Kavalski, Emilian. "India's Bifurcated Look towards 'Central Eurasia': The Central Asian Republics and Afghanistan". In The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy, edited by David Malone, C. Raja Mohan, Srinath Raghavan, 424-436. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Kavalski, Emilian. "India's Bifurcated Look towards 'Central Eurasia': The Central Asian Republics and Afghanistan". In The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy, edited by David Malone, C. Raja Mohan, Srinath Raghavan, 424-436. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

• Many scholars have argued that, since the collapse of the USSR, the Central Asian republics have been drawing closer to Afghanistan and other areas of Central Eurasia, including Kashmir, Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, and the Caucasus (424). India generally views these countries and regions as connected (424-425).
• As elsewhere, India seeks to ground its relations in Central Asia using historical connections between India and Central Asian civilizations. It seeks to stress this as evidence of a common link between India and the region to justify the expansion of trade and Indian influence (425-426).
• These same historical views have also impacted Indian thinking about Central Asia: because the region was used for trade and invasion historically, India views Central Asia in terms of both commerce and potential destabilization (426).
• Many of the current foreign policy issues between South Asia and Central Asia are based in history. The projection of Indian power into Afghanistan only occurred during Lord Curzon's leadership of the British Raj, and the separation of Afghanistan from both India and the rest of Central Asia occurred as a result of British and Russian imperial politics. The legitimacy of the Durand Line, created in 1896, separating Afghanistan from Pakistan remains a contested point between those two countries (427).
• India appears to have a lot of general support in Central Asia, and the Indian foreign service believes that this can be translated into diplomatic support. Thus far, however, nothing concrete has come from the Indian 'Look North' policy towards Central Asia (428).
• The two goals of the 'Look North' policy, which started around 1995 with Prime Minister Rao's visit to Turkmenistan, were the exploitation of Central Asian oil and gas resources by India and the creation of secular, democratic states in Central Asia -- using India as a model (428).
• India became involved in the Tajik Civil War in the 1990s, believing that the country had been purposefully destabilized by Pakistan-backed Islamists for the purpose of eroding Indian interests in the region. India thus heavily funded both the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and the Tajikistani armed forces (429).
• India acquired access to the Ayni airbase in Tajikistan during its assistance to the Tajikistani government during the civil war and spent a lot of money upgrading the facilities and training Tajik soldiers. In 2011, however, the Tajikistani government cancelled this agreement and gave the base to the Russians, leaving India with access to only the Farxor airbase in southern Tajikistan (429).
• The decision of the Tajikistani government to cancel their treaty with India and give the Ayni airbase to the Russians marked the end of the failed Look North policy. In 2012, India instead launched the 'Connect Central Asia' policy, which reimagined the Indian role as providing economic links and specialized medical and technical education to Central Asians by participating in the SCO and the EEU (429-430).
• India has managed to gain significant influence in Afghanistan, largely because it has been willing to expend more resources in the country, since it is seen as at risk of falling into the Pakistani sphere of influence, and because competition with Russia and China is less intense in the country (430).
• India often recalls its historical relationship with the Kingdom of Afghanistan, which worked together with India during the 1950s and 1960s to check Pakistani influence and fund Pashtun and Baluchi separatists in the country. India backed the Communist government in Afghanistan -- during which the monarchists fled to Pakistan -- and accepted Communist refugees into India following Taliban victory in 1996 (431).
• India has been supporting anti-Islamist forces in Afghanistan for decades, seeing the Taliban and other Pakistan-backed groups are threats because they allowed Afghanistan to be used to train terrorists and rebels to attack India (431).
• Consistent Indian opposition to the Pakistan-backed Islamists in Afghanistan has exposed it to a number of terrorist attacks since the 1980s. Many of these attacks have been perpetrated by Afghans as a direct consequence of Indian opposition to their rule in Afghanistan (431-432).
• Indian efforts in Afghanistan have been focused on humanitarian aid, infrastructure projects, capacity building, community projects, and education. India has spent $2 billion on aid and development projects in Afghanistan. These projects have given 74% of Afghans a positive impression of India, a view only 8% have about Pakistan (432).
• The Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan has been especially friendly towards India, as President Karzai was educated in India and bears a personal grudge against Pakistan, as his father was murdered by the Pakistani ISI (432).
• Afghanistan seeks to expand its strategic relationship with India, using Indian forces and assistance to make up for shortfalls following the NATO withdrawal in 2014, but India has been reluctant to step up because it fears that direct security assistance could inflame tensions with Pakistan. Thus far [late 2014], India assistance has been limited to weapons purchases and police training (433).
• India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan have all agreed on the principle of creating a 'TAPI' pipeline from Turkmenistan to India, planned for 2017. The major issue [as of 2015] is no longer disagreements between India and Pakistan, but disputes between everyone and Turkmenistan (433-434).