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Nothing leaves a footprint in the sand—not even time. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be aware of this as he visits the desert Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the invitation of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Therefore, it is worth asking if the two countries can cement their relationship to resist the ever-shifting sands of strategic convenience. Simply put, can India and Saudi Arabia forge a lasting strategic partnership built on mutual trust?
The answer is, sorry to say, no. At best, the relationship between the two countries will probably be built only on conditional trust. The fact is that Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, may be reliable partners in economic and technological spheres, but as geopolitical allies, they will be fickle. More on the reasons why a little later.
As of now, ties with Saudi Arabia have been rooted in trade, energy imports, and the vast Indian diaspora. India imports around 60 per cent of its crude oil from West Asia, with Saudi Arabia being a key supplier. Given the size of the crude imports, India runs a $20 billion trade deficit with Saudi Arabia. In other words, it imports more from Saudi Arabia than it exports to it. But as India strives to move towards cleaner and sustainable sources of energy, this dependence might decrease, and the trade deficit will even out. Saudi Arabia knows that as time goes by, most of its oil-dependent trading partners will find renewable sources of energy, and that is why the Saudi Crown Prince is investing in AI, fintech, and defence manufacturing. These are all areas where India can be a key partner.
Then there is the “New Silk Route”: The IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor). This visionary initiative could redefine how goods will be moved from India to Europe. The IMEC involves collaborative efforts by India, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to unveil an agreement aimed at constructing a vital shipping and railway corridor, effectively connecting Europe and the Middle East to the Indian subcontinent. The hub of the IMEC will be Saudi Arabia.
This economic interdependence has created a certain degree of mutual reliability. PM Modi is therefore going to push the Saudis to look towards resource and manpower-rich India to invest.
However, economic ties alone do not create trust or strategic loyalty.
There are three areas that inject a degree of unpredictability in the relationship.
First, there’s Kashmir and Islamic solidarity. In recent years, we have seen a remarkable pivot in Gulf diplomacy. The UAE and Saudi Arabia, once closely aligned with Pakistan on religious and ideological grounds, are now deepening their strategic engagements with India. This could all change. Especially when one considers the sustained campaign of calumny warning that India is turning into a Hindu Rashtra where Muslims are treated like outcastes. In Kashmir, this campaign reached a fever pitch in the aftermath of the abrogation of Article 370.
Fortunately, before the campaign could turn global opinion against India, the results of the abrogation turned out to be so indisputably beneficial in furthering inclusivity that the propaganda flopped. Yet, the campaign sustains feeding off other incidents. The Nupur Sharma case, for example, allowed certain elements to sway perceptions in the Gulf and raise the Hindu Rashtra bogey. The Modi government had to swing in to control the damage to avert a full-blown diplomatic backlash from Gulf states. Nevertheless, the controversy gave New Delhi a peek into a future where Gulf countries might choose the Ummah over India in the face of another incident.
Second, not entirely independent of the first is India’s burgeoning relationship with Israel. Gulf countries have a reflexive distrust of Israel. Thus far, India’s non-alignment strategy, pragmatism in foreign policy, has meant that India has been able to keep all sides in play. India will hope that initiatives like the I2U2 (India-Israel-UAE-USA) or the West Asian Quad will give it the diplomatic cache to continue to earn brownie points, even in ultra-Arab Nationalist Saudi Arabia. But the longer the Israel-Hamas war in the region lasts, the greater the pressure from the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Organisation of Islamic Countries on Delhi to pick a side. How long can India walk the tight rope?
Last but not least is that the regimes in the Gulf, in Riyadh, are autocratic and monarchic, which inherently makes long-term trust difficult to institutionalise.
Political decisions are often opaque, top-down, and subject to the whims of the ruling monarch. As of now, PM Modi’s unique brand of personalised diplomacy has created a space for the positives to overshadow the limitations.
