East Asian Regional Community on May 9, 2014. She has been a member of an expedition to Central Asia to promote Track II Diplomacy supported by Ministry of External Affairs and India Central Asia Foundation).

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