The Journal of Central Asian Studies

Central of Central Asian Studies

University of Kashmir

Print ISSN: 0975-086X Online ISSN: 0975-086X

Being located at the crossroads of Asia, Europe and Africa, connecting Middle East, Balkan and Caucasus alongwith its historical legacy of Ottoman Empire, Turkey plays an important role in the regional and global politics as well as determines its foreign policy accordingly. Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by Erdogan with Islamic ideological background entering to Turkish politics in 2001, got victory in the elections of 2002, since then hitherto ruling the country. AKP government’s foreign policy followed ‘zero problem’ and ‘strategic depth’ principles with Turkish vicinity. Turkish-Syrian interactions had begun in the 8th century under Umayyad caliphate. The Turks gradually occupied higher ranks in Umayyad state and settled down at the territories today called Syria. During Seljuk time, Turks captured Syria which replaced with Mamluks. The Ottomans regained sovereignty in Syria at the 16th century which continued till the end of First World War. Then, Turkish-Syrian relations developed as mandate shaped by France. Since then, some conflicting issues affecting Turkish-Syrian relations such as the Hatay (Sanjak) issue, water sharing issues. During Syria’s independence in 1936, Turkey demanded Hatay’s independence too, which was denied by France. On the eve of Second World War in 1939, Hatay was ceded to Turkey. Since then, it became an issue of conflict. The water sharing has also been another issue of debate. Concerning security issues, both countries situated at opposite sites. Syria supported PKK, which Ankara regarded as terrorist group operating against Turkey. This hostile attitude gradually changed under AKP’s soft foreign policy towards Syria. Potential Kurdish state risk after Iraq war, common security perceptions after 9/11, compelled both the countries to adopt collective security measures. This article is exclusively aimed at discovering the factors which prompted Turkey to shift its policy towards Syria during the crises caused by Arab Spring. It will also include the nature and historical developments of Turkish-Syrian relations with a view to understanding the driving factors behind shifting policy.

With the breakup of Soviet Union in December 1991, the landscape of the Eurasian heartland has been changed and Central Asia rediscovered itself in the comity of nations with the dawn of the twenty first century. But after the breakup, Central Asia did not remain in the priority of the Russian foreign policy as Central Asia being considered as its natural backyard. This vacuum gave birth to the ‘New Great Game’, thus, the major powers- US, China, Russia and European Union (EU) involved in Central Asian geopolitics was further substantiated by Zbigniew Brzezinski. Following the geopolitical thinkers-Huntington and Mackinder, Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book entitled “The Grand Chessboard: American Primary and its Geostrategic Imperatives” (1997), renamed the Eurasian Heartland as a Chessboard. According to him, five countries- France, Germany, Russia, China, and India are as “pivots” to control the Eurasian landmass. For the given rich mineral resources and its geostrategic location, the ‘pivots’ have been making efforts to control Central Asia for their vested interests. Though, India and Central Asia had been sharing historical and civilizational relations, even after its independence, the fact is that Central Asia did not find pivotal place in Indian foreign policy. Some perceptible scholars are of the opinion that during the last decade, India has been outfoxed from Central Asia because of the geopolitics of the region. In the very beginning of the 21st century, India realized this diplomatic mistake and redesigned its foreign policy under various frameworks vis-à-vis Central Asia. Connect Central Asia Policy is one of them. Against this background, the main focus of this paper is to find out how geopolitical and geostrategic interests of India are being effected in Central Asia; how India is being outfoxed from Central Asia; how and to what extent Connect Central Asia Policy be helpful in engaging India more positively and constructively with Central Asia to check its outfoxing?

Political Islam as a reaction to onslaught of colonization and aggressive secularization sought to fight a political battle in the name of Islam. How far is this project intellectually sustainable and integrally orthodox or rooted in the Islamic tradition? Its rather depressing record so far at either political or other cultural fronts in achieving the objective of establishing the Ideal or Islamic State with all its cultural vibrancy and widespread apprehensions within the Islamic intellectual elite or Muslim communities as such calls for questioning both the construction of the project of political Islam and its reading of Islamic tradition. One way of clarifying the issue is considering how great thinkers of medieval Islam conceived the political project of Ideal State in Islam and how they encountered the philosophical and theological other in this connection. As it is certain dismissive reading of Modernity or contradictory attitudes towards its key notions like technology and democracy and an advocacy of what has been seen as essentialist monolithic fossilized view of religion implicating a strong rejection of both religious and political other (liberal democracy) in the ideologues of political Islam, we need to see if we can get some insights into the genesis and evolution and ideological stakes in the phenomenon by revisiting parallel process of engaging with the intellectual and political challenge during Middle Ages. Al-Farabi is here read as an exemplary Muslim thinker of Medieval Islam who engaged with the question of the political and religious and philosophical other that seemed to pose a challenge to the identity of the religious tradition he inherited. Further narrowing the focus to one key dimension of Al-Farabi’s response viz. philosophy, I propose to explore the question of possibility of revisiting Al-Farabi in the backdrop of modern Muslim culture’s (especially in the ideologues of political Islam) amnesia of Muslim philosophers or opposition to philosophy as such and argue why he is of seminal importance and needs serious consideration from the Muslim world suffering from twin tensions of fundamentalism and aggressive desacralizing secularism.

