> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://signals.joincomrades.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # 23 Oct 2026 · Editorial > Comrades Editorial of 23 Oct 2026, by news group. > **[Comrades Editorial · 23 Oct 2026 (PDF)](https://dl.joincomrades.com/e/23-10-26)** *** ## In this edition 1. [SCO: Opportunities and Challenges for India](#h-1) International Relations ## International Relations ### SCO: Opportunities and Challenges for India [Source](https://www.drishtiias.com/current-affairs-news-analysis-editorials/news-editorials/23-10-2026) **This editorial is based on "Peace for progress:** on the SCO, regional cooperation, the fight against terror" published in The Hindu on 22/10/2026. The article highlights that regional economic integration, trade, and connectivity infrastructure like Chabahar require a secure, violence-free environment, urging SCO members to actively dismantle cross-border terror ecosystems. At the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of Government meeting in Tajikistan, India’s Defence Minister reaffirmed India’s steadfast position that regional cooperation, trade, and economic integration cannot succeed without unconditionally dismantling cross-border terrorism. Reflecting this proactive and resolute foreign policy posture, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar earlier aptly observed that "The India Way, especially now, would be more of a shaper or decider rather than just be an abstainer." Navigating complex continental Eurasian dynamics through the SCO therefore requires New Delhi to balance growing Sino-Pakistani convergence, sovereign boundary frictions, and multi-alignment imperatives. What Strategic Significance does the SCO Hold for India? * **Preserving Strategic Autonomy and India’s Eurasian Presence:** * The SCO gives India an institutional foothold in a 10-member grouping bringing together Russia, China, Iran and four Central Asian republics. * Membership enables multi-alignment, sustained engagement with competing powers and participation in decisions affecting India’s continental neighbourhood. * Strategically, participation helps India retain influence in Eurasia while preserving independent foreign-policy choices. * Summit diplomacy also provides opportunities to manage bilateral differences. E.g., the August 2025 India–China leadership meeting in Tianjin took place alongside the SCO summit. * **Strengthening Counterterrorism Cooperation and Challenging Double Standards:** * The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) offers India a channel for cooperation against terrorism (e.g., Pabbi-Anti terror joint anti-terror exercise), radicalisation and terror financing. * During 2025, India led a Joint Information Operation targeting Al-Qaeda and its affiliated organisations. * The security architecture is also expanding. At the October 2026 Council of Heads of Government meeting, India welcomed decisions establishing the Universal Centre in Tashkent and Anti-Drug Centre in Dushanbe as permanent bodies. * **Safeguarding India’s Stakes in Afghanistan’s Stability:** * The SCO places India in regular dialogue with countries directly affected by Afghanistan’s political, security and humanitarian situation. At the Bishkek Summit in September 2026, India explicitly connected Eurasian security with Afghanistan’s peace and stability. * It therefore supports regional consultation, development diplomacy and protection against destabilising spillovers. * India’s stakes extend beyond security. Its September 2026 UN statement cited more than 500 development partnership projects across all 34 Afghan provinces. * **Advancing Continental Connectivity while Defending Sovereignty:** * The SCO helps India promote Chabahar Port and the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC) as routes linking Indian markets with Afghanistan, Central Asia and wider Eurasia. * India’s 10-year contract, signed in May 2024, to equip and operate Chabahar’s Shahid Beheshti terminal gives this connectivity agenda a concrete commercial foundation. * At the October 2026 SCO meeting, India again advocated these routes and highlighted a recent Mumbai symposium on financing Central Asian infrastructure. * **Counter-Balancing Sino-Pakistani Dominance and "Consensus Capture":** * Maintaining active membership prevents the SCO platform from degenerating into an anti-Western, China-centric bloc or being hijacked for Pakistan-backed narratives. * India's strategic presence enables selective multilateralism—blocking anti-India declarations, rejecting non-transparent Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects that violate territorial sovereignty (such as CPEC in PoK), and upholding a balanced regional security architecture. * **Diversifying Energy Partnerships and Critical-Mineral Supply Chains:** * SCO membership facilitates engagement with major Eurasian energy producers and mineral suppliers, supporting India’s energy security, resource diplomacy and supply-chain diversification. * Engagement through SCO multilateral tracks strengthens the Connect Central Asia