Walking Tightrope: India's Geopolitics in the Middle East
PART - 2
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17 FEBRUARY, 2024
In part one, (Defence, Diplomacy, and Dilemmas: India's Strategic Shift towards Israel ) we discussed the journey of the India-Israel relationship since 1948 and how it has blossomed. Here we will discuss the consequences of this relationship and the risks we foresee.
India is in the middle of geopolitics solely for the economic and commercial benefits it offers. Other countries see India as a marketplace of 1.4 billion consumers.
Accordingly, this Indian liberal market is also seen as a survival opportunity for many countries and companies worldwide.
But then India is also geographically located in the middle of warring parties and is walking a tightrope between enemies.
Thus, we have Israel, Iran, the battleground of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and ever influencing the United States.
Let’s explore a few consequential ones that define the risk in the Indian playbook of geopolitics. Also, we will briefly touch upon India’s stance in the Gaza conflict and share an opinion about it.
To start with, we have an Iran relationship. Iran is a major oil producer, and India has been a large oil consumer. And if India has to target 6% or 8% growth, then oil becomes a crucial and critical Factor.
In the past, until the year 2019, Iran was India’s second-largest oil supplier until the US sanctions prevented India from importing oil.
However, energy security still remains a critical concern for India, and therefore, a lifelong and stable relationship with Iran has been and will be crucial for future energy cooperation between the two countries.
The dependency on Iranian oil has been inescapable and sizable that the Indian oil refinery in Mangalore was primarily built keeping in mind the kind of heavy crude that came from Iran.
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...this Indian liberal market is also seen as a survival opportunity for many countries and companies worldwide.
So much of the investment and dependency is on Iranian oil.
Then, in 2019, India stopped importing Iranian oil. Consequently, India became dependent on Russian oil, and because of the Ukraine war, Russian oil entered the restrictive product export list.
To overcome this, India started to import oil from the US to compensate for Iranian oil.
After Russia came on the sanction list, it was realized that, in a way, the US had (in)advertently started to lead India’s oil policy.
Initially, it dictated the Iranian oil policy, which stopped in 2019, and now it is the Russian oil restriction. Hence, India stands on a pedestal of a severe risk.
Also, Iran and India are both affected by instability in Afghanistan, and they both share a security concern with Pakistan.
A stable neighbourhood between Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is of prime importance for Iran and India.
Further, India has to balance China’s role in Pakistan. China has economic and strategic interests in the Gwadar port of Pakistan, which operates under a contractual basis but then can exert its political control.
India’s partnership in the Iranian Chabahar port was to counter Chinese strategic presence in the region.
Hence, we see that India is in the middle of a game while trying to balance out superpowers like the US and China and their role in defining the politics in this region.
While India is performing a balancing act, as of October 2022, India and Israel have entered into multiple memorandums of understanding (MoU), and one of the crucial ones is between the Adani group and the Gadot group of Israel.
According to ArabNews.org, the Adani group will explore a joint infrastructure project with Israel, for example, for its Haifa port.
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India’s partnership in the Iranian Chabahar port was to counter Chinese strategic presence in the region.
It is one of the multiple memoranda of understanding.
As we all know, the Adani group has a powerful link with the current Indian government. Furthermore, it is estimated that about 100,000 Indian workers will be involved in Israel’s construction industry.
Whether that construction happens within Israel or in the new Gaza, whenever it comes up, we don’t know; as of now, there is a strong business and a strategic partnership that is emerging between India and Israel.
Now comes the tricky part of this region. Israel and Iran relationship, these two countries since 1987 have been involved in a highly tense and adversarial position.
An ongoing proxy conflict can characterize it and play out in various ways across the Middle East.
Consequently, these two archenemies have not had official diplomatic ties since 1987, and both countries are supporting opposite factions in regional conflicts like the Syrian civil war and currently in the Gaza conflict.
They also accuse each other of conducting targeted attacks and attacks of sabotage. Further, Israel, along with its allies like the US, opposes Iran’s nuclear program, fearing that it could develop nuclear weapons.
That’s another flash point in their relationship.
As discussed in part one, India’s partnership with Israel moved from an ideological stance to a pragmatic approach.
It has become more of an American approach, and I would like to quote Henry Kissinger, who said Americans have no permanent friends or enemies, they have an interest.
That American pragmatic approach has now defined India’s stance on Palestine.
Just because Israel and India are now sitting on a most favoured nation-type relationship, India abstained from a UN resolution for a ceasefire immediately after the 7th October attack.
Subsequently, by mid-December, they did vote for a ceasefire, but by then, the conflict had already resulted in a loss of 18,000 lives.
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...Americans have no permanent friends or enemies, they have an interest.
Not supporting the ceasefire in the first instance was when India lost its bold leadership position as far as world peace was concerned. That’s one outlook.
Preventing loss of life has been India’s ideological stance right from the country’s inception.
It is here that it failed. At this time today, in the middle of February 2024, 130 days after the start of the conflict, India’s role in bringing about a ceasefire is unclear, India’s role or its voice for a Palestinian
cause is blurred, and also how India is carrying the democratic voice of its 30 crore 300 million Indian Muslim, who are sympathetic to the cause of Palestine, is unknown.
There are many factors to that situation. Indian domestic policy has also defined foreign policy and both have a strong interplay.
How could the Hindu nationalist Indian government support the cause of Palestine when the Palestinian government is headed by a declared terrorist organization called Hamas?
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...India is carrying the democratic voice of its 30 crore 300 million Indian Muslim, who are sympathetic to the cause of Palestine, is unknown.
Furthermore, the Indian Media have clouded the suspicions of terrorism with the Palestinian cause. which also has played a crucial part in the Indian government’s stance and U-turn.
Consequently, for India, the domestic politics concerning Gaza is a mix of the Hindutva project and the Palestinian cause amidst the fog, smoke mirror of Islamophobia.
But then, if we try to compare India’s stance in 1948, Islamophobia was at its peak, and Hindutva nationalism had killed Mahatma Gandhi,
we will find, surprisingly though, in 1948, when India was weak, it was just a few months into independence, when India was crawling out of the bloody partition, facing endemic poverty, still took an ideological stance, not fearing the consequences of geopolitics.
The fact is that was the time when India needed the most support from many countries, against whom India took that position.
On the contrary, today, when the Indian story is that of strength, as of a super brand, where the superpowers like the United Kingdom,
France, and the United States are queuing at the doorsteps of India for economic and commercial favours, India is shying away from taking an ideological stance. That is where the weakness of foreign policy is being displayed.
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...for India, the domestic politics concerning Gaza is a mix of the Hindutva project and the Palestinian cause amidst the fog, smoke mirror of Islamophobia.
Moreover, it is a message to the world that now, in 2024, even with all these strengths that India has, it has adopted the American language of “interest”, the language of not having a permanent friend or enemy but of having interest, taking sides based on situations not ideology.
Well, India has chosen to depart from the leadership role it took in 1948 and has stepped into the role of managing interests.
Since independence, India has built a solid resume to play the ultimate role of peacemaker, the one much needed in the Gaza conflict, but clearly, India has lost this opportunity in 2024.
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