West Asia crisis: India’s response seems to be a recalibration of ties with Iran

The first three weeks of the new year has seen one conflict spiralling into a slew of other conflicts in West Asia. This has meant that almost all major stakeholders in the region are now involved in one conflict or the other. It is no longer restricted to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict since last October. This could push many countries, with strategic and economic interests in the region like India, to carefully recalibrate their policy towards the region. 

The maze of latest face-offs, even though low-intensity as of now, presents a tense security scenario in the region. This is further complicated by the presence of non-state actors, like the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen or Hezbollah in Lebanon, often with support of one state actor against the other. At the same time, militias in Iraq and Syria, with active support of Iran, are targeting US bases, sparking off retaliatory American strikes. The Houthis continue to attack international shipping in the Red Sea, which has resulted in US-UK attacks on the rebel militia in Yemen. 

To add to that, in New Delhi’s immediate neighbourhood, the Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl in Pakistan’s Balochistan was attacked by air strikes carried out by Iran, the leading Shia power in West Asia. This was followed by Pakistan’s attack on alleged Baloch separatists inside Iran, though there were no signs of further escalation from Tehran or Islamabad. Interestingly, Iran seems to be the common thread running across the different forms of conflict in the region. 

This makes it important to see how an emerging Asian power like India looks at the current state of its ties with Iran, arguably the key power to reckon with in West Asia, especially with Russia and China as Tehran’s allies. As far as the immediate events are concerned, New Delhi had two responses. 

Predictably, on the question of Iran’s air strikes inside Pakistan, New Delhi clubbed its understanding of Iran’s action with “zero tolerance on terrorism” and an exercise in “self-defence” – something India has maintained as part of its policy against the Pakistan-backed terror network in India. 

The other response, perhaps more important in reading the current approach, came earlier. 

In the last week of December, India had to work on a more delicate response when the US claimed that the drone attack on MV Sai Baba, an Indian-flagged crude oil tanker, was carried out from Iranian soil. This was preceded by an attack on the merchant vessel MC Chem Pluto, which prompted India into deploying three warships in the Arabian Sea. Tehran distanced itself from these attacks, even though its support to the Houthis is known. 

India’s official response, both in defence minister Rajnath Singh’s statements and later in external affairs minister S Jaishankar’s visit to Tehran early this week, has been to not react to the US’s claims, while highlighting the need for strong maritime security and to punish the perpetrators. New Delhi has chosen to go with the Iranian explanation about its non-involvement and thus seems to be seeking a recalibration  of ties with Tehran. 

This is significant because New Delhi realises that the tightrope walk in its response to the latest episode of the Gaza conflict meant that it had to assuage some misgivings in Tehran. Iranian hostility to Israel has meant that it isn’t open to the considerations of the Israeli side of the conflict. But in its bilateral engagements with India, it’s also true that Iran hasn’t let India’s nuanced approach come in the way of exploring many areas of mutual interest. 

The other imperative for a current reset is India’s wish to offset the effects of its decision to side with the US sanctions against oil imports from Iran. This followed Washington’s  2018 withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015, which had sought to restrict Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. 

New Delhi now realises that in a multipolar world, it has to stick to diversifying its options, both strategic as well as economic. Such strategic autonomy in exercising its choice was evident in how India identified its interests in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. India now realises the significance of spreading its interests over the key pillars of West Asian power architecture.

Along with such strategic reasoning for the reset, India also seems to be coming to terms with the need to widen its options to meet energy needs, in which the import of Iranian crude oil had an important role for most part of the last decade. Before 2018, India imported almost one-tenth of its crude oil needs from Iran. Bu, in the last five years, India’s decision to reduce the import of Iran crude oil has witnessed China emerging as the top importer of Iranian oil. 

At the same time, Beijing has spread an array of strategic interests in its ties with Tehran. In its efforts to meet its ever increasing energy needs, New Delhi would be keen on reviving the volume of its oil trade with Tehran. This possibility would meet a mutuality of interests. India is the world’s third largest crude oil importer, and Tehran would also want to have a key procurer back in its oil market reach in the leading economies of the world. 

In the midst of these two drivers of the bilateral reset, it’s telling that in his recent visit to Iran, India’s external affairs minister gave high priority to discussions with Iran’s roads and urban development minister. This signals that India is eyeing to invest with renewed vigour in geostrategically important Chabahar Port, opening a key access point to Central Asia for India, an alternative that does away with the Pakistan route barrier for India’s trade.

Along with the task of building a terminal in Chabahar port, India will also be keen on developing the International North-South Transport Corridor. Such projects also form the core of a mutuality of interests, as Tehran would see them as effective guarantees against the sanctions imposed by the West.

In the shifting sands of geopolitics in West Asia and multiple conflicts of different forms simmering with varying effects, New Delhi seems keen on recalibrating its ties with Tehran within new realms of understanding. In a multipolar world, both countries realise that mutuality of strategic and economic interests can be the enduring driver of their ties as they seek to  diversify their options and consolidate their strategic autonomy.