Policy, facilitating access to critical strategic assets including Kazakhstan's uranium supplies, Uzbekistan's gold/rare-earth reserves, and Turkmenistan's natural gas fields, thereby ensuring long-term national energy security. E.g., Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund’s 2025 annual report identifies the country as supplying approximately 40% of global uranium production. * At the September 2026 SCO trade ministers’ meeting, India specifically sought cooperation in critical minerals, energy security, renewable energy and green hydrogen. * **Expanding Market Access and Shaping Eurasian Economic Rules:** * The SCO offers India opportunities to advance trade facilitation, paperless customs, accessible trade finance and resilient regional value chains, benefiting exporters and smaller businesses. * A recent institutional development is the adoption of the Multilateral Trade and Economic Cooperation Action Plan for 2026–2030 at the October 2026 Heads of Government meeting. * India prioritised cooperation in pharmaceuticals, agriculture, manufacturing and electronics, alongside lower transit costs and improved cross-border payments. * **Projecting India’s Digital and Innovation Capabilities:** * The SCO provides a platform for India to translate strengths in Digital Public Infrastructure, financial inclusion and entrepreneurship into wider development partnerships. * India initiated the SCO Startup Forum and advanced cooperation on startups and innovation during its chairmanship. * The network’s expanding reach was demonstrated by the September 2026 Startup Forum in Dushanbe, which attracted over 1,000 participants, including investors, technology companies and government representatives. * **Building Soft Power and Exercising Agenda-Setting Leadership:** * The SCO enables India to deepen civilisational diplomacy, educational exchanges, traditional-medicine cooperation and people-to-people connections with Eurasia. * India demonstrated its convening capacity during its 2022–23 chairmanship, hosting more than 140 meetings and events, including 14 ministerial meetings; Varanasi also served as the first SCO Cultural and Tourist Capital. * More recently, the 2026 Bishkek Summit acknowledged India’s initiative to host the first SCO Civilisation Dialogue Forum later in 2026. * **Strategic Autonomy and Multi-Alignment Matrix in a Polycritical World Order:** * Anchoring national foreign policy in multi-alignment requires balancing participation in Western-led groupings (Quad, I2U2, G7) with non-Western continental platforms (SCO, BRICS+). * This operational posture reflects India's policy principle—being "non-Western, but not anti-Western"—preserving strategic flexibility, preventing global bloc polarization, and enforcing national interests across both maritime and continental theaters. **Shanghai Cooperation Organisation** * **About:** The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a permanent intergovernmental organisation established on 15th June 2001 in Shanghai, China, to promote regional security, political cooperation and economic development across Eurasia. * **Origins:** It evolved from the Shanghai Five mechanism, formed in 1996 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan for border confidence-building; Uzbekistan joined these countries in establishing the SCO in 2001. * **Membership:** Its 10 members are Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan became full members in 2017, Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024. * **Objectives:** It strengthens regional peace and stability, combats terrorism, separatism and extremism, and promotes cooperation in trade, connectivity, energy, technology, education and culture. * **Guiding Principles:** The “Shanghai Spirit” emphasises mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for cultural diversity and common development. * **Institutional Structure:** Its Secretariat is located in Beijing, while the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure’s Executive Committee is based in Tashkent. The Council of Heads of State is its highest decision-making body, and decisions generally follow consensus. **India and the SCO** * India became an SCO observer in 2005 and became a full member in June 2017. * It chaired the Council of Heads of Government in 2020 and held the 2022–2023 presidency, hosting the July 2023 virtual summit. * Its SECURE framework (proposed at the 2018 Qingdao Summit) covers Security, Economy and Trade, Connectivity, Unity, Respect for Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity, and Environment. * India joined SCO Peace Mission 2018 and chaired RATS in 2021–2022. * It launched the Startup Forum, permanently chairs the Startups and Innovation Working Group, and promotes Traditional Medicine. * Varanasi was Cultural and Tourism Capital (2022–2023); Mumbai hosted the Central Asia infrastructure-financing symposium in October 2026. ![](https://dl.joincomrades.com/media/2026/OCT26/23-10-26/editorial/58a75866120ce57f.webp) What Key Challenges Confront India within the SCO Forum? * **China’s Agenda-Setting