India's Eurasian Strategy: Tashkent to Bishkek Explained
- Joydeep Chakraborty
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
In a world obsessed with choosing sides, India is betting that having choices is itself a form of power. The risk, of course, is that relationships alone do not create influence.
The old Silk Road moved goods across Eurasia. Its modern successor will move energy, technology, capital, data and strategic influence. From Tashkent to Bishkek, Narendra Modi’s latest journey through Central Asia suggests that India wants a place on as much of that new map as possible.
The geography matters. Uzbekistan anchors India deep in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan adds another political and human link to the region, Armenia extends the relationship into the Caucasus, while Iran connects the equation to the Persian Gulf and the wider West Asian energy system. Each relationship serves a different purpose, but together they reveal an India seeking strategic room across Eurasia where old certainties are fading faster than new ones are taking shape.
The Itinerary Itself Tells the Story
Diplomatic schedules are rarely accidental. The sequence of Modi’s engagements from Tashkent to Bishkek deserves as much attention as the statements issued after each meeting.
In Uzbekistan, India upgraded bilateral ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and set an ambition to take annual trade to USD 5 billion by 2030. The discussions covered investment, defence, digital connectivity, energy and education, giving the relationship a practical economic foundation rather than leaving it confined to strategic vocabulary.
Then came Bishkek, where the bilateral conversations widened the geographical frame. Modi met Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the margins of the 26th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. The meetings placed Central Asia, the Caucasus and West Asia within one diplomatic field.
India considers Eurasia less as a collection of distant regions and more as an interconnected strategic neighbourhood. The objective is influence through access, presence and relationships, accumulated patiently across different political theatres.
Kyrgyzstan is Closer Than the Map Suggests
Kyrgyzstan can seem remote from New Delhi until one considers that more than 16,000 Indian students study medicine there, while the Indian community numbers around 17,000. For these families, Bishkek, Osh and Issyk-Kul are not distant points on a geopolitical map. They are places where their children spend formative years, build friendships and develop a lived connection with another country.
Modi’s discussion with Zhaparov on student exchanges and people-to-people ties is considerably more tangible than diplomatic boilerplate. India and Kyrgyzstan elevated their relationship to a Strategic Partnership in 2019. Seven years later, the challenge is to give that political framework greater economic and social substance. The two leaders reviewed the progress of bilateral ties and reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening the partnership during their Bishkek meeting.
Influence does not always arrive through billion-dollar projects. Sometimes it begins with thousands of students who return home carrying memories of another country, or with businesses that discover a market before governments discover a grand strategy. This is the slower infrastructure of foreign policy, and India will need plenty of it in Central Asia.
Armenia Brings the Battlefield Into the Picture
The India-Armenia relationship carries a different kind of weight because its strategic credibility is being tested against events rather than conference-room declarations.
Indian defence equipment has increasingly entered Armenia’s security calculations, giving the relationship an edge that ordinary diplomatic exchanges cannot provide. Armenia is assessing Indian defence technology against the unforgiving demands of a country living with unresolved security pressures and a transformed regional balance.
That is why Modi’s conversation with Pashinyan matters beyond the bilateral relationship. The Armenian Prime Minister briefed him on the implementation of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Agreement, placing India’s growing engagement with Yerevan inside the wider architecture of the South Caucasus.
For decades, New Delhi largely viewed the Caucasus through the strategic calculations of Russia, Turkey, Europe and Iran. That is changing. India now has ample reason to watch the region more closely, as questions central to its Eurasian strategy increasingly converge there, from defence supply chains and connectivity to energy routes and the contest for political influence.
Strategy Meets Arithmetic
The conversation with President Masoud Pezeshkian carried the greatest immediate complexity. India and Iran have obvious reasons to remain engaged, but their commercial relationship remains strikingly small relative to the geopolitical importance of the partnership. India’s merchandise trade with Iran stood at about USD 1.15 billion during April-December 2025, a figure that exposes the gap between strategic ambition and economic depth.
That gap matters because Iran is not simply another diplomatic partner for India. It sits beside the Persian Gulf, close to the Strait of Hormuz and along a potential route linking India with Central Asia.
Chabahar makes the point concrete. Under the ten-year agreement signed in 2024, India has committed to operate the Shahid Beheshti terminal, and New Delhi has already fulfilled its USD 120 million commitment for port equipment. The project gives India a physical stake in connectivity towards Afghanistan and Central Asia.
The wider West Asian crisis makes this relationship harder, not less important. India needs working channels with Tehran while maintaining its relationships with Washington, Israel and the Gulf states. It needs energy security without becoming trapped in another power’s confrontation. It needs freedom of navigation because disruption around the Gulf can quickly affect Indian commerce, energy costs and citizens abroad.
Modi’s meeting with Pezeshkian therefore carries significance beyond the immediate crisis. India reiterated the importance of dialogue and diplomacy while seeking stronger bilateral cooperation and a more diversified trade relationship. In a fragmented world, the smartest power is the one that refuses to become someone else’s bloc.
Why the SCO Stands Out
The Bishkek summit provides the wider frame for this diplomacy. The SCO now has ten members and is marking its 25th anniversary in 2026. Its members include countries with sharply different interests, political systems and strategic priorities. China and India remain competitors, Russia is dealing with a transformed relationship with the West, Iran sits at the centre of a major regional confrontation, while Central Asian states continue to seek room for manoeuvre among larger powers.
That makes the organisation imperfect, but also useful. India does not need the SCO to become an alliance. It needs the forum to remain a place where difficult conversations can happen while relationships outside the room continue to evolve. New Delhi’s stated emphasis on Security, Connectivity and Opportunity captures this practical approach.
The summit also places India in the same room as China, Russia and the Central Asian republics at a moment when Eurasia is being reorganised by war, sanctions, energy insecurity and competing transport corridors. For New Delhi, diplomatic access itself has value.
India is Betting on Choices
The Tashkent-Bishkek journey should not be reduced to an attempt to counter China or balance the West. China has enormous economic influence across Central Asia. Russia remains deeply embedded in the region’s security architecture. Turkey is expanding its reach across the Caucasus and Central Asia. Iran remains indispensable to several connectivity calculations, while Europe and the United States are searching for new routes and partnerships.
India cannot replace these powers, and it does not need to. Its more realistic ambition is to make sure that Indian interests have somewhere to travel as the Eurasian order changes. Uzbekistan provides economic and technological depth. Kyrgyzstan offers political access and an unusually strong people-to-people foundation. Armenia opens a channel into the Caucasus. Iran connects the equation to West Asia, energy and maritime commerce. The SCO provides the room where several of these relationships intersect. That is a different conception of power.
In a world obsessed with choosing sides, India is betting that having choices is itself a form of power. The risk, of course, is that relationships alone do not create influence.
Tashkent supplied the economic ambition. Bishkek supplied the wider geography. What India now has to build is the connective tissue between them. The map of Eurasia is being redrawn by forces that India cannot control, from conflicts in West Asia to competition over corridors and the continuing contest among major powers. New Delhi’s answer appears fairly clear and straightforward. It wants to build enough relationships across that map to avoid being cornered by any single version of it.
The old Silk Road connected distant worlds through movement. India’s new Eurasian strategy is attempting something more complicated, connecting them through commerce, technology, defence, students and diplomacy.
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