South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, n.s., Vol.XXXIII, no.2, August 2010 The Silk Road Renewed? South Asian Entrepreneurs in Uzbekistan Karen Leonard University of California, Irvine The Problem After Uzbekistan gained its independence in 1991, South Asian capitalists (Indians, Pakistanis, and Afghans) flocked to it and other struggling Central Asian economies, bringing capital, information, and technology. 1 Given that earlier, certainly in Mughal times (the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries), 2 and indeed pretty much until British, Russian, and Chinese political rivalry led to the suspension of close relations between Central Asia and the nations to the south of it during the early twentieth century, very important economic and cultural connections had existed between the Indian subcontinent and Central (or Inner) Eurasia, the renewed flow of South Asian entrepreneurs to Central Asia poses interesting problems. Is the Silk Road being re-opened? What are the relationships between Central Asian and South Asian traders and businessmen, and how have these related to state borders and policies over time? What histories are important at the present time, and how and by whom are they being formulated? In the fall of 1999 I spent three months in Uzbekistan studying Pakistani, Indian, and Afghan traders and businessmen in Central Asia. 3 This project in Central Asia expanded my interest in South Asia to a new region though one historically linked to it. I began as a tourist, interacting with South Asians in Shafiqul Islam, ‘Capitalism on the Silk Route?’, in Michael Mandelbaum (ed.), Central Asia and the World (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1994), pp.147–76. Stephen Frederic Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Richard C. Foltz, Mughal India and Central Asia (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998); Scott C. Levi, The Indian Diaspora in Central Asia and its Trade, 1550–1900 (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2002); and Scott Levi (ed.), India and Central Asia: Commerce and Culture, 1500–1800 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007). The research was funded by a grant from Global Peace and Conflict Studies, University of California, Irvine, and I thank GPACS for it. ISSN 0085-6401 print; 1479-0270 online/10/020276-14 O 2010 South Asian Studies Association of Australia DOI: 10.1080/00856401.2010.493282