India has rediscovered the sea. Over the past two decades, New Delhi has transformed itself from a largely continental power into a serious maritime actor, regularly sailing into the South China Sea, conducting complex exercises with Southeast Asian partners, and embedding itself in the evolving Indo-Pacific architecture. From Singapore to Vietnam, India now presents itself as a security provider rather than a hesitant bystander. That shift matters, but maritime reach alone does not amount to grand strategy.
What does strategic depth mean in an era of chokepoints, supply shocks, and tightening blocs? It means options. And India’s options cannot lie only to the east across the Bay of Bengal; they must also extend northwest—into Central Asia and beyond, toward Europe.
The Deep Silk Road Inheritance
For most of its history, India was not sealed off from Eurasia; it was stitched into it. Roman coins unearthed in Tamil Nadu, Kushan gold minted in Bactria, and Buddhist manuscripts carried through Bamiyan were arteries of exchange linking the subcontinent to Persia, the Mediterranean, and the steppe. The Kushan Empire bound the Gangetic plain to Central Asia, and later, Mughal India operated comfortably within a Persianate ecumene that stretched deep into Eurasia. Trade, faith, and political imagination flowed both ways.
The irony is that India has the deeper Silk Road inheritance—yet it rarely deploys it strategically. Today, Beijing does. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) did not simply finance ports and railways; it appropriated the Silk Road narrative, anchored it in a Sinocentric geography, and monopolized the imagination of Eurasia.
[China’s BRI Strategy] ———> Capital-Heavy / Single Spine / Sinocentric
[India’s Proposed Alternative] ——-> Diversified Corridors / Sovereign Partnership / Pluralism
India has responded piecemeal through individual projects: Chabahar in Iran, the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), and renewed engagement with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. These are important steps, but they are still framed as isolated initiatives rather than as part of a coherent Eurasian vision. Strategic depth requires more than isolated corridors; it requires a compelling story.
An Alternative Logic of Connectivity
India has a powerful story to tell. Its historical engagement with Central Asia was not characterized by imperial extraction or civilizational hierarchy, but by layered religious, commercial, and intellectual exchange. If China’s BRI offers capital-heavy integration, India can offer an alternative logic:
-
Multiple Corridors: Fostering decentralized, varied transport networks rather than relying on a single infrastructure spine.
-
Co-Financing over Dependency: Prioritizing collaborative, sustainable financing models that respect sovereign equality rather than creating long-term debt traps.
-
Multimodal Links: Interlocking physical infrastructure directly with digital public networks, shared knowledge stacks, and educational partnerships.
This approach is not driven by nostalgia; it is hard geopolitics. Maritime India remains structurally vulnerable to sudden supply chain disruptions in the Red Sea or geopolitical coercion along critical sea lanes. A functioning continental backdoor, running through Iran into Central Asia and onward to Russia and Europe, gives India vital room to maneuver in a fractured world. It reduces exposure to volatile chokepoints and strengthens New Delhi’s long-term bargaining power with all sides.
Corridors, however, must be accompanied by geopolitical conviction. India cannot allow the Silk Road story to be told without its voice. For millennia, the subcontinent was not peripheral to Eurasia—it was one of its central nodes. Reclaiming that memory is not cultural vanity; it is a strategic necessity. India has rediscovered the sea; the next test is whether it remembers the steppe.
The author is from: Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs | NXT Fellow 2026