Journey to the center of the earth Pioneer

24.04.2003

In this travelogue, CHANDAN MITRA reveals the amazing world that tucked-away Kazakhstan conceals from us
Central Asia altered the history of India. Travelling down the millennia-old Silk Route, had an adventurous horseman from Samarkand in Uzbekistan not trotted to Kabul and thereafter onto the plains of Hindustan, India's history would have read quite a bit different. To begin with, one Mir Baqi might not have been tempted to construct a mosque in honour of his chieftain after allegedly destroying a temple at Ayodhya. The mosque concerned would not then have been an eyesore for the natives, nor would it have been pulled down with venal force 365 years later. Had Babar not journeyed from Central Asia, the Mughal Empire would not have been founded and great architectural legacies such as Fatehpur Sikri, Agra Fort, Taj Mahal and the Red Fort not built. India would have been poorer, culturally and in many other ways. We would not have had a land revenue system, a structured administration, judicial authority, road linkages, among other things-patterns that the British inherited, refined and left behind for us to run.

Considering the depth of Central Asia's contribution to the making of modern India, it is surprising how little we know about each other now. Apart from the exclusion imposed by the British imperial order on account of its hostility towards Czarist Russia, a Russified Soviet Union never encouraged separate relationships with the so-called independent republics under its tutelage. For 300 years under Czarist rule and 75 under Soviet hegemony, Central Asia remained an obscure appendage of the Russian Empire. Both Czarist and Soviet Russia were unabashedly European structurally, politically and culturally. The vast Asian landmass over which the Czarist and Red flags once flew, suffered from benign neglect, the identity of their people snuffed out by the Russified commonality forcibly imposed by St. Petersburg and Moscow respectively.

Thus, when I was invited to participate in the First Eurasian Media Forum conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan, I grabbed the opportunity eagerly. I am glad I did, for it opened my eyes to a vast world that lies almost secluded, beyond the realms of our westernised consciousness. We get agitated if Belgium, a country the size of Goa, makes some negative observations about Gujarat. But we are blissfully unaware of the quiet revolution that is underway in the ninth largest country (in area) of the world - Kazakhstan, a firm friend of India. Indeed, most of us would not even succeed in pointing it out on a world map!"

GETTING THERE
One reason for Central Asia's isolation from India and other countries is the sheer complexity involved in reaching those parts. For instance, I spent nearly a week working out the modalities because of the inadequacy of direct air connections between Delhi and Central Asian republics like Kazakhstan. The organisers of the Almaty conference first proposed a flight plan that involved travelling to Amsterdam four days ahead of my session and staying on at Almaty three days after that, to return via Amsterdam again. When I pleaded it was too time consuming, they suggested I travel to Frankfurt instead, thus cutting out a stupendous one hour from the journey! I rejected that too and opted for a route via Tashkent in Uzbekistan only to discover that Uzbek Airlines happened to be a favoured choice of Punjabi migrants to the West and thus their flights were usually filled up three months in advance! With a little help from the Uzbek Embassy and airline staff, I eventually managed a seat on the Russian variant of the Jumbo, a TU-154 that Uzbek Airlines flies five times a week out of Delhi and an equal number out of Amritsar. In the company of hordes of Papajis, Matajis, Prajis, Pehnjis and Babyjis, I boarded the Uzbek plane from Delhi a little past midnight for a mere 2 hour 40 minute flight to Tashkent.

I had similarly landed at Tashkent in transit from Moscow to Delhi 20 years ago. The airport was worse than most Indian hawai addas, ill-kept and dingy. Although it is still far from offering First World comforts, I found the transit lounge at Tashkent quite transformed. It has a well-stocked duty-free shop and a pleasant bar. Once the Britain-bound Punjabi throngs departed (the connecting Birmingham flight takes off just an hour after the flight from Delhi lands), the transit lounge became quite spacious. I was also pleasantly surprised by the punctuality of various Central Asian airlines as with the condition of their planes. In the process, I discovered a parallel world of travel. Having always associated Uzbek Airlines with Olga Kozireva and the customs scam or the accident that led to Madhavrao Scindia's resignation from the Narasimha Rao Ministry, it was indeed a revelation to discover that our industrious NRI Sardarjis were its chief patrons. Also surprising was the efficiency of the airport staff, mainly attractive Uzbek women who busily woke up each dozing passenger as soon as any flight departure was announced, much to the chagrin of those who weren't due to fly out for several hours more! And the hyperactive young women remained unfazed by the fact that the English they spoke wasn't comprehended by my countrymen and vice versa. After a four-hour layover at Tashkent, I was herded into a brand new Uzbek Air plane for a three hour flight to Almaty that soared over the magnificent Kun Lun ranges and myriad glacial lakes shimmering in the morning sun.

