India and Central Asia: Two Decades of Transition

The Central Asian region in our neighbourhood is in ferment and India's interest in that region is abiding. India has had a long tradition of linkages with Central Asia. It is considered befitting to focus on the area, where countries of the region are shaping up their political future amid many obstacles facing them. The Nehru Centre, therefore initiated a seminar on Central Asia and India in a globalizing world to discuss many of the intricate problems of the region and bring out the proceedings in the volume.

The book consists of 14 essays written by eminent scholars in the field and focuses on India-Central Asia relations especially in the past two decades with a historical perspective. To analyse and study the emerging political, security and economic scenario became inevitable and research on the very importance of Central Asian countries became an integral part of academic discourse worldwide. The oil rich countries of the region played the Caspian role, while Uzbekistan, the most populous country of the region, came out prominently to play its weighty regional role in competition with Kazakhstan. The region remained beset with many paradoxes. Contemporary problems like narcotic trafficking, money laundering, splintering effects of the Afghanistan imbroglio, terrorism and others are in plenitude, while solutions to them are limited. A brief and comprehensive Editor's Note provides a background and the significance of India's relations with Central Asia through history and tells us the extant problems of the region that cast a shadow on India's interaction with it.

P.L. Dash is Professor of International Relations and ICCR India Chair, University of World Economy and Diplomacy, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Nehru Centre was conceived in 1972 as a memorial to Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India's first Prime Minister. It is ever engaged in promoting his ideals of enlightened curiosity, the scientific temper, and secular values.