Geopolitics of central asia: A political analysis of emergence of Tajikistan

The Central Asian Republics-Kazakhstan, Kyrghystan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan-since their independence in 1991 are no longer our distant neighbors. They formed part of Turkestan province of the Russian Empire since their conquest and annexation by the Czars in the mid-nineteenth century. After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1918 they set up the Turkestan Independent Islamic Republic but this new entity was destroyed by the Bolshevik army and annexed to the Russian Socialist Federation Soviet Republic by 1925. The Basmachi insurgency persisted until 1929 when it was squashed by the Russian army. In fact the traditional caravan routes through which trade flowed between the Central Asia and the south were almost abandoned during the sixteenth century thanks to the seaborne trade that received impetus with the entry of the European colonial powers into the Indian Ocean. With the imposition of the British colonial rule on South Asia and the control of the choke points of the Indian Ocean by the British navy, South Asia became an appendage of Britain.