India’s West Asia challenge: Stay agile, stay connected

Rarely in recent years has West Asia occupied so much space in India’s foreign-policy conversation. Attention, however, has not always produced understanding. By breakfast, newspaper columns have sorted the heroes and villains. By prime time, TV hosts have turned the crisis into loyalty tests. For India, West Asia is not a straight line. It is […]

Rarely in recent years has West Asia occupied so much space in India’s foreign-policy conversation. Attention, however, has not always produced understanding. By breakfast, newspaper columns have sorted the heroes and villains. By prime time, TV hosts have turned the crisis into loyalty tests.

For India, West Asia is not a straight line. It is a Rubik’s Cube. Every move shifts another face. There is no single West Asia for New Delhi to align with. Israel, the Gulf and Iran are three principal faces of the same puzzle. A posture that protects defence ties with Israel may complicate Gulf sensitivities. A channel that preserves access to Iran may unsettle partners elsewhere.

The first is a security and technology-oriented West Asia. Here, Israel matters. The relationship is embedded in defence procurement, intelligence-sharing and counter-terrorism capabilities. In a crisis, these are operational assets. Any serious Indian policy must account for this layer, however uncomfortable that may be for those who prefer a purely moral frame.

The second is an economic and human West Asia, the Gulf. For India, it means remittances, oil, gas, investment flows, food security and the safety of its workers abroad. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are both indispensable, but they are not interchangeable. Riyadh carries the weight of oil markets, Islamic legitimacy and bargaining in any future regional settlement. Abu Dhabi’s break with OPEC discipline underlines how differently it moves. It is faster, more commercially wired, less bound by old Gulf caution, more open with Israel and more wary of Tehran. For India, there is no single Gulf consensus waiting to be read from one capital. The Gulf has become a cube within the cube.

The third sits on the map itself. For India, Iran is not just a difficult sanctions problem. It is Chabahar, access to Afghanistan and Central Asia, and a reminder that geography keeps its own counsel. A closed channel with Tehran would make India less agile.

These three West Asias do not fit together easily. Each twists differently, creating pressure elsewhere. Today’s crisis has fused Gaza, the US confrontation with Iran, militia activity in Lebanon and pressure on maritime routes into a layered conflict. Even within individual theatres, alignments are not straightforward. In Lebanon, the state’s interest in preventing escalation can overlap more with Israel’s preference for stability than with Hezbollah’s confrontation-driven posture, without making them allies.

This is where the punditry fractures. One camp reads every Indian statement or silence as proof of a tilt towards Israel and the US. Another wants New Delhi to speak in a louder moral register. A third mistakes low visibility for irrelevance. The shallowest version treats foreign policy as optics.

The claim that India has “chosen” one side ignores India’s different interests. The argument that India should have spoken more forcefully assumes that voice alone alters outcomes in a conflict where some actors can change facts on the ground. Moral clarity matters. States, however, inherit consequences that commentators do not. The charge of absence is misleading too. Visibility and access are not the same. India has tried to preserve access rather than spend it on a louder line.

None of this means India has mastered the moment. The risks are now closer to home. West Asia enters India through oil and fertiliser prices, pressure on foreign exchange reserves, a weaker rupee and anxious families. Recent appeals for restraint in fuel use, gold purchases and foreign travel attest to that.

India has recognised that West Asia is not a single contest but a tangle of rivalries, bargains and anxieties. That means policy, even when purposeful, will sometimes appear uneven. Debate and commentary will continue, as they should. India’s success in West Asia, however, will be judged by whether it can protect its interests, keep channels open and keep turning the cube without losing sight of the whole.

The writer is former permanent representative of India to the United Nations, and dean, Kautilya School of Public Policy, Hyderabad