India and West Asia: Strategic Engagements

For India, West Asia is not just a neighbourhood across the Arabian Sea. It is the source of the oil that fuels its economy, the home of nearly nine million of its workers, and an arena where its security and strategic ambitions are increasingly at stake. The region the rest of the world calls the Middle East sits at the heart of how India powers its growth, protects its citizens abroad, and positions itself as a rising power. Understanding this relationship means looking at energy, people, security, and connectivity together, because in foreign policy these threads are tightly knotted.

Why West Asia matters so much 🔗

The simplest way to grasp the importance of West Asia is to follow the oil. India is one of the world’s largest oil importers, and a very large share of its crude has traditionally come from this region. According to analysts at the Brookings Institution, around 60% of India’s oil imports and an even higher proportion of its natural gas come from West Asia, making the country one of the major economies most dependent on the region for energy.

This dependence is structural. India is the third-largest consumer of oil globally, and oil alone accounts for about a quarter of the country’s primary energy consumption. Domestic production has been falling for years as older oil fields age, which means imports remain the backbone of supply. When something disrupts the flow of oil from West Asia, the effects ripple through fuel prices, inflation, the value of the rupee, and the current account deficit.

Beyond oil, the region is woven into India’s economy through three other channels: a huge expatriate workforce, growing trade and investment, and its position on key trade and energy routes. Each of these gives New Delhi a strong reason to want a stable West Asia.

The Look West policy 🔗

India’s structured engagement with the region is often described as the Look West policy, launched in 2005 as a deliberate effort to deepen ties with West Asia. The policy rests on a few clear goals: securing energy supplies, protecting and supporting the Indian diaspora, expanding trade and investment, cooperating on counterterrorism, and building strategic partnerships across a region full of internal rivalries.

The naming has evolved over time. Commentators initially spoke of “Look West” as a companion to the older “Look East” policy. In recent years, the framing shifted to Link West and then to a more assertive Act West approach, mirroring the way the Look East policy became Act East. The Vivekananda International Foundation describes this as a move from cautious engagement to a faster, more proactive posture, with the UAE emerging as the central partner in India’s expanding regional footprint.

A shift from caution to engagement 🔗

For decades, India’s approach to the Gulf was largely transactional. The region supplied oil, absorbed Indian labour, and sent remittances home, and beyond that New Delhi often acted with caution and ideological hesitation. The newer approach is more confident. India now pursues what scholars call “cooperative bilateralism” and “multialignment” – building issue-based partnerships with countries across the region regardless of their mutual hostilities. A notable feature of this shift, as the Forum for Integrated National Security notes, was the decision to “de-hyphenate” relations, so that India could deepen ties with Israel, the Arab Gulf states, and Iran at the same time without one relationship undermining another.

Energy security: the central pillar 🔗

Energy security is the foundation of India’s interest in West Asia, and recent events have shown exactly why. The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, is the single most important chokepoint for global oil and gas shipping. A large share of India’s crude and most of its imported cooking gas normally pass through it.

India’s response to this vulnerability has been diversification rather than dependence on any one supplier. The country now sources crude oil from more than 40 countries, and a majority of its crude imports increasingly arrive through routes that bypass the Strait of Hormuz. India consumes roughly 5.5 million barrels of crude a day and operates more than twenty refineries, making it one of the world’s largest refining hubs.

Building buffers against shocks 🔗

Diversification is only part of the strategy. India also maintains strategic petroleum reserves – underground stockpiles of crude that can be drawn upon if supplies are cut off. The government has been actively reassessing how large these reserves should be, precisely because instability in West Asia repeatedly exposes the risks faced by import-dependent economies. The point of these reserves is to buy time and bargaining space during a crisis, keeping markets calm while alternatives are arranged.

Cooperation with individual partners reinforces this buffer. The UAE, for instance, is the only foreign country to have invested in India’s strategic petroleum reserve program, and its Fujairah port sits outside the Strait of Hormuz, offering a safer route for energy exports during periods of tension. India has also contracted long-term liquefied natural gas supplies with the UAE as part of its diversification push.

The longer game 🔗

Energy security is not only about today’s barrels. India is simultaneously pushing electric vehicles, renewable energy, and biofuels such as ethanol to gradually reduce the oil intensity of its growth. Strategic reserves and diversification act as a bridge, protecting the economy while cleaner energy systems scale up. But hydrocarbons will remain central to transport, industry, and cooking fuel for years, which is why West Asia stays critical even as the energy transition advances.

The Indian diaspora and remittances 🔗

If oil is one pillar of the relationship, people are the other. West Asia is home to a very large Indian expatriate community. Estimates put the figure at more than nine million, with the largest concentrations in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. According to the Middle East Institute, the protection and welfare of this expatriate community has become one of the top priorities of Indian foreign policy toward the region.

These workers are not just numbers. They send home tens of billions of dollars every year in remittances, money that supports millions of households and helps finance India’s trade deficit. The Gulf states have long been among the largest sources of these inflows. States such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh are especially dependent on Gulf employment, and a slowdown there directly affects household incomes and local economies back home.

