Delhi's Desert Adventures

As the Middle East experiences continued turmoil and India continues to grow in stature on the world stage, the Gulf region and the Indian state are making new demands on each other. In the context of growing American dominance in the Gulf, India’s rise as a major Asian power with global aspirations and the expansion of Indo-American cooperation, what are India’s strategic objectives in the Middle East today?

Strangely, discussions on New Delhi’s stake in the Gulf region still revolve around six million Indian expatriates, remittances, oil imports, some trade and that’s it. Foreign policy does not seem to adequately reflect the fact that energy supplies from the Gulf are absolutely critical to India’s future.

India’s continued economic growth will depend heavily on the unimpeded supply of oil from the Gulf at affordable prices. Escalating demand for energy is only increasing India’s sensitivity to the region, from where the bulk of its supplies tend to come. To secure its interests, New Delhi must make it an established foreign policy priority to bolster India’s political and diplomatic influence in the Gulf and to vigorously protect the region’s security and stability.

Enhancing its influence in the Gulf states can provide India with increased energy security as well as a diplomatic gateway to the broader Middle East and Central Asia. In fact, there is no other choice. Any disturbance in the access to oil from the Gulf will have disastrous consequences for the economy and the government, and the precedents are telling: the oil shock of 1973 led India into a phase of nationalisation and the crisis of the early 1990s led to a near-default on the national debt. The safety of India’s energy supplies, and by extension its economic future, depend heavily on the stability of the Gulf and India’s diplomatic reach there.

Yet despite the severity of the situation, the current state of India’s diplomatic presence is distressing. There are few top bureaucrats posted to the region, and few high-level political delegations and state visits. The embassies and consulates in the Gulf seem to be primarily geared towards providing the large expatriate population with consular services. But while these responsibilities are still important, India’s Foreign Service now has to further India’s profile in the Gulf. Meanwhile, New Delhi must seriously engage the region with economic incentives and structures; while aggressively pushing India’s foreign policy agendas and its corporate interests.

Economics aside, an enhanced strategic relationship with the Gulf also offers India significant security benefits. According to Ashley Tellis, a foreign policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Gulf region can provide India with a strategic buffer against policies that run counter to its interests. He argues that New Delhi must be equipped to confront the threats of terrorism, proliferation and radical Islam that it faces, directly in the Middle East.

The Gulf countries too have significant incentives from such a relationship. Along with cultivating Indian political support on issues that are of importance to them, they can also look to build a security rapport with the Indian state.

With sufficient effort and backing, developing a framework for military cooperation with New Delhi can be far-reaching. It has the potential to extend from routine sharing of intelligence, to joint naval exercises and significant defence contracts. Not only will this cooperation contribute significantly to the battle against Islamic militancy in the Middle East, but it will also provide the Gulf with an effective counterbalance to any threat from an emergent Iran.

Indeed, India has long-standing ties with Iran. It is an important trade partner, and provides India with some energy security and an access route to Central Asia. But given the fizzing out of talks on the Iran-India gas pipeline through Pakistan, global animosity towards the Iranian nuclear adventure and the importance of India’s strategic relationship with the United States, New Delhi might instead consider re-aligning its foreign policy priorities towards building an economic stake in the Gulf’s energy architecture and developing a strategic security relationship with the region.

Perhaps in the fullness of time, India’s congruent ties with both Iran and the Gulf can lead to New Delhi playing a mediating role to bring Tehran and the Gulf, or indeed Washington, closer together.

But for the decade ahead, New Delhi must explore a new set of economic and military cross-linkages with the Gulf and strengthen bilateral relations. An age-old relationship that was built on the basis of trust and trade by merchants who sailed across the Arabian Sea must now re-calibrate itself for the future, on behalf of common interests and values and against common threats.