An Elephant in a China Shop? India's 'Look North' to Central Asia: Seeing Only China

![CDATA[The evaluation of New Delhi’s agency in Central Asia attests to the region- alization of India’s post–cold war foreign policy—that is, the development of distinct external policies toward different global regions. In this respect, the discourses of India’s relations with Central Asia offer insights into the coun- try’s strategic culture and the modes of security governance that it fashions. It has to be noted from the outset that this chapter undertakes an assessment of the narrative construction of India’s involvement in Central Asia. The claim is that by focusing on the discourses of foreign policy making, this mode of analysis offers the opportunity to simultaneously experience and deduce the ingredients that go into the articulation of New Delhi’s external outlook. In other words, the discursive engagement with India’s interactions in Central Asia not only indicates that India has a “strategic will” but also probes “how [New Delhi] will manifest it in action.”]]