In January 2025, in Abu Dhabi, India’s External Affairs Minister, Dr. S Jaishankar, noted that for India, the Middle East was part of an “extended neighbourhood with which we have now re-connected in full measure.” He added that the region was “a crucial passage to the world beyond, whether we speak of Africa or the Atlantic.” This acknowledgement by Indian diplomats and politicians of the Middle East (or rather West Asia in Indian political parlance) as a space crucial to India’s strategic interests is hardly new nor surprising. What has changed over the last decade is a push to leverage historical societal ties, but also growing trade and business connections, for strategic purposes.
Over the last decade, India’s economic and political relations with various West Asian actors, notably Israel and the GCC states, have drastically changed. As of 2021, the Middle East was supplying over 80% of India’s oil and gas needs. While India only represented 3% of the GCC’s total trade in 1992, by 2016, India had become the GCC’s third trading partner after the EU and Japan. In 2022, the UAE was India’s second largest trading partner and India’s largest source of investment from the Arab world. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have also committed to investing respectively $75 and $100 billion in India’s infrastructure sector, while Indian investments in the UAE during the same period increased to $55 billion
This is exactly what Dr. Jaishankar referred to as a “re-connection” with West Asia, thereby implying that a new framework had been guiding India’s approach to the region, especially under the tenure of prime minister Narendra Modi. At the same time, other observers remind us that India’s involvement in West Asian affairs is not a new development. Both these assessments are correct. While the region has consistently been interpreted as being of strategic importance, there has also been a clear shift from a cautious balancing policy to a more public and confident multi-engagement strategy over the last two decades, leading notably India to push for a major West Asian trade corridor linking the Indian Ocean and Europe where New Delhi would play a pivotal logistical role.
One can identify long-term interests such as access to energy resources, preserving open trade routes, increasing or maintaining political influence in the region (notably to counterbalance Pakistan’s, and later China’s, diplomatic presence in West Asia), attracting foreign direct investments, and finally ensuring the welfare of India’s diaspora in the region since the 1970s. What evolved over time were the means and diplomatic strategies used to preserve these interests in the region, as well as how West Asian actors have perceived India. Accordingly, New Delhi has moved from a strategy of proactive involvement in regional disputes during the Nehru years, to aligning with some specific partners in the region, and finally to engaging all actors in the region since the 1990s.