Influence and Sovereignty Frictions:** * India must protect its priorities within a forum where China possesses substantial financial and institutional influence. * At the September 2026 Bishkek Summit, China explicitly identified the SCO as a platform for advancing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and announced 100 technological cooperation projects over 3 years. * This creates pressure for regional cooperation to develop around Chinese initiatives. * India’s objection to the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which passes through territory claimed by India, makes participation in a common connectivity agenda particularly difficult. * **Selective Counterterrorism Positions and India–Pakistan Distrust:** * Agreement on opposing terrorism does not necessarily produce agreement on identifying its perpetrators or addressing cross-border sponsorship. * At the June 2025 Qingdao Defence Ministers’ Meeting, India declined to endorse a draft declaration that inadequately reflected its terrorism concerns. A July 2025 parliamentary reply confirmed that the meeting produced no agreed outcome document because consensus was absent. * Although the subsequent Tianjin Declaration condemned the Pahalgam attack, the earlier disagreement exposed difficulties in translating shared principles into consistent action. * **Unreliable Transit Access and Exposure to Regional Border Disruptions:** * SCO membership itself does not guarantee non-discriminatory transit rights, predictable border procedures or uninterrupted freight movement. * Overcoming physical connectivity barriers to Eurasian markets remains severely hampered by Pakistan’s denial of overland transit access. * This denial forces India to rely heavily on sea-land routes via Iran’s Chabahar Port and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which face periodic operational, financial, and geopolitical bottlenecks, severely constraining India's trade expansion compared to China's direct overland rail networks. * **Limited Commercial Weight Compared with China’s Regional Presence:** * India’s political engagement is not matched by an equivalent economic footprint in Central Asia. * Kazakhstan’s government reported India–Kazakhstan trade of approximately USD 1 billion in 2024; its official sources placed China–Kazakhstan trade at USD 43.8 billion that year. These reported figures illustrate the substantial difference in commercial scale. * Established supply chains, transport networks and financing relationships give China greater influence over regional economic priorities. * **Sanctions Exposure and Constraints on Financial Connectivity:** * Cooperation with SCO partners can expose Indian projects and companies to external sanctions risks affecting banking, insurance, investment and payment settlement. * Chabahar demonstrates this vulnerability. In February 2026, India informed Parliament that Washington’s conditional sanctions waiver extended only until April 2026; a July 2026 parliamentary response subsequently acknowledged its expiry and continuing consultations. * **Divergent Approaches to Afghanistan’s Political Normalisation:** * SCO members do not necessarily share the same sequencing or conditions for engagement with Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities. * Russia formally recognised the Taliban government in July 2025, reflecting its emphasis on pragmatic security and economic cooperation. * India stressed sustained engagement alongside greater opportunities for Afghan women, development and counterterrorism. * Differing approaches to recognition, political inclusion and security assurances complicate a common regional policy. * **Russo-Sino Strategic Convergence and Shifting Eurasian Power Dynamics:** * Closer Russia–China coordination complicates India’s ability to rely on Moscow as a balancing partner within Eurasia. * Their bilateral trade reached USD 244.8 billion in 2024, while their May 2025 joint declaration explicitly identified the SCO and BRICS as platforms for cooperation in developing international norms. * For India, the strategic implication is that a traditional partnership with Russia does not automatically translate into Russian support against Chinese preferences. New Delhi must therefore build issue-based coalitions with Central Asian members to preserve its influence over the SCO’s direction. * **Anti-Western Polarisation versus India’s Multipolar Strategic Autonomy:** * Some members like Russia increasingly view the SCO through the lens of confrontation with Western power structures. * Such positioning creates an alignment dilemma for India, whose preference for multipolarity involves maintaining partnerships across competing centres of power. * As Russia and China seek to position the SCO as an anti-NATO, anti-Western geopolitical coalition, India firmly maintains that the platform must remain "non-Western, but not anti-Western," insulating its strategic partnerships with Quad members (US, Japan, Australia) and Western institutions to reinforce Jaishankar's doctrine that "a multipolar world is feasible only by a