Author Description

India has been so historically linked with Central Asia that the region is known in Indian diplomatic parlance as its 'extended neighbour' or an 'immediate and strategic neighbourhood'. In this paradigm Uzbekistan, sharing a common boundary with other Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, occupies a crucial place. British colonialism interrupted this historic link between India and Central Asia. During the Soviet regime, too, the interaction between the sub-continent and, what we now call the CIS states, was tempered through Moscow. But even within these constraints India and Uzbekistan retained a special relationship. The post-Cold War period, however, opened up new possibilities of direct contacts between India and Uzbekistan, especially when the latter reoriented itself to Asia and not Russia. It is in this context that the current Indo-Uzbek relations need to be seen. This paper tries to address that very need.