Opinion | The Gulf Is Calling: India’s Moment To Move From Presence To Strategic Power

India's economic expansion, energy security, maritime commerce and the welfare of millions of Indian citizens are directly connected to the stability of the Gulf

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The Gulf is no longer merely an energy reservoir or an expatriate destination for India. It has become a critical theatre in the contest for maritime security, technology, energy, and geopolitical influence. New Delhi must now convert decades of diplomatic goodwill into durable strategic leverage.

India’s relationship with the Gulf is entering a phase in which conventional diplomacy alone will no longer suffice. The region is undergoing a structural transformation, shaped by great-power competition, regional realignment, technological disruption and persistent insecurity across the maritime corridors linking the Gulf to the wider Indian Ocean.

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For New Delhi, this is not an abstract geopolitical development. It is a question of national power.

India’s economic expansion, energy security, maritime commerce and the welfare of millions of Indian citizens are directly connected to the stability of the Gulf. Yet India’s engagement with the region has historically been understood principally through three lenses: hydrocarbons, trade and the Indian diaspora. Those remain indispensable, but they are no longer sufficient.

The strategic proposition before India is therefore straightforward: the Gulf must move from the periphery of India’s foreign-policy calculus to the centre of its extended strategic geography.

This does not imply abandoning India’s traditional policy of strategic autonomy. On the contrary, it requires giving strategic autonomy greater substance.

Strategic autonomy is meaningful only when a state possesses the economic, military, technological and diplomatic capabilities necessary to protect its interests independently and, when required, to influence the behaviour of others. India has made considerable progress in building such capabilities, but its Gulf policy has not yet fully caught up with its changing position in the international system.

The transformation of West Asia makes that adjustment unavoidable.

The old regional order, in which the United States provided the principal security umbrella while regional states largely organised their foreign policies around Washington’s preferences, is evolving. Gulf states are increasingly pursuing diversified partnerships. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, in particular, have demonstrated a willingness to........

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