For years, Central Asia featured in India’s strategic imagination as a space of cultural memory and quiet opportunity, a region that mattered, but always later. That luxury has expired. The geopolitical map stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Pamirs is being redrawn with unusual speed. Iran is stepping back into regional diplomacy with new confidence; the Taliban is reopening Afghan trade routes to its partners; and Russia and China are fusing their strategic and logistical dominance across the Eurasian corridor.
In this new contest, India’s room for manoeuvre has shrunk dramatically. Chabahar, long delayed and sporadically supported, is now the only realistic doorway India has left into Central Asia. If the next ten years do not become India’s “Chabahar Decade,” the region may effectively slip beyond India's physical reach.
The first reality India must grasp is that the clock has already started. Iran, despite years of sanctions pressure, is no longer isolated. It has stitched together a détente with Saudi Arabia, tightened its linkages with Moscow and Beijing, and embedded itself more deeply in the emerging Eurasian logistics grid. The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), once dismissed as notional, is now being operationalised by Russia and Iran as a sanctions-resilient alternative to Western-dominated chokepoints.
Afghanistan, meanwhile, is recalibrating its external engagements. Its reopening to Chinese investment, its participation in Russia and Iran-backed trade corridors, and the possibility of CPEC extensions have begun redirecting the flow of regional commerce in ways that exclude India.
The cumulative effect is simple: If India does not anchor itself in Iran, it remains a maritime power disconnected from the Eurasian landmass, a vulnerability that Pakistan has exploited for decades.
The Ayni Air Base: A Strategic Loss India Can Not Repeat
The story of India’s presence at the Ayni air base in Tajikistan should be treated as a strategic case study. After the Kargil War revealed India’s severe limitations in high-altitude combat operations, New Delhi invested heavily in upgrading the Ayni base. It was India’s only overseas military facility, a platform to train air crews, test high-altitude combat readiness, and maintain a small but meaningful presence in a region that borders both Afghanistan and western China.
Yet, by bureaucratic hesitation, Russia’s assertion of operational control, and a lack of sustained political will, India lost the opportunity to renew its access. Today, Ayni is gone. At a time when China is expanding its own security posture across Central Asia, from surveillance grids to dual-use facilities, India’s absence is conspicuous and costly.
The question is whether India will let Chabahar drift down the same path.
Why Chabahar Must Become India’s Non-negotiable Strategic Anchor
India must now abandon the notion that Chabahar is a sentimental or symbolic project. Its importance is structural. One, Russia and China are consolidating control over Central Asian logistics. If INSTC becomes a Moscow–Tehran–Beijing-aligned network without meaningful Indian participation, New Delhi risks being permanently sidelined in the region’s connectivity architecture.
Two, Afghanistan’s new economic posture favours those who show up. China and Pakistan are pushing CPEC extensions into Kabul with urgency. India, meanwhile, risks becoming a distant memory to a generation of Afghan traders who increasingly operate through other corridors. Three, India’s northern military posture requires depth. The loss of Ayni removed a high-altitude training environment just when India faces a hardened and more assertive China along the Himalayas. While Chabahar is not a military facility, the strategic corridors it unlocks matter for long-term leverage and contingency planning.
Chabahar, therefore, is not merely about access to Central Asia, it is about ensuring India retains a continental strategy at all.
What India Must Do, Not Someday, But Now
A credible Chabahar Decade demands a shift from episodic engagement to disciplined strategy:
• Treat Chabahar as a decade-long national mission: India cannot allow sanctions uncertainty to become a convenient excuse for inaction. Chabahar needs formal insulation, consistent financing, and senior-level political attention
• Operationalise INSTC with real cargo, not ceremonial shipments: To matter in logistics, presence must be physical. India must reliably demonstrate throughput
• Rebuild security partnerships across Central Asia: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan are all seeking diversified partnerships. India must not repeat the passivity that cost it Ayni.
The Cost Of Hesitation
India’s strategic landscape is being reshaped by others, faster than New Delhi expected and more decisively than it has responded. Ayni was lost because India blinked. Chabahar will be lost if India sleeps. The next ten years will decide whether India is a Eurasian stakeholder or a bystander watching its access diminish behind Russian, Chinese, and Pakistani-controlled corridors.
The choice is stark: lead through presence, or retreat by default. In Central Asia’s new great game, there is no consolation prize for the absent.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. |
