The India-UAE (and Israel) partnership to bring stability to West Asia
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United Arab Emirates came at a moment when the Middle East is once again testing the assumptions of every major power. War in Gaza, tensions with Iran, the vulnerability of maritime routes, the fragility of energy markets and the growing importance of new economic corridors have all returned the region to the centre of global strategy.
For India, this is no longer a distant theatre. The Gulf is part of its extended neighbourhood, its energy lifeline, its diaspora space and increasingly its corridor to Europe. Modi’s visit to Abu Dhabi should be read in that light. It was not only a bilateral engagement with a close partner. It was part of India’s gradual effort to define a more confident role in West Asia, one that rests on old relationships but is increasingly shaped by new realities.
The UAE has become central to this approach. Few countries in the region combine political stability, capital, logistical ambition and strategic clarity in the way Abu Dhabi does. For New Delhi, the relationship offers much more than energy cooperation. It offers a platform for investment, infrastructure, technology, defence, food security and maritime connectivity. It also offers something less visible but perhaps more valuable, a partner capable of translating regional ambition into executable projects.
Energy remains the foundation of the relationship, as it must. India’s dependence on imported crude makes the stability of the Gulf a domestic concern. Any disruption in the Strait of Hormuz is not an abstraction for New Delhi. It is felt in inflation, fiscal planning, industrial production and household budgets. Cooperation with the UAE on strategic petroleum reserves and LPG therefore belongs not only to the language of commerce, but to the vocabulary of national security.
Yet the relationship has moved well beyond hydrocarbons. Defence cooperation, maritime security, logistics and technology now occupy an increasingly important place in India-UAE ties. This reflects a wider shift in Indian thinking. The Gulf is no longer viewed only as a source of energy and remittances. It is also a maritime and commercial space through which India’s future connectivity with the Mediterranean, Europe and Africa will pass.
This is where the UAE’s importance acquires a larger strategic meaning. Abu Dhabi sits at the intersection of several conversations that matter to India: energy security, capital flows, port infrastructure, artificial intelligence, logistics, food corridors and defence innovation. It is also one of the few Arab capitals that has managed to build a serious working relationship with Israel without abandoning its wider Arab and Islamic responsibilities.
For India, that matters. New Delhi’s relations with Israel are already substantial, especially in defence, agriculture, water, cyber and technology. Its partnership with the UAE brings capital, geography, political access and regional legitimacy. Together, the UAE and Israel form part of a more practical Middle Eastern architecture, one less animated by slogans and more by infrastructure, innovation and resilience.
India has an interest in nurturing that architecture. This does not require abandoning its traditional caution, nor does it mean adopting every Israeli position or treating the Palestinian question as secondary. Indian diplomacy has never been well served by extremes. But it can acknowledge that some partnerships are more capable of shaping the future than others. In today’s Middle East, the UAE and Israel are among those partners.
The Abraham Accords opened one space for this thinking. I2U2, bringing together India, Israel, the UAE and the United States, gave it a more structured form. Its agenda of food security, clean energy, technology and connectivity may sound modest when compared with the language of grand strategy, but it reflects where power is increasingly being built. In this sense, India’s engagement with the UAE and Israel is not merely political. It is developmental, commercial and strategic at once.
At the same time, India cannot and should not reduce its Middle East policy to a single axis. Iran remains a country of consequence for India. Geography alone would make that true. Iran is central to India’s access to Afghanistan and Central Asia, particularly through Chabahar port. It also remains an actor whose choices affect the security of the Gulf, the Red Sea, the Levant and global energy markets.
This is why Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s visit to Delhi, including his meetings with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, deserves attention. The visit did not erase the differences between India and Iran, nor could it. But it confirmed that New Delhi sees value in keeping a serious channel open with Tehran. In a region where crises can escalate quickly, the ability to speak to all sides is not a luxury. It is part of responsible statecraft.
Chabahar remains the most tangible expression of this relationship. For India, it is a connectivity project with strategic implications. For Iran, it is a reminder that its geography still gives it leverage despite sanctions and diplomatic isolation. For both, it is a way of preserving a relationship that has often had to operate under external pressure.
Still, engagement with Iran should not be confused with equivalence. India’s ties with Tehran are necessary, but they are bounded by sanctions, regional tensions and divergent strategic alignments. Its relationship with the UAE is broader and more future-facing. Its relationship with Israel is deeper in security and technology. A mature diplomacy can maintain all three relationships while recognizing that they do not carry the same weight or the same possibilities.
This is the difficult balance India is attempting. It must reassure the Gulf without closing the door to Iran. It must deepen cooperation with Israel without losing room for manoeuvre in the Arab world. It must protect its energy interests without appearing hostage to any single regional actor. It must also show Washington, Europe and its regional partners that India is not merely hedging, but building a coherent presence.
The scale of Indian interests in the region leaves little room for passivity. Millions of Indians live and work in the Gulf. Remittances remain significant. Energy flows pass through vulnerable waters. Indian trade depends on maritime stability from the Arabian Sea to the Red Sea and onward to the Mediterranean. The proposed India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, whatever its present complications, reflects a deeper reality: India’s westward connectivity will depend on its ability to work with the Gulf, Israel and Europe in a sustained manner.
In this context, the UAE is not simply another partner. It is the anchor of India’s emerging West Asian strategy. Israel is a critical accelerator in technology, defence and innovation. Iran remains a necessary channel, especially for connectivity and crisis management. The art of Indian diplomacy will be to keep these relationships in conversation without pretending that they are identical.
This is where Modi’s visit to Abu Dhabi acquires its importance. It showed India engaging the Middle East not as a supplicant for oil, nor as a distant moral commentator, but as a power with interests, partnerships and choices. The region is changing, and India is learning to operate within that change with greater confidence.
A generation ago, India’s Middle East policy was largely defensive. It sought to protect energy supplies, safeguard workers and avoid being drawn into regional conflicts. Those objectives remain important. But they are no longer sufficient. India now has the economic weight, diplomatic reach and strategic necessity to play a more active role.
That role will not be built through rhetoric. It will be built through ports, reserves, cables, defence cooperation, investment platforms, food corridors, technology partnerships and quiet political access. In that architecture, Abu Dhabi occupies a privileged place. Tel Aviv adds capacity. Tehran requires engagement. Europe watches closely. Washington will remain involved. And India, increasingly, is no longer merely navigating the Middle East. It is helping shape the terms on which the region connects to Asia and beyond.
