Insights and Commentaries: south and central Asia

Edited by Anita Sengupta and Mirzokhid Rakhimov

Book

This volume emerged out of a search for scholarship that has studied connectivity between South and Central Asia from a variety of perspectives. Geographically and culturally, the vision that India has had of the region she referred to as Central Asia is of a space extending across China westward upto the Aral Sea and including within it Balkh, Bukhara and Samarkand. The Indian fascination with the region extends to various levels as this is the region out of which invading tribes entered India, across whose Silk Routes trade flourished and also the region where Indian culture and religion spread. Keeping this in mind the volume begins with an overview of positions from which the region has been traditionally situated from the Indian perspective as also reflections on the current scenario in terms of the geopolitical transformations of recent times. It then moves on to examine the history of the political, cultural and economic connections between the two regions from comparative perspectives. Written by specialists from Uzbekistan the articles reflect on connections that had ancient roots and shared historical experiences. The first set of articles focus on the historical linkages between the two regions. Another set looks at similar developments in the region in terms of transformations in the socio-political life of the people as also in the economy. Encounters and the necessity of security cooperation between the two regions is the focus of a third set of articles. The second part of the volume looks into certain issues that are significant in both South and Central Asia. Written with Uzbek insight they reflect on Soviet and post-Soviet state policies on a range of issues from gender and maternity policies, ethnic policies and social stratification, information policy and policies related to global organizations that have comparable relevance in the Indian context.

Author

Anita Sengupta is Fellow at the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata, India—an autonomous institute under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Her work has been focused on the Eurasian region with Uzbekistan being her area of special interest. She has also worked extensively on Turkish politics. Her research interests include questions of boundaries and state formation, minorities and minority identity, gender, geopolitics, problems of transitional politics and culture in the Eurasian region. She has authored and edited a number of volumes on Eurasia and collaborated with scholars in a number of Universities and Institutes in Tashkent, Bishkek, Almaty, Ankara, Istanbul, Berlin and Washington. She can be contacted at anitasengupta@hotmail.com.

Mirzokhid Rakhimov is Head of the Department of Contemporary History and International Relations at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan and a Professor at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent. He received his PhD in 2001 and Habilitation in 2013 from The Institute of History, Academy of Sciences. His academic interests include contemporary history and politics in Central Asia and international and inter-regional relations in Central Asia. He has authored and edited several books and written a number of articles that have been published in Uzbekistan, India, USA, Germany, Russia, Kazakhstan, Belgium and other countries. He is a frequent speaker at international conferences and seminars. He can be contacted at mirzonur@yahoo.com, mirzohidr@mail.ru