The Central Asian region has become a scene of Great Game Rivalry after the breakup of the former Soviet Union. Looking into contemporary history of Central Asia, the Caspian Sea which is richly endowed with hydrocarbon energy resources ̶ has played an important role in the regional development. In this context several questions arise ̶ What are the causes for the rivalry?, What is the status of Caspian with regard to sea / ocean delimma?, Who are the major players involved? How are the Central Asian States of the former Soviet Union responding to these rivalries? An effort has been made in this paper to examine these and related issues concerning the Caspian region.

More than five decades ago, banking and finance based on the principles of Islamic Commercial Law (fiqh al-mu’amalat) was just a wishful thinking. However, since it’s commencement in early 1960s, Islamic finance industry remained at constant momentum in and outside the Muslim world. Making space among the leading financial service providers like Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation(HSBC, London), Deutsche Bank (DB, Germany), Bank National Paris (BNP, France), Citi Group (U.S),Union Bank of Switzerland(USB, Switzerland), Merrill Lynch and Barclay’s (UK), etc., the ‘nascent’ industry has now become a practical reality. As such, the developing Asian economies like India and Kazakhstan -(countries under study)- being home to large Muslim populations, are expected to offer a promising growth market to Islamic finance industry. The overview of socioeconomic factors like demography, religious participation, behavioral finance and demand for a robust financial structure after experiencing the worst consequences of global financial crisis, have led experts to expect a ‘perception shift’ in customer choice in general and Muslim customers in particular. Regardless of India being home to 177 million Muslims, and Kazakhstan, a Muslim majority state (70.2%), much has not been done to materialize the concept of Islamic banking and finance on practical grounds. The major impediment in the development of shari’ah compliant banking in both the countries is generally and genuinely ascribed to their respective secular constitutions. Although, felt heavy with customer interest, the government of Kazakhstan reformed the banking constitution in 2009, just to become the first country to facilitate the development of Islamic finance in the Common Wealth of Independent States (CIS).Currently, Kazakhstan has one full-fledged Islamic bank- Al Hilal Bank (established 2010), which offers both corporate and retail services. By now she has also the (Islamic) legal framework for sukuk (securities), takaful (insurance), and ijarah (leasing). Being the largest democracy of the world, the government of Indiais yet to introduce such type of constitutional change. However, one of her states in the South - Kerala State was the first to allow the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) to offer shari’ah compliant financial services to the Muslim community. It is with this background that the present paper will attempt to examine the feasibility and challenges of Islamic finance industry from Indian and Kazakhstan perspective by Scope and Feasibility of Islamic Banking and Finance Model... 84 applying SWOT analysis method.

Problems related to violation of human rights are common in the present world. The efforts of the state governments in the direction of protection of human rights vary from state to state. The factors playing key role in safeguarding and protecting human rights are: constitutional provisions, acts and statutes. Endeavors of world organizations such as UNO, Amnesty International, UNHRC, US Aid etc. are mightier than those of states. States seem to cut a sorry figure in providing some essential mechanism, and at the same time, due to proper implementation of the provisions and lack of protection of human rights, citizens suffer in the region. The Central Asian countries, more often than not fail to provide the space to citizens for their rights. Since 1991, the citizens of this region seem to have developed an apprehension for their rights. Authorities are reluctant to provide safeguard to the rights of the citizens. The region seems to be infested with problems of freedom of expressions, censorship on media and on formation of the political parties and associations, ethnic conflicts, rights for the workers, cotton picking by the students during vacation, are common phenomena in the region. The objective of this article is to focus on the problems faced by the republics in the path of the protection and effective implementation of human rights. At the same time, it would try to throw some light on the solutions available to promote and protect Human Rights in the region. Structurally, the research paper in three parts argues that the state of affairs in the Central Asian counties is not commendable as far as the protection of human rights is concerned. The first part pertains to the understanding of concepts of Right and Human rights, the second part is about the depiction of historical development and current state of affair of human rights in Central Asian countries, the third part dwells upon national and international efforts directed towards the protection of the human rights.

