Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s journey from Tashkent to Bishkek is more than a convenient sequence of diplomatic engagements. It captures the emerging architecture of India’s Eurasian policy: deepening practical partnerships with Central Asian states, remaining present in every consequential regional forum, and preserving freedom of judgement amid sharpening rivalries. His state visit to Uzbekistan on 29–30 August, followed by participation in the 26th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kyrgyzstan, therefore deserves to be read as one continuous strategic statement rather than as two separate events.

Tashkent supplied the bilateral foundation. India and Uzbekistan elevated their ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and agreed to broaden cooperation across trade, defence, digital connectivity, energy, artificial intelligence, critical minerals, education and healthcare. The target of raising bilateral trade above five billion dollars by 2030 is ambitious, but it gives the relationship measurable direction. India’s UPI linkage with Uzbekistan’s national QR system, cooperation in mineral resources and support for ecological rehabilitation around the Aral Sea show how diplomacy can move beyond ceremonial declarations into projects that affect commerce, technology, Ayurveda, higher education and daily life. The symbolism was equally important. Modi’s visit to the Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial recalled a defining chapter of India’s modern history. At the same time, new scholarships for Hindi and a Sanskrit chair in Tashkent reaffirmed a civilisational relationship older than contemporary geopolitics. Uzbekistan sits at the heart of Central Asia, bordering every other regional state as well as Afghanistan. A stronger relationship with Tashkent consequently gives India political reach, economic opportunity and a trusted partner in a region where geography has often limited Indian access.

Bishkek represents the multilateral test. The SCO brings India into the same room as China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus and the Central Asian republics. Its agenda spans regional security, counterterrorism, connectivity, trade and institutional reform. India joined as a full member in 2017, and Modi has framed its priorities through three words: Security, Connectivity and Opportunity. The Bishkek meeting marks the organisation’s twenty-fifth anniversary. This timing matters: India must influence the conversation before consensus is written, not complain after others have defined it.The familiar question is why the SCO matters to India. The more revealing question is whether the SCO can remain credible and genuinely multipolar without India. India contributes population, market scale, technological capacity, diplomatic influence and access to the wider South Asian and Indian Ocean worlds. Without it, the organisation could easily appear to be a China–Russia-led platform shaped primarily by continental security concerns and resistance to Western power. India prevents that reduction. Its presence widens both the geography and political vocabulary of the SCO.

India’s greatest contribution is strategic balance. New Delhi works closely with the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia, while retaining a longstanding partnership with Russia, vital interests in Iran and deep connections with Central Asia. It supports multipolarity, but not a China-centred or Russia-centred version of it. Nor does it wish the SCO to become an anti-Western military bloc. India’s strategic autonomy allows it to cooperate without surrendering judgement, disagree without withdrawing, and maintain relations across competing camps. That independence gives the SCO a measure of international credibility that ideological uniformity never could. Counterterrorism is another vital area of India’s contribution. Having faced cross-border terrorism, India brings valuable experience in tackling extremist networks, terror financing, radicalisation and cyber threats. It will urge the SCO’s anti-terror body, RATS, to reject distinctions between “good” and “bad” terrorists and act against safe havens and sponsors—an essential demand given Pakistan’smembership.

Connectivity is the third test. India seeks access to Central Asia and Russia through Iran’s Chabahar port and the International North–South Transport Corridor. These initiatives provide Eurasia with alternatives and reduce dependence on any single route or patron. India’s objection to the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor is not opposition to connectivity itself; it arises because the corridor passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. By insisting that infrastructure respect sovereignty, territorial integrity, transparency and financial sustainability, India challenges the assumption that the region’s connectivity agenda should be written exclusively through China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

India also expands the SCO’s developmental possibilities. Its digital public infrastructure, low-cost pharmaceuticals, healthcare capabilities, education networks, agricultural expertise and capacity-building programmes offer practical cooperation suited to developing societies. China may possess greater capital, but India offers a partnership model based on affordable technology, local skills and institutional ownership. For Central Asian countries eager to diversify relationships and avoid excessive dependence on any one power, that model has particular value. Proposed work on easier trade, development finance and the SCO Development Strategy to 2035 should therefore make room for Indian experience, not merely Indian endorsement.

The present geopolitical environment reinforces this role. The Russia–Ukraine war, instability in Afghanistan, tensions involving Iran, sanctions, disrupted supply chains and intensifying American-Chinese competition all bear upon the SCO space. India maintains dialogue with Russia, Iran, the United States, Israel, the Gulf states and Central Asian governments. It may not mediate every dispute, but it can resist polarising language, encourage diplomatic solutions and keep channels open. On the summit’s margins, even short meetings with Chinese, Russian and regional leaders can lay foundations that formal sessions cannot.

Yet realism is essential. The SCO is not NATO, and its members do not share a common strategic worldview. India and China retain a serious boundary dispute; India–Pakistan relations remain burdened by terrorism; and Russia, China, Iran and the Central Asian states bring distinct priorities. Consensus may produce cautious language rather than decisive action. India should therefore judge the organisation neither by inflated expectations nor by scepticism alone. The SCO’s value lies partly in outcomes and partly in ensuring that decisions about Eurasia are not taken in India’s absence.

This is why the movement from Tashkent to Bishkek signifies a new direction. Tashkent displayed results-oriented diplomacy: trade, technology, minerals, education, culture and connectivity. Bishkek displays independent diplomacy: engagement with rival powers without entry into their camps. Together, they demonstrate that India will neither abandon Eurasia to others nor accept another power’s blueprint for it. India matters to the SCO because it supplies three qualities the organisation urgently needs—balance, credibility and possibility. It is not simply another member at the table; it is the independent pillar that can help transform a limited continental grouping into a more representative forum for genuine multipolarity at a moment of deep uncertaintyacross Eurasia. / DAILY WORLD /

( DAILY WORLD )