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Journalism of Courage
India8217;s ancient neighbours, the Central Asians, have an uncanny knack of landing up plump in the middle of political maelstroms. The last time the president of Kyrgyzstan Askar Akaev came to town, in March 1992, his country was smack in the middle of newfound independence 8212; the Soviet Union had broken up only three months ago 8212; and he seemed as keen to get back home.
Akaev arrives with a high-powered delegation for a four-day visit today April 12, but more likely than not he is likely to encounter a distracted top leadership that is spending most of its energies in saving its own government.
In Delhi, then, he will rubshoulders with the political and economic elite, whom he will spur to rediscover the umbilical cord that once tied India and Central Asia. He will not only use the historical fact 8220;Babar, the first Mughal, came from this region8221; to imbue the relationship with new meaning, but also attempt to lure India8217;s new bourgeoisie to partake of the charms of the 8220;Switzerland of the East.8221;
From its casinos and nightspots 8212; a euphemism for striptease to the tune of Russian pop 8212; to the pristine mountain ranges of the Tien Shan and the Altai, the emerald waters of the Issyk Kul lake the second largest freshwater lake in the world and its pre-Islamic Buddhist heritage, Kyrgyzstan, says presidential advisor Askar Aitmatov, could well become India8217;s alternate summer destination to crowded Nepal.
Akaev8217;s sales pitch in India is thus a sum of many parts: First, he will attempt to locate Kyrgyzstan on the map it is a landlocked country of 4.5 million people, all of them literate, within central Asia. At a meetingwith the capital8217;s tour operators he will promote cheap and cheerful Kyrgyzstan return flights cost about 380, while a one-hour-long massage at the Issyk Kul lake comes for a mere 8. On the business front, Bishkek wants to move beyond the 5-million credit line New Delhi offered in 1995 with such stringent terms and conditions that not even half has been utilised to promoting direct commerce. Later in Mumbai, Akaev will visit the Trombay nuclear reactor, the first head of state to do so after India8217;s nuclear tests.
According to Aitmatov, small-time Kyrgyz businessmen have already shown the way to direct commerce: for the past few years, charter planes have been making their way to Amritsar, where they are loaded up with goods, mostly hosiery, worth about 500 million annually, to sell back home. But as the Kyrgyz reform the top-down command economy institutionalised by the Soviet Union, the government in Bishkek now hopes that sophisticated goods and manufacturing will add to the bilateral basket.Reform, back home, is the buzz word. When the Soviet Union disintegrated without much warning in end-1991, most rulers of its former provinces had little idea what the brave new world would hold. Secular Central Asia, that far-flung corner of the Soviet world, was unprepared in more ways than one. Some of its republics, with the discovery of vast reserves of oil and natural gas, soon became the hotbed of great power rivalry: Moscow strove to retain its sphere of influence, while Washington, pumping in large quantities of aid and investment, sought to cut the umbilical cord with Russia.
Kyrgyzstan, with neither oil nor gas, only large reserves of gold, antimony and mercury, was caught right in the middle. As the standard of living fell to new lows 8212; and Moscow was embroiled in the pain of its own reform 8212; Bishkek had no alternative but to accept the long arm of the World Bank, the IMF and other western financial institutions. Kyrgyz officials admit that economic dependence on Western capitals has forcedthem to suitably alter policy, such as on Kosovo 8212; and even relations with Russia.
Bishkek, meanwhile, struggled to also nip in the bud the fire of Islamic fundamentalism, stoked by the mullahs of states like Saudi Arabia, that has threatened to engulf some other Central Asian republics. Aitmatov says the continuing civil war in Afghanistan has meant other problems, like gun-running and drugs trafficking.
Kyrgyz officials aver that 8220;there8217;s no turning back the clock, the Soviet Union will not unite again.8221; Nevertheless, Central Asia8217;s security ties with Moscow must remain strong, they add, if only to combat religious fundamentalism from spreading to other republics. The pendulum swings back and forth. Askar Akaev8217;s nine-year-long baptism by fire, it seems, is hardly over.