Although the New Maritime Silk Route (MSR) proposal is an innovative idea which aims to create opportunities and bring peace and stability in Asia-Pacific Region, it is designed to improve China’s geostrategic position in the world. In order to consolidate its economic and political posture in the region, extricate itself from the Malacca dilemma and secure its Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) the MSR project is viewed by China as an important strategic tool. For India, the entire proposal has to be seen in the context of its national interest. As India’s relation with China has never been hunky-dory, the entry of China in Indian Ocean Region (IOR) will prove detrimental. Despite the China’s claim of using Maritime Silk Route as a diplomatic artery between China and its neighbours for strengthening regional connectivity, the unstated and underlying strategic objectives of this project raise questions about Chinese intentions. No doubt that ‘Make in India’ and ‘Start up India’ like initiatives launched by present NDA Government will get boost if India joins the MSR project, but at the same time it will have strategic compulsions that India will never wish to compromise with. The fact that China is promoting two corridors (continental and MSR) as part of its evolving regional geostrategy and that ‘India lies on both the Maritime Silk Route and the Southern Silk Route’ poses both opportunities as well as challenges for India. The present paper discusses these opportunities that the proposed Maritime Silk Route will offer and the challenges, it will pose to India.

The signing of Indo - Kazakhstan Nuclear Co-operation Agreement is one of the historic agreements among India and Central Asian Republics. The State visit of Kazakh President Nazarbayev as the chief guest of India on Republic day parade from 23rd -26th January 2009 in Delhi, adopted the declaration of Strategic Partnership Agreement. In this declaration both sides had taken pledge for comprehensive cooperation in the spheres of political, economic, technological, human resource development and counter-terrorism. During Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh‘s visit to Astana on 18th April 2011 a deal was struck between Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh and Kazakh President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, for supplying of uranium to India and a comprehensive co-operation in civil nuclear energy programme.This agreement is one of the most important agreements which encourage the bilateral trade and transactions between the two countries.

Throughout the ages Afghanistan remained, “a country without state”. The toppling of one regime, dominated by one ethnic group by the other remains the perennial problem of Afghanistan. This ethnic conflict also leads to inter-alia to an epoch in the post-Soviet era where Taliban quickly gained public support in the vast majority of the country, who sought to stabilize the country through a policy of ferocious repression. The old socio-political fault lines, enmeshed with divergent interests of various internal and external forces involved, however, continue to grow. And this confrontation between ethnic groups and different state apparatus, external and internal, became a vicious cycle. Even after the collapse of Taliban and deployment of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and introduction of democratic elections, things are not looking good. This paper tries to highlight the deep-rooted ethnic identity and its impact upon the emerging democratic state of Afghanistan.

This paper aims at explaining the food crisis that ravaged the life and conditions of the people of Kashmir during pre-modern times. It focuses on a variety of causes behind food shortages with a view to broaden our understanding about the present and to provide a guideline for the future. Besides analysing the philosophy of food shortages, it also dwels upon how the various sections of the society from the ‘landlords’ through galladars (grain merchants) and waddars (money-lenders) to peasants and workers responded to the situation and the web of consequences that followed from it impacting polity, economy, mentality and culture of the society

Water has long been a major cause of conflict in Central Asian States. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have a surplus while the other three states strive for their share from the region’s great rivers i.e. Syr Darya and Amu Darya, which slice across it from the Tien Shan, Pamir Mountains, and the Hindu Kush to the Aral Sea. The population in the region has increased by almost ten million since 2000, and limited arable land is being depleted by over-use and outdated farming methods. Extensive corruption and failing infrastructure take further toll, while climate change is likely to have long-term negative consequences. As economies become weaker and states more fragile, heightened nationalism, border disputes, and regional tensions complicate the search for a mutually acceptable solution to the region’s water needs. A new approach that addresses water and related issues through an interlocking set of individually more modest bilateral agreements instead of the chimera of a single comprehensive one, is urgently needed. The root of the problem is the disintegration of the resource-sharing system, the Soviet Union imposed on the region until its collapse in 1991. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan provided water to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in summer and received Kazakh, Turkmen and Uzbek coal, gas and electricity in winter. The system had broken down by the late 1990s, and a plethora of bilateral and regional agreements and resolutions concluded in that decade, failed to fix it. The inadequate infrastructure, poor water management and outdated irrigation methods remain unaddressed, while the security of environment is bleaker. The unresolved water disputes accumulating day by day, if not addressed properly and promptly, can lead to almost a virtual water war in the region having its far reaching consequences. This imbalanced regional water resource endowment which make states highly interdependent, and being a cause of conflict, can be converted into a conflict resolution measure as well, if stakeholders adopt a positive approach with similar thinking frequency.

