For years, Central Asia has remained strategically important to India but difficult to access. Pakistan blocks direct land routes, Afghanistan remains unstable, and Eurasian connectivity remains limited. India’s “Connect Central Asia” policy recognised these constraints early, placing physical connectivity at the centre of its regional approach. Today, however, geopolitical shocks are pushing New Delhi to think about Eurasia in far more urgent terms.
Earlier the Red Sea crisis and now the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have exposed the vulnerability of maritime commerce. Western sanctions have demonstrated that supply chains and financial systems can be weaponised. At the same time, the global race for critical minerals and strategic technologies has transformed Eurasia from a peripheral geopolitical theatre into a central arena of competition. India’s policy toward Central Asia must be understood against this larger backdrop.
The most important shift is conceptual. India increasingly understands that connectivity is not merely an economic issue; it is a geopolitical issue. For years, projects like the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and Iran’s Chabahar Port were discussed mainly using commercial language. Today they are being discussed in strategic language. The purpose is not simply to move goods; it is to reduce vulnerability. This matters because India faces a structural problem that has shaped its Eurasian policy since independence. It lacks direct overland access to Central Asia. Pakistan effectively blocks India from continental connectivity. As a result, India now sees alternative corridors as strategic necessities. The logic behind this shift is straightforward. States that control trade corridors shape economic geography. States excluded from major corridors become dependent on others.
Chabahar is important because it bypasses Pakistan. The INSTC is important because it creates continental access to Central Asia, Russia and Europe. These projects are no longer viewed as isolated infrastructure initiatives. They are increasingly seen as instruments of strategic autonomy. China understood this earlier than most countries. The Belt and Road Initiative was never simply an infrastructure project; it was a geopolitical project, designed to expand Chinese influence across Eurasia through roads, ports, railways, pipelines, logistics systems, and financial dependence. In 2025, Beijing’s trade with Central Asia exceeded USD 100 billion, setting a record high. India’s trade with the region, however, remained at roughly USD 2 billion, representing less than 0.5 percent of the country’s total trade. While India cannot replicate China’s scale or implementation capacity, New Delhi increasingly recognises that remaining absent from Eurasian connectivity politics carries serious long-term risks. This is why Central Asia matters more today than it did a decade ago.
The second major shift concerns the changing nature of resource competition. Traditionally, India’s engagement with Central Asia focused on oil, gas, uranium, and security cooperation. Those issues remain important, but they no longer dominate the conversation. Critical minerals have moved to the centre of strategic thinking.
Rare earths and strategic metals now shape global competition over semiconductors, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and military-industrial supply chains. The world is entering an era in which technological power depends heavily on access to raw materials and processing chains.
China’s dominance in rare earth processing has intensified these concerns. For 19 out of 20 important strategic minerals, China is the leading refiner, with an average market share of 70%. The supply of rare earths remains among the least geographically diversified among all critical minerals. In Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, China already controls almost all the leases of rare-earth mining operations. Many countries now seek alternative suppliers and diversified supply chains. Central Asia has become attractive because of its untapped reserves of strategic minerals. This explains why the Fourth India–Central Asia Dialogue in 2025 increasingly emphasised critical minerals cooperation, among other things. In 2024, the India–Central Asia Rare Earth Forum was established to institutionalise the cooperation. In November 2024, India’s IREL and Kazakhstan’s UKTMP signed an agreement to establish IREUK Titanium Limited, a joint venture to produce titanium slag in India from Odisha’s ilmenite reserves. These initiatives reflect a broader understanding that future geopolitical competition may revolve less around oil chokepoints and more around technological supply chains.
Kazakhstan, the world’s largest uranium producer, processes around 20 of the EU’s 34 officially listed critical raw materials and possesses major reserves of chromium, zinc, and lead. The Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan host some of the world’s largest antimony reserves, while Uzbekistan holds the world’s 11th largest copper reserves and is expanding lithium and molybdenum production. The region also contains significant deposits of germanium, indium, caesium, gallium, ruthenium and rare earth elements that are increasingly critical for energy transition and advanced technologies. As the global economy accelerates toward energy transition and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Central Asia’s mineral wealth is acquiring growing geopolitical importance.
At the same time, India’s approach remains cautious and selective. India is not trying to dominate Central Asia economically. India’s objective is more modest but also more realistic. It seeks relevance rather than dominance. That distinction is important because India faces major structural limitations in Central Asia. As previously noted, trade volumes remain relatively small. Connectivity projects move slowly. Private sector involvement is limited. Geography continues to constrain Indian access. New Delhi is aware of these limitations. As a result, India’s strategy relies heavily on sectors where it possesses comparative advantages – digital cooperation, education, pharmaceuticals, financial connectivity and developmental partnerships. This softer approach also fits the broader regional environment. The Central Asian republics themselves are attempting to avoid overdependence on any single external power. They seek to balance relationships with Russia, China, the West, Turkey, and increasingly India.
India benefits from being perceived as a relatively non-hegemonic actor.
Another important factor driving India’s Eurasian turn is the growing recognition that maritime and continental geopolitics are now interconnected.
Ironically, the Ukraine conflict may have accelerated India’s continental thinking. As Russia reorients economically toward Asia, Eurasian connectivity has acquired renewed strategic relevance for both Moscow and New Delhi.
For much of the past two decades, Indian strategic thinking focused heavily on the Indo-Pacific. Maritime trade routes dominated the conversation. But recent disruptions exposed the fragility of excessive dependence on sea-based commerce. They have accelerated arguments inside India for diversified connectivity options extending across Eurasia.
The larger geopolitical context also matters. Eurasia is entering a period of intense strategic competition. Europe is searching for alternative trade and energy routes. The United States is increasing engagement with Central Asia’s critical minerals sector. Last year, the EU announced a €12 billion Global Gateway package for Central Asia, including €2.5 billion for critical raw materials. The United States has also expanded engagement through a C5+1 framework, signing multiple MoUs on critical minerals, energy, and connectivity.
Central Asia is no longer a quiet post-Soviet periphery. It is becoming one of the principal crossroads of twenty-first century geopolitics. India’s policy reflects this emerging reality. The country is moving gradually, cautiously, and often unevenly. But the direction is becoming increasingly clear. New Delhi now understands that the future international order will not be shaped only in maritime spaces like the Indo-Pacific. It will also be shaped across the continental heartland of Eurasia — through corridors, supply chains, energy systems, and strategic minerals.
The real challenge for India is not strategic vision. Indian policymakers increasingly recognise the geopolitical importance of Central Asia. The challenge is implementation. Can India operationalise connectivity projects fast enough? Can it sustain long-term economic engagement? Can it maintain strategic flexibility amid intensifying competition between Russia, China, the West, and regional powers?
These questions remain unresolved.
But one thing is already clear. India’s Eurasian policy is no longer driven primarily by historical sentiment or diplomatic symbolism. It is increasingly shaped by hard geopolitical realities.
The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. It is named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the Club’s first meeting took place.
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