Middle Eastern Foreign Policy of the Narendra Modi Government

When Narendra Modi became prime minister in May 2014, India faced a Middle East in rapid flux while remaining dependent on the region for energy, trade routes, and the employment of millions of Indian nationals. India imports between 85 and 90 percent of its oil; nearly half of those imports have traditionally come from Persian Gulf states, and nearly half pass through the Strait of Hormuz.[1] Approximately eight million Indians worked in the Gulf at the time of a 2022 assessment, generating roughly $50 billion in annual income and remittances.[4]

Under Modi, India engaged Middle Eastern states with greater vigor than earlier governments while deepening relations with Israel, expanding outreach to Gulf Cooperation Council states, and maintaining ties with Iran.[1] The resulting approach has been labeled "multi-alignment" or "strategic autonomy": cultivating partnerships with competing powers rather than anchoring India to one bloc. Its practical interests include energy supplies, trade-route security, defense and technology cooperation, access to Central Asia, and the welfare of Indian nationals abroad.[1]

India granted Israel de jure recognition in 1950 and permitted it to maintain a consulate in Mumbai, but full diplomatic relations were withheld for more than four decades. This public distance reflected India's leadership in the Non-Aligned Movement, close relations with Arab countries and the Soviet Union, and concern about the effects of closer Israeli ties on relations with Arab states and India's large Muslim population.[5]

Full diplomatic relations were established in 1992. An INSS analysis describes this as the end of a zero-sum approach in which even limited relations with Israel had been treated as anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian. India nevertheless continued to support Palestinian statehood and other Palestinian positions while developing bilateral cooperation with Israel.[2] Trade grew from about $200 million in 1992 to nearly $11 billion in 2023.[5]

Asian dependence on Middle Eastern energy had historically encouraged close relations with oil-producing states and support for the Palestinians. A 2017 analysis therefore presented India's more visible post-2014 cooperation with Israel as part of a wider change in Israel's relations with Asia, while offering an interpretation rather than a complete account of Indian policy.[6]

The transformation of India–Israel relations was the most conspicuous feature of Modi's regional policy. Cooperation that had often been conducted discreetly became more public, and Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2014.[2] Modi visited Israel on July 4–6, 2017, becoming the first Indian prime minister to do so.[2][5] Netanyahu made a reciprocal state visit to India in January 2018.[5]

Modi did not travel to Ramallah during the 2017 trip, although he had hosted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas weeks earlier.[2][5] INSS characterized the itinerary and the more visible bilateral engagement as "dehyphenation": treating ties with Israel as a relationship in their own right rather than automatically coupling them with India–Palestinian relations.[2]

The visit produced substantive agreements. The governments established a $40 million India–Israel Research, Development, and Innovation Fund; each country pledged $4 million annually for five years.[7][5] They also agreed on cooperation involving water management, agriculture, atomic clocks, optical links, health, and space research. Seven government-to-government agreements were signed, while Indian and Israeli corporations concluded eight trade agreements.[7][5]

Defense was the relationship's weightiest pillar. India purchased a reported $3.9 billion in Israeli defense articles from 2016 through 2025, representing approximately 15 percent of India's arms imports and more than one-third of Israeli defense exports by value during that period.[1] An earlier BESA analysis, citing SIPRI data, reported that India's arms trade with Israel rose from $276 million in 2015 to $599 million in 2016, an increase of 117 percent.[8]

Acquisitions included Phalcon airborne warning and control systems, Searcher, Heron, and Harop unmanned aerial vehicles, radars, missiles, and laser-guided bombs. The countries also jointly developed the Barak-8 air-defense system through cooperation involving India's Defence Research and Development Organisation.[8] Israeli participation in Make in India included joint ventures such as Adani-Elbit Advanced Systems India, established to manufacture unmanned aerial vehicles domestically.[9]

Security cooperation also included counterterrorism and a shift from arms sales toward co-production.[7] A Jerusalem Center analysis describes defense and security as the most important areas of bilateral cooperation and reports that Israel exported $662 million in weapons and defense items to India during the first six months after Modi took office—more than during the preceding three years combined.[9]

Dehyphenation, as INSS applied the term to Modi-era policy, meant reducing the automatic linkage between India's Israel and Palestine relationships rather than abandoning support for Palestinian statehood.[2] India's economic rise, stronger ties with Arab and Islamic states, and greater attention to major-power diplomacy had altered the cost-benefit calculation that previously kept engagement with Israel subdued.[2]

Modi affirmed support for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel in 2017. INSS notes, however, that his initial statement omitted India's earlier reference to East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. That reference reappeared in official language during Modi's October 2019 visit to Riyadh.[2] India also voted in December 2017 against the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.[2]