multipolar Asia." What Policy Measures can India Adopt to Optimize its SCO Engagement? * **Issue-Based Coalitions and Strategic Autonomy:** * India should develop issue-specific partnerships with Central Asian members, Russia, Iran and China while retaining independent positions on contested geopolitical questions. * Regular pre-summit consultations with Central Asian countries could identify shared priorities before negotiating declarations. * Article 16 of the SCO Charter permits interested members to implement particular cooperation projects (e.g., healthcare, agriculture and disaster management) even when others do not participate. * India should use this flexibility while respecting consensus requirements for organisation-wide decisions and resisting attempts to turn the SCO into an exclusive geopolitical bloc. * **Evidence-Based Counterterrorism and Operational Accountability:** * India should propose a counterterrorism cooperation protocol covering standardised evidence dossiers, designated national contact points and agreed timelines for responding to information requests. * Joint technical exercises should address terror financing, cryptocurrency tracing, drone-enabled trafficking and online recruitment, with safeguards for sensitive intelligence. * **Commercially Viable Connectivity and Transit Facilitation:** * India should advance Chabahar–INSTC connectivity through carefully selected cargo pilots, subject to applicable sanctions, banking, insurance and transit permissions. * A proposed corridor facilitation arrangement could coordinate customs agencies, freight operators and insurers to introduce electronic documents, through-booking and transparent transit charges. * Each pilot should publish door-to-door delivery time, border dwell time, freight cost and shipment reliability, enabling businesses to assess actual competitiveness. * **Sector-Specific Market Access and Eurasian Value-Chain Integration:** * India should negotiate practical market-access arrangements with willing SCO members in pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, agricultural machinery, food processing and engineering services. * For example, Kazakhstan’s June 2025 proposal to combine its agricultural potential with Indian food-processing technology could support joint processing units, cold chains and machinery maintenance centres. * India should establish an MSME export-helpdesk network, alongside lawful banking channels and export-credit insurance to convert diplomatic access into sustained commercial participation. * **Digital Public Infrastructure and Innovation Partnerships:** * A proposed joint innovation challenge could connect Indian and regional startups with public agencies that define a problem, fund a pilot and consider procurement after independent evaluation. * Projects should use open standards, interoperable systems, cybersecurity audits and privacy safeguards, with data governance determined by participating countries. * **Critical-Mineral Partnerships and Climate-Resilient Development:** * India should negotiate mineral-specific partnerships combining geological assessment, commercially viable offtake agreements, local processing and workforce training. * Kazakhstan’s June 2025 expression of readiness to supply strategic resources, including rare-earth metals, provides a concrete starting point. * India could complement these projects with joint research on water-efficient processing, solar-powered irrigation, glacier monitoring and drought early warning, linking resource security with the environmental priorities of Central Asian partners. * **Time-Bound Implementation and Accountable Development Finance:** * India should create an interministerial SCO implementation cell, coordinated by the Ministry of External Affairs, assigning each Indian commitment a responsible ministry, budget, deadline and outcome indicator. * An annual SCO engagement scorecard could track completed projects, commercial uptake and benefits for participating communities. * In negotiations concerning the proposed SCO Development Bank, India should seek balanced governance, transparent procurement, debt-sustainability assessments and independent project appraisal. **Conclusion** * Ultimately, India’s engagement with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation reflects a masterclass in strategic autonomy and pragmatic multi-alignment. Emphasizing the core principles that govern New Delhi's foreign and economic policy, S. Jaishankar has noted: "If connectivity is not to acquire sharp strategic meaning, then there must be credible assurances that projects are not used to exert influence." While structural hurdles like cross-border terrorism, transit bottlenecks, and asymmetric Chinese dominance persist, the platform offers indispensable leverage in Eurasia. By fostering issue-based coalitions, championing digital public infrastructure, and advancing critical mineral partnerships, New Delhi can successfully insulate its national security while shaping a balanced, multipolar regional order. This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.