Prime Minister Narendra Modi's four-day tour of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, from August 29 to September 1, 2026, was more than routine diplomacy — it was India's latest move in a modern-day version of the Great Game, the historic contest for influence across Central Asia once played out between empires and now being replayed among India, China and Russia. The tour, anchored by a state visit to Tashkent and the 26th SCO Summit in Bishkek, reflected New Delhi's growing recognition that ceding the region by default is no longer an option.

A Region India Almost Forgot

For much of the post-Soviet era, Central Asia sat on the margins of Indian foreign policy — overshadowed by ties with the Gulf, Southeast Asia and the West. That began changing meaningfully after India's 2012 "Connect Central Asia" policy and accelerated further once India joined the SCO as a full member in 2017. The 2022 India-Central Asia Summit, held in a virtual format with all five Central Asian republics, marked a symbolic high point, but critics noted a persistent gap between summit declarations and delivery on the ground. This tour, and Modi's fourth visit to Uzbekistan alone, suggests New Delhi is trying to close that credibility gap through sheer frequency of engagement.

Tashkent: Staking a Claim

The tour opened in Tashkent on August 29-30 at the invitation of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev — Modi's fourth visit to the country, following trips in 2015, 2016 and 2022. Mirziyoyev's personal reception at the airport underscored a relationship New Delhi has steadily cultivated even as it lacks the geographic proximity China and Russia enjoy. Talks covered trade, defence, energy and digital connectivity, while Modi linked India's "Viksit Bharat" vision with Uzbekistan's own "Yangi Uzbekistan" reform agenda — an attempt to frame the partnership as a shared developmental project rather than a transactional one. Modi also engaged with the Indian diaspora and laid a wreath at the Yangi Uzbekistan Monument, gestures aimed as much at cultural resonance as at diplomatic protocol.
Uzbekistan, the most populous of the five Central Asian republics and doubly landlocked, has increasingly positioned itself as a regional hub for trade and manufacturing under Mirziyoyev's reform drive — making it a natural anchor point for India's wider regional ambitions.

Bishkek: Playing the Board

From Tashkent, Modi moved to Bishkek for the SCO Summit, held August 31-September 1, where his agenda centred on security, connectivity and opportunity, with a pointed call for a region free from terrorism, separatism and extremism. But the SCO table also seats China and Pakistan, which limits how far India's counter-terrorism messaging can travel before it collides with rival narratives. The more telling moves happened off the main stage — particularly Modi's bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a reminder that Moscow remains a pivotal, if complicated, partner for India even as Russia's own ties with Beijing deepen. Modi's attendance at the opening of the sixth World Nomad Games added a cultural layer to a trip otherwise dominated by strategic calculation, and gave India a low-cost way to signal soft-power presence in a region where China and Russia dominate the hard-power conversation.

The Connectivity Problem

Every conversation about India's Central Asia strategy eventually runs into the same obstacle: geography. Unlike China, which reaches the region overland through Xinjiang, or Russia, which retains Soviet-era rail and pipeline infrastructure, India has no direct land corridor into Central Asia. Pakistan blocks the shortest route, and Afghanistan remains too unstable for reliable transit. New Delhi's workaround has been the Chabahar port in Iran, positioned as a gateway to the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), but progress on that route has been slow and complicated by sanctions on Iran and funding constraints. Any trade or energy commitments made in Tashkent will ultimately be judged against this connectivity bottleneck — ambition is not in short supply, but the physical infrastructure to back it up still is.

The Economic and Security Stakes

Central Asia's appeal to India rests on more than symbolism. The region holds significant reserves of uranium, rare earths and hydrocarbons, at a time when India is looking to diversify energy and critical mineral supply chains away from overreliance on China. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in particular have been floated as potential partners for uranium supply to India's civil nuclear programme. On security, India's concerns centre on Afghanistan-linked terrorism and extremism spilling into the wider region — a shared anxiety with most Central Asian states, which gives New Delhi's counter-terrorism pitch at the SCO more genuine traction locally than it might suggest.

The New Great Game

China's Belt and Road Initiative has already embedded itself deeply in the region's infrastructure and trade routes, financing railways, highways and energy pipelines that India simply cannot match at scale. Russia retains historic security and cultural leverage, including through the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. India, by contrast, is still working around the absence of direct land access, leaning on routes like Chabahar to make its presence felt. Four visits to Uzbekistan in a decade, culminating in this high-intensity four-day push, suggest Modi is trying to close that gap through sustained personal diplomacy rather than infrastructure spending alone.

The Unfinished Question

Whether this qualifies as India genuinely "winning" a seat at the table, or simply keeping pace with rivals who got there first, is the harder question. Some analysts would argue India isn't even trying to "win" in the zero-sum sense the Great Game metaphor implies — that its approach is deliberately non-competitive, built on trust and civilisational ties rather than infrastructure debt, and that this could prove more sustainable than China's loan-heavy model, which has drawn criticism elsewhere for straining smaller economies. Others would counter that goodwill alone won't secure India the minerals, energy access or transit routes it needs, and that without matching financial commitments, Modi's visits risk becoming ceremonial rather than transformative.
What's certain is that Modi's Central Asia footprint measured in visits, summits and sideline meetings — is deepening. Converting that footprint into lasting economic and security ties, at the scale China and Russia have already achieved, remains the unfinished part of India's Great Game.

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