India's UN voting record did not follow a uniformly pro-Israel line. It abstained in July 2015 on a UN Human Rights Council vote concerning an investigation of the 2014 Gaza war; supported an Arab-sponsored UNESCO resolution concerning Jewish connections to Jerusalem in April 2016; and abstained on subsequent UNESCO votes in October 2016 and May 2017. In June 2019, India supported an Israeli move at the UN Economic and Social Council concerning observer status for the Palestinian NGO Shahed.[2]

The broader shift was toward less automatic participation in international opposition to Israel while retaining formal support for Palestinian statehood and other Palestinian positions.[2] Some analysts cited by the Congressional Research Service believe the closer Israeli relationship came at some cost to India's relations with Palestine.[1]

Alongside closer Israel ties, the Modi government substantially deepened relations with Gulf Cooperation Council states, especially the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The economic foundations predated Modi: India depended on Gulf oil and gas, while Gulf economies relied heavily on Indian workers. Modi's government added elevated political engagement and growing security cooperation.[4]

Indian nationals made up approximately one-third of the UAE's population, with 3.5 million Indians living there in a 2022 estimate, while nearly 20 percent of India's global foreign remittances in 2024 came from the UAE.[5][1] A 2022 INSS assessment described annual India–Gulf trade as nearing $100 billion, including approximately $60 billion with the UAE and $30 billion with Saudi Arabia, and reported an India–UAE trade target of $115 billion.[4] The UAE designated its relationship with India a "comprehensive strategic partnership."[4]

In March 2019, India's foreign minister attended the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation foreign ministers' meeting in Abu Dhabi as a guest of honor. Saudi Arabia and the UAE blocked a Pakistani attempt to include a denunciation of India in the closing statement.[4]

Saudi–Indian relations combined energy and commercial interests with newer strategic dimensions. The countries agreed in 2025 to expand their strategic partnership council.[1] India's chief of staff visited Saudi Arabia in 2020, and the countries held their first joint naval exercise in 2021. Discussions and agreements addressed Gulf purchases of Indian security products, joint development of security industries, and the joint manufacture of components and spare parts for military platforms.[4]

INSS identified counterterrorism, naval activity in the Arabian Sea and Gulf, and cooperation between the Indian Navy and Saudi and Emirati fleets as the principal security fields. It nevertheless cautioned that security ties remained less extensive than economic relations and were constrained by India's ties with Iran and Pakistan, its limited resources, and domestic political and religious considerations.[4]

Approximately eight million Indians worked across Gulf states at the time of a 2022 INSS assessment. They were employed in manual labor, construction, industry, mining, and services, with many also holding engineering and management positions in the energy economy. Their annual income and remittances to India were estimated at roughly $50 billion—about half of all remittance transfers reaching India.[4]

Former Israeli diplomat Dore Gold estimated that roughly 1.5 million Indian workers had migrated to Saudi Arabia and the UAE alone in 2019 and argued that Indian governments would naturally feel responsibility for protecting citizens in the region. These are Gold's assessments and figures, not official Indian statistics.[10]

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted this labor system, while labor-market nationalization measures reportedly reduced the number of Gulf work visas granted to Indians.[4] The scale of the expatriate community and its remittance flows made labor welfare a direct domestic economic and foreign-policy interest.

India imported about 80 percent of its overall energy needs in the 2022 assessment and relied on the Gulf for the largest share of its oil and liquefied natural gas.[4] Separately, India imports between 85 and 90 percent of its oil, with nearly half passing through the Strait of Hormuz, making the security of that chokepoint a direct strategic concern.[1]

Relations with Iran represented one of the most complex balancing acts in Modi's regional policy. A 2019 Congressional Research Service report described Iran as having recently supplied about 30 percent of India's energy imports, a period-specific figure rather than a current estimate. India also supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the international nuclear agreement with Iran.[11]

The relationship became more difficult as India drew closer to the United States and other Western countries. By 2014, India had significantly reduced Iranian oil imports while cooperating with U.S.-led sanctions, at some cost to relations with Tehran.[12] The United States ended exemptions for countries buying Iranian oil in April 2019, and a longer-term boycott was described as potentially disruptive to India's economy.[11]

India nevertheless maintained Chabahar Port as its flagship cooperative project with Iran. In 2016, India announced that it was willing to invest up to $500 million in port development, with the project intended to provide access toward Afghanistan and Central Asia while bypassing Pakistan.[1] An Indian state ports company was to operate the facility, while India invested in road and railway connections from Chabahar toward Zahedan and participated in the International North–South Transport Corridor linking India through Iran toward Russia and Central Asia.[4]

A 2018 India–Oman memorandum also provided access to Duqm port, including refueling and maintenance facilities.[4] U.S. sanctions harmed Chabahar's development, while India's Iran relationship complicated closer ties with Saudi Arabia and the UAE.[1][4] Maintaining relations with Iran, the Gulf Arab states, Israel, and the United States simultaneously exemplified India's multi-alignment strategy.