The return journey was not only simpler but also brought home the proximity of Kazakhstan to India. The weekly direct flight by Air Kazakhstan takes just 3 hours and 20 minutes to cross the Tien-Shan, Hindukush and Pir Panjal ranges - including the Pamir Knot that we learnt in school geography classes to be the Roof of the World - as it flies due south to Delhi. The prosperous Kazakhs have upgraded their air fleet considerably, and factory-fresh Boeing 737s stand cheek-by-jowl with Soviet-built Tupolevs and Sukhois at the Almaty airport. In a clear hangover from the Soviet days, the Kazakhs have also constructed a big terminal emblazoned with huge letterings that spell VIP. Almost everybody who is somebody departs through this terminal. Socialism, as I had observed in Moscow during the Brezhnev era, was rather brazen in conforming to George Orwell's description: All men are equal, but some are more equal than others.

THE COUNTRY
The first thing that must strike a visitor from the sub-continent is the sparseness of Kazakhstan's population. They very proudly tell you their country's size is equivalent to that of nine Frances put together and that they are the ninth largest in the world. They don't readily reveal that their total land area (that is excluding huge water bodies like the Caspian Sea, whatever is left of the Aral Sea, Lake Balkash etc.) of 2,669,800 sq km is inhabited by barely 14,841,900 people yielding a density of a meagre 5.5 persons per sq km! Even more startling is the fact that Kazakhstan is said to be floating atop some 20 billion tons of oil, including 7.5 billion in that part of the Caspian Sea basin that falls within its territorial boundaries. That makes it about 125 staggering tons of oil per citizen, enough to make each one a multi-millionaire!

Almaty (in school we knew it as Alma-Ata which was the Soviet spelling), is a neat city of wide boulevards intersecting perpendicularly, quaint trams, quiet trolley-buses and thousands of newly-imported Toyotas, Hondas and Mercs. Its buildings are typically Soviet, testifying to the fact that there was very little that existed in this far-flung outpost of the Czarist Empire before Stalin integrated it within the Soviet Union. In the 10 years since Independence, though, a lot of new complexes have mushroomed, notably the gaudy but gigantic Nurbank headquarters and the plush Regent Hotel where we stayed. Almaty is cradled by the snow-covered peaks of Talgar, Komsomol, Bolshoi Almatinsky and Medeu. A 20-minute drive from the centre of town is enough to reach the snow line, complete with skiing facilities including a ropeway. The gorgeous Medeu rink is among the largest in the world and must be a stunning sight in winter. Only if the infrastructure were adequately developed, Kazakhstan could well give West European skiing resorts a run for their money. But then, so could our very own Kashmir! Since Almaty is located in the south-eastern extremity of this vast country, bordering Kyrgyzstan and the Uighur region of China's Xinjiang province, the administrative capital has recently been shifted to Astana, 1300 km to the north. While this has served to send a symbolic message of unity to the country's diverse ethnic communities, it has posed a problem for business travellers and foreign missions. Almaty remains Kazakhstan's commercial hub of the country, but since the economy is still largely state-controlled, visiting businessmen have to hop between the administrative and commercial capitals. Foreign missions, too, are being steadily compelled to open a representative office at Astana in addition to their embassies at Almaty.

TAILPIECE
India, for instance, has a massive chancery at Almaty - one of the city's most impressive buildings. This is appropriate too for India and its people are very highly regarded in this country. In Consul-General Jayant Khobragade, we also have an excellent representative. Jayant is a painter by dedication and he recently held an exhibition of his works here. Inaugurated by Vasundhara Raje who was on a visit to Central Asia last month, Jayant's exhibition ran for six weeks and most of his paintings sold out. When he took me home one evening, he proudly pulled out a frayed photocopy of a review of his Delhi exhibition published in The Pioneer in 1997. A connoisseur of Urdu literature, Jayant's soul-stirring paintings depict mainly Ghalib's poetry as visualised by him in stunning colours. He is also a talented singer who soulfully renders numbers like Jab koyi baat bigad jaye while strumming melodiously on his guitar. At present, he is busy cutting a CD of his own with the assistance of a Yamaha music synthesiser, his five-year-old son and charming wife, Priya. Soon to be posted back to Moscow, Jayant has spent more than five years in the Russian hemisphere and is certain to emerge as one of our best links to that part of the world.