A community that needs protection 🔗

The flip side of this dependence is vulnerability. When conflict breaks out in the region, the safety of millions of Indian citizens becomes an immediate concern. India has carried out several large evacuations over the decades – from Kuwait in 1990, Lebanon in 2006, Libya in 2011, and Yemen in 2015. Each of these operations was both a humanitarian necessity and a politically sensitive task for the government, as the Brookings Institution points out.

There are economic vulnerabilities too. Many Gulf economies are “nationalising” their workforces, prioritising local citizens for jobs, while the broader remittance map is shifting as more skilled Indians migrate to advanced economies in the West. The composition of who sends money home is changing, and policymakers increasingly have to plan for workers returning from the Gulf and reintegrating into the domestic economy.

Security and counterterrorism 🔗

The third major driver of India’s West Asia policy is security, with counterterrorism at its centre. The rise and partial decline of groups like the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, along with instability in countries such as Syria and Iraq, created threats that do not respect borders. Because terrorism today has strong transnational links, India has sought practical partnerships with West Asian states to manage the risk.

The Middle East Institute identifies three main focal points of this cooperation: tracking terror financing, sharing information on persons of interest, and monitoring travel routes used by suspected militants. A particular concern is the informal hawala system of money transfer, which can move funds outside regulated banking channels. Cooperation on these fronts is mostly bilateral and sometimes quiet, but it has become an important part of India’s overall counterterrorism effort.

Security ties now extend well beyond intelligence sharing. India has signed defence agreements and conducted joint military exercises with Gulf partners, such as Desert Cyclone with the UAE and Naseem Al Bahr with Oman, deepening maritime security cooperation and interoperability with key partners in the region.

Trade, investment, and connectivity 🔗

Strategic engagement increasingly runs through economics. The India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), which came into force in May 2022, is a good example. According to trade analysts, bilateral merchandise trade between the two countries nearly doubled within three years, with non-oil sectors such as smartphones, engineering goods, and chemicals contributing a growing share. The UAE has also become one of India’s largest trading partners and a major investor.

New corridors, new geometry 🔗

India is also using West Asia to reshape its connections to the wider world. The most ambitious project is the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), a planned network of ports, railways, and digital and energy links connecting India through the Gulf to Europe. Supporters argue it could cut shipping times between India and Europe significantly while institutionalising closer ties between India, the Gulf states, Israel, and Europe. The corridor is also widely seen as a counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Alongside IMEC, India has invested in Iran’s Chabahar port – its first major foreign port project – which links into the International North-South Transport Corridor connecting India to Central Asia and Russia. As the European Council on Foreign Relations explains, Chabahar lets India bypass Pakistan, which blocks overland routes, and offers an alternative to the China-backed Gwadar port and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Together, these projects show how West Asia is central to India’s quest for reliable access to markets and resources.

The balancing act and its limits 🔗

Engaging West Asia is not simple, because the region is full of rivalries. India must maintain warm relations with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies, with Iran, and with Israel – countries that are often hostile to one another. Its membership in groupings like I2U2 (India, Israel, UAE, United States) reflects an effort to build issue-based coalitions that focus on practical areas such as food and energy security rather than ideological alignment.

This balancing act has limits. The Middle East Institute argues that India has expanded its economic and defence ties without always developing matching political and strategic depth, and that it lacks a long-term framework to handle contingencies such as economic downturns in the Gulf or sudden conflict. India’s future growth is so closely tied to the security of the region that gaps in strategy carry real risk for a country aspiring to great-power status.

What do you think? Should India treat West Asia primarily as an energy supplier and labour market, or invest in becoming a genuine political player in the region’s disputes? And as remittances slowly shift toward Western economies, how should India rethink its decades-old relationship with the Gulf?

References

1. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/even-as-india-attempts-to-act-east-it-is-thinking-west/
2. https://www.cfr.org/articles/oil-energy-india-u-s-relations-and-the-russia-conundrum
3. https://www.vifindia.org/2024/april/30/Key-Changes-in-India-s-Approach-Towards-West-Asia-over-the-Last-ten-Years
4. https://www.finsindia.org/indias-west-asia-policy-under-modi-regime-shifting-sands-dynamic-perspectives.html
5. https://ddnews.gov.in/en/west-asia-crisis-government-takes-coordinated-measures-to-ensure-energy-security-maritime-safety-and-welfare-of-indian-nationals/
6. https://www.policycircle.org/policy/indias-strategic-oil-reserves-import/
7. https://www.mei.edu/publications/indias-strategic-vision-about-west-asia-and-its-limitations
8. https://www.mei.edu/publications/india-gulf-counterterrorism-cooperation
9. https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/strengthening-india-west-asia-ties
10. https://www.middleeastbriefing.com/news/india-uae-cepa-non-oil-trade-and-transshipment-of-goods/
11. https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/the-india-middle-east-europe-economic-corridor-promises-and-challenges/
12. https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-infinite-connection-how-to-make-the-india-middle-east-europe-economic-corridor-happen/