In October 2021, the foreign ministers of India, Israel, the UAE, and the United States agreed to establish a four-country economic forum. Their discussions covered shared infrastructure, ports, railways, and maritime security, and they agreed to create working groups. India's foreign minister described Delhi's relations with Jerusalem, Washington, and Abu Dhabi as "among the closest relationships we have, if not the closest."[4]

On July 14, 2022, the four countries' leaders held the first virtual summit of the I2U2 group. The forum sought to deepen economic ties between the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific and develop partnerships addressing food insecurity and clean-energy technology.[10][5] INSS presented the Abraham Accords as an opportunity for closer India–Israel–UAE cooperation in fields such as energy, medicine, agriculture, and security, while identifying these as potential areas rather than completed outcomes.[4]

India and the UAE are also members of the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor initiative. Middle Eastern conflicts have hampered progress on both I2U2 and IMEC.[1] These formats illustrate how India's simultaneous relationships with Israel and Gulf Arab states enabled cooperative forums that brought them together with the United States.

The Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, tested India's regional relationships during an acute crisis. Modi expressed shock and condolences, writing, "We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour." After speaking with Netanyahu on October 10, he wrote that the people of India "stand firmly with Israel in this difficult hour."[3]

India also spoke against the killing of civilians and reiterated support for a two-state solution.[3] On October 27, India abstained on a UN General Assembly call for an immediate ceasefire that did not condemn Hamas. An INSS author interpreted the abstention as potentially favorable to Israel; this was the author's assessment, not India's declared motive.[3]

The Congressional Research Service cited analysts who interpreted India's condemnation of Hamas and declaration of solidarity with Israel as a meaningful strategic tilt. The report also noted India's continuing formal commitment to Palestinian statehood.[1] During the subsequent Gaza conflict, Indian officials avoided publicly criticizing Israel and India abstained from UN resolutions, while continuing to support a two-state solution.[5]

The combination of condemning Hamas, expressing solidarity with Israel, opposing civilian deaths, and endorsing Palestinian statehood reflected the multi-track approach that had characterized Modi's regional policy since 2014.

The Modi government's policy departed from the earlier assumption that closer relations with Israel necessarily required distance from Arab governments or abandonment of Palestinian positions. INSS describes the change as integrating Israel into India's broader Middle East policy while maintaining support for Palestinian statehood.[2]

Defense cooperation with Israel included $3.9 billion in reported purchases over nine years, joint development of the Barak-8 air-defense system, unmanned-aerial-vehicle cooperation, and Israeli participation in India's domestic manufacturing programs.[1][8] At the same time, the UAE relationship became a comprehensive strategic partnership, India–Gulf trade approached $100 billion in the 2022 assessment, and the Indian Gulf workforce generated an estimated $50 billion in annual income and remittances.[4]

The labels "multi-alignment" and "strategic autonomy" capture both the ambition and the tensions of this approach.[1] India's Iran relationship—including Chabahar and the International North–South Transport Corridor—exists alongside close cooperation with the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.[1][4] Each partnership expands India's options while also imposing constraints in other relationships.

INSS places the changing posture in the context of India's economic rise, stronger ties with Arab and Islamic states, and greater attention to major-power diplomacy.[2] By Modi's tenure, India was simultaneously an important Israeli defense customer, a major economic partner of the UAE, an energy and strategic partner of Saudi Arabia, and a participant in Iranian transport infrastructure.

The foreign minister's description of relations with Jerusalem, Washington, and Abu Dhabi as "among the closest relationships we have, if not the closest" captured the convergence of Israel ties, Gulf engagement, and cooperation with the United States in the emerging four-country forum.[4]

Several aspects of Modi's Middle East policy remain matters of interpretation. "Dehyphenation" is an INSS analytical framework rather than an official Indian description. The same analysis stresses that India continued to support Palestinian statehood and maintained substantial relations with Arab states.[2]

The Congressional Research Service reports that some analysts believe closer ties with Israel came at some cost to India's relations with Palestine, while others interpret the broader record as successful multi-alignment.[1] Jerusalem Center authors describe India as maintaining formal equidistance between Israel and the Palestinians while having a "palpably greater affinity" for Israel; this is their assessment, not an official or uncontested formulation.[9]

Interpretations of India's October 27, 2023 abstention as favorable to Israel are likewise attributed assessments. India did not publicly describe its vote as support for Israel's position.[3] The characterization of India's post-October 7 response as a strategic tilt also comes from analysts cited by the Congressional Research Service.[1]

INSS analyses identify domestic political and religious considerations as contextual constraints, and one October 2023 analysis links some pro-Israel rhetoric to BJP electoral politics. These are attributed interpretations rather than established government motives.[4][3]

India's record—including its 2017 vote against U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and the later reappearance of East Jerusalem in official Indian language—does not support either the categorical claim that India abandoned the Palestinians or the claim that its policy did not change.[2]