SHOWPIECE OF SECULARISM
As I flew out of Almaty after three wonderful days, an idea crossed my mind. Some day, we should fly down a few planeloads of secular fundamentalists and religious obscurantists from India and let them study Kazakhstan. Many dearly held notions of both these intolerant groups shall lie in fragments once they see how religion and secularism can peacefully coexist with mutual dignity.

Kazakhstan is a secular country dominated by Sunni Muslims. But they wear their Islam very lightly, if at all. There are magnificent mosques that bristle all over Almaty, but not many attend the prayers even on a Friday. While Muslims account for 47 per cent of the population, adherents of the Russian Orthodox Church constitute 44 per cent of the people. In terms of ethnic groups, Kazakhs are 53 per cent, while Russians account for 30 per cent. Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Germans, Tartars, Uighurs, Koreans and others make up the rest. I carefully noticed the identity tags of the staff at Regent Hotel as well as those of local volunteers at the Media Forum. If one sported Amina or Aliyev, the next ones proclaimed Olga or Alexei. New buildings in Kazakhstan (and in neighbouring countries like Uzbekistan) are consciously constructed in a neo-Islamic style, but that's about the most they bother with religion.

Socialism, I mused to myself, had both an upside and a downside. Even in remote Kazakhstan, the literacy rate is 100 per cent. Health care is all pervasive. There is no visible poverty. Of course, post-socialism, individual affluence has increased and consequently economic disparities. Still, nobody is poor. Further, the suppression of religion may have failed to banish it from people's consciousness, but had the effect of making it a private affair. Outwardly, people are not conscious either of their religious or ethnic identities. I was informed that immediately after the Soviet Union broke up, about 200,000 Russians left Kazakhstan, fearing repression. But the remaining 5 million stayed back. As Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev observed at that time, those who left had probably been forced to settle in Kazakhstan as part of Moscow's Russification drive. The rest, he insisted were as Kazakh as native Kazakhs and would have nothing to fear. Clearly, they don't. Russian remains the language of communication and even native Kazakhs converse with one another in Russian. The Kazakh script, too, is an adaptation and quite easy to follow if you know the Russian alphabet.

On the other hand, socialism had been a damper on the spirit. The most visible sign of freedom from the thought police is the mushrooming of pubs and cafes in Almaty. Complete with live bands and dance floors, they provide a ready outlet for fun-loving Kazakhs of all ages. I visited a particularly popular Azerbaijani pub, Inara, which specialises in shasliks and draught beer. There we were dragged onto the dance floor by a posse of exuberant Kazakh women celebrating the birthday of one of their friends. Although signs were the only possible means of communication, I was struck by the candour of Kazakh society as well as its vivacity. Crime is virtually unknown, except for some mafia-type operations in industrial hubs. Hardly any policeman is to be seen on the streets of Almaty, although pubs give over only around midnight and customers usually stagger out quite inebriated.

CONCEPT OF EURASIA
Kazakh society is still trying to come to grips with its new-found freedom from Russian tutelage and carve an identity of its own. Hence the concept of Eurasia that is being aggressively promoted by President Nazarbayev. The Autan (Watan) Party that he spawned is still the only legitimate political establishment in Kazakhstan and whatever dissidence exists, it largely operates from the underground. Westernised notions of democracy and reckless freedom of speech are frowned upon, but the Kazakh leadership is acutely aware that it must qualify on these counts in order to attract more foreign funding for its development plans. That probably explains the proactive role of Ms Dariga Nazarbayeva, the President's daughter, who runs the country's popular and professional TV network, Khabar, and was also the moving spirit behind the Eurasian Media Forum conference.

Although still quite nebulous, the concept of a Eurasia distinct from both Europe (largely identified with Western Europe) and Asia (usually connoting China and the Far East), has the potential of emerging as a block much like the Arab world that is rarely defined as part of Asia or North Africa. Comprising Central Asian republics like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and even Mongolia, a Eurasian block could function quite effectively as a politico-economic entity. Given the enormous natural resources that these Eurasian republics possess, such a block could well enable them to bargain better with American multinationals that have set covetous eyes on their prized heirlooms. In this regard, India has a natural advantage in partnering these republics into the 21st century by virtue of its historical and cultural linkages. But that may actualise only if we discard our obsessive fascination for the West and devote some time to rediscovering and restoring these frayed links.

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