Narendra Modi is a popular prime minister. There's no doubt about it. He's the first prime ministerial candidate to have managed a parliamentary majority for his party since Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s. And the election was built entirely on the back of his image: It was, after all, Ab ki baar, Modi Sarkar. (This time, it's Modi's turn). A week spent in Central Asia has probably left Modi feeling a lot more conscious though: he can't even imagine pulling the numbers his counterparts in the "Stans" do – or claim to, anyway.

Modi has just visited each one of the Central Asian nations, in an attempt to spread Indian influence into an area that was under Russian sway for most of the past century and has recently been sliding into Beijing's sphere. India can't attempt to compete with either of the Asian powers, but there is no reason not to further its contacts with countries in the nearby region. The "stans" in particular have cultural connections with India, thanks to the Mughals, and also because the Silk Route passed through the Central Asian nations before making its way down to India.

In recent times, though, these countries have not been quite so familiar with India. Trade between India and all of the Central Asian nations combined comes out to around $746 million as of 2012-13, which is minuscule compared to the $28 billion in trade those nations have with Russia and the $46 billion with China.


There are several reasons for this. India is not ideally placed to connect with the Central Asian nations, because we don't even have a land link to Afghanistan – except on paper. This means direct land trade would have to involve going through Pakistan, which at the best of times is a complex matter. The Central Asian nations are also all landlocked, making it harder to reach them. The Chabahar port in Iran, which India is offering to expand, might offer one way out of this problem.


The potential for energy-based relations between India and Central Asia is tremendous. The five countries all have huge existing or potential resources, either of oil or natural gas. Kazakhstan is one of the world's major producers of oil and India has, for the longest time, attempted to get the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline project off the ground. Yet again, the problems of connectivity come in the way, and here too the development of the port in Iran could offer an alternative.


The numbers tell the story


There is also one less pragmatic and more principled reason for India not to embrace the Central Asian nations too heavily. Foreign Policy is, of course, based on interests and not principles for the most part so India's inability to connect with the "stans" has little to do with this but it's still useful to pay attention to whom exactly we are expanding our ties with.


It's obviously facetious to compare these leaders with Narendra Modi, except for context, because the numbers only show you just how much of a Soviet dictatorship hangover still exists in the region. The most entrenched of these leaders, President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, has been around for 25 years. The most blatant of them, President Nursultan Nazarabyev of Kazhakstan, claims to have won 97.7% of the vote during elections just earlier this year.


In a way it almost makes it convenient that India isn't forced into close connections with these states, because they can often be oppressive, regressive places. Consider some of the heartburn India had to undergo in trying to deal with the military junta in Myanmar or even Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka, even though strategically it made no sense to shun them.

There's no doubt that New Delhi needs to do more to be involved with Central Asia, particularly as India becomes the world's fourth-largest consumer of energy. But it's also worth taking a quick look at who exactly is on the other end of these trade deals and promises of strategic cooperation that India keeps signing.