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Central
Asia in decades to come: Impact on Kashmir
By K.N. Pandita The
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 threw up the vast region of Central Asia as
a new and significant geopolitical entity bound to influence the course of Asian
history. Under the Soviet power, it had remained something like a forbidden land
about which there were only surmises and speculations. An air of mystique
surrounded the very name of Central Asia and our mind remained riveted to the
legends of Great Steppes, warring nomadic people, the oases of historic
antiquity, the celebrated horse riders and their shifting camps etc. Illusion
and reality: Turkey,
Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, all predominantly Muslim countries were the
first to focus their attention on independent countries of Central Asia in 1991.
Each came with a specific card to play. Turkey contemplated playing the Pan-Turkie
card meaning the Turkish ethnicity and language. Saudi
Arabia and Pakistan entered Central Asia in a big way carrying the Islamic ard.
The Saudis opened their coffers and poured money for building mosques and in
providing millions of of excellently printed copies of Quran for distribution to
each and every family in Central Asia. But their message was that of Wahhabi
Sunni Islam. Likewise, Pakistan besides supporting the Wahhabism, also went on
sniffing fissionable material in nuclear plants in Central Asia built by the
Soviets like the one in Khujand in Tajikistan. Iran
tried to confine herself mostly to Tajkikistan, where from times immemorial, the
people of Aryan stock had been at loggerheads with those of the Turkic stock.
Furthermore, the linguistic affinity between Farsi and Tajiki was another
positive attraction for them. Therefore moving more subtly, they used the
cultural commonality as the safe and dependable means of making inroads into
Tajik society. In
strategic terms, American presence will continue in Central Asia for a long time
to come for many reasons. In the first place nobody can predict what way the
Islamic fundamentalism will behave. As long as Al-Qaeda brand diehards are
there, the show of muscle power has to be the part of strategy. Since the
Chinese are faced with the problem in Xinjiang and the Russians in the southern
Muslim states, both the countries will have to re-adjust their regional
strategies in order to accommodate moderate American military presence in
Central Asia. America's
military presence will help modernize defence system of the CARs. The Americans
are already imparting new techniques of military training to Uzbek army units
and this will spread to other republics also. Moreover new generation weapons
and armament will also flow to Central Asia because the markets will be thrown
open on western manufacturers of the latest weaponry. This will help create a
sense of stability and self-sufficiency among the CARs. In
regard to religion, it has to be noted that Islam is the predominant religion in
these republics. But the truth is that left to themselves, the Central Asians
would be a model of moderate and progressive Islam outward looking and desiring
practically to coexist peacefully with other faiths. If the damaging influence
of neighbouring fanatical Islamic states is contained and disallowed to
penetrate into Central Asian societies, then, of course,
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