Energy is critical, directly or indirectly, in the entire process of evolution, growth and survival of all living beings and plays a vital role in the socioeconomic development and human welfare of a country. It is seen as a ‘strategic commodity’ and any uncertainty about its adequate availability can threaten normal functioning of an economy, predominantly those which are developing. Realizing the energy security in its strategic sense, is of fundamental importance not only to economic growth but also for the human development objectives that aims at the alleviation of poverty, unemployment and meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Thus, energy is thought ‘the lifeblood of modern economies’ as there exists a strong link between the energy consumption and economic growth. Central Asian countries comprising Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are among those countries which are blessed with significant energy resources. In view of their existing potential, the harnessing of energy wealth in these Central Asian countries will not only fulfill their domestic demand but also leave a large share for export. In order to sustain the long run growth, the Central Asian Countries known for inefficient energy consumption pattern have to bring efficiency and spend judiciously the earnings realized through surplus energy exports. For maintaining and enhancing energy exports, they should also invest in areas of renewable energy like solar and wind. Importantly , in view the vital and crucial role of energy in the process of economic growth, and the link between energy consumption and real output for five Central Asian countries suggests that inefficient energy consumption pattern, if continues, may negatively effects their economic growth which eventually would results a fall in income and employment. Thus, according to the results, Central Asian countries would be in large profit by adopting energy conservation policy to avoid any kind of energy shortages. In this backdrop, the present study has been undertaken to study the energy consumption pattern of Central Asian countries and suggest for the pattern, which is efficient and sustainable. However, the study is delimited to hydrocarbon and hydropower of five Central Asian States.

Peace is needed to perform pacific deeds for blooming truth, love, harmony, happiness, and cooperation among humans across the ethnic, racial, religious, and national borders to work with each other. While as war is needed to feed the greed of political gods and to serve their emotional utopia by pouring human blood in conflicts and wars. In this response, the evolution of peace and conflict studies (PACS) as an academic discipline isto explore knowledge associated with the causes of war, conflict and sustainability of peace. The foundational objectives of the subject is to search for peaceful, profitable and dignified approaches through pedagogy, research and practice, by using appropriate methods and diverse stance in preventing, transforming, managing and resolving conflicts among citizens and states. In this general line of analysis, the article outlines the disciplinary evolution of peace and conflict studies in the broader context. In particular, it explores the need as well as situations and scenarios through which the discipline has emerged and has developed its scholarship through various phases

This research paper presents an analysis and interpretation vis-à-vis the contribution of labour migration in the development of Russian Federation and former Soviet Union republics. Altogether, it is demonstrated that labour migration fills an important niche in economic and political integration of the region, however, this alliance could be even stronger, if the undocumented and illegal migration is prevented and a common consensus is made among partner countries to view labour migration as a strategic resource.

India has adopted a pro-active Afghan policy since the fall of Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The country has extended her financial assistance covering economic, social, political and even cultural development of this war-torn nation. US-decision of ISAF-withdrawal has necessitated the resolve to strengthen Afghan security forces. India has extended her support to train and equip the ANSF to deal with Taliban resurgence and other security related aspects. However, there are some interpretations, especially constructed by Pakistan think tanks regarding the suspicious role of India in Afghanistan. These interpretations manifest India’s presence in Afghanistan as a strategic design to encircle and destabilize Pakistan. Since the USNATO exit strategy, China too has become pro-active in relation to Afghan issue. Besides her economic considerations, the country has mainly the security concerns with increasing violence and instability of Afghanistan. There is also ambiguity regarding China’s dual stand regarding terrorism and Taliban. It is in light of these issues that the paper focuses India’s Afghan policy in changing circumstances. Besides analyzing Pak perspective and counter-responses regarding India’s Afghan policy, an attempt has been made to underscore China as a factor for India in Afghanistan. The paper also highlights the common concerns of India and China in Afghanistan with the potential to push these nations for a joint workable strategy to deal post-ISAF situation.