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Subject: Geo-politics affecting India’s Interest

  • The BRICS Summit allows India to advance its global ambitions

    Why in the News

    India hosts the BRICS Summit at the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, with leaders and representatives of 11 BRICS countries opening deliberations on the future of global governance. Forging a joint statement is never easy at a multilateral conference whose members are themselves parties to ongoing conflicts. The grouping was a five member body at India’s earlier hostings, where managing consensus was easier, and enlargement since 2024 has changed that. The largest share of the host’s difficulty comes from the United States, which has accused the bloc of working against the dollar and has threatened tariffs on every member over its payments agenda. India is at the same time seeking to restore ties with that administration on trade and on its Indo-Pacific strategy, so hosting the bloc risks the relationship the hosting is partly meant to balance.

    Why is consensus harder than at India’s earlier hostings?

    1. The scale of the responsibility: Hosting BRICS is the second time in recent years, after the G-20 Summit in 2023, that India has had to shoulder a major multilateral conference.
    2. The earlier hostings were smaller: India hosted the coalition of emerging economies in 2012, 2016 and virtually in 2021, when it was a grouping of just five major powers.
    3. Who joined: The expansion in 2024 added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and Indonesia was inducted in 2025.
    4. What the enlargement did and did not do: BRICS’ identity has evolved with the new membership. A common focus remains elusive.

    Which conflicts among members block a common text?

    1. Conflicts involving members have multiplied: Global conflicts involving BRICS members have grown alongside the enlargement.
    2. The war involving Iran is the sharpest case: Iran is a victim of the United States and Israeli strikes, and the UAE was attacked by Iran in retaliation. Both are members of the grouping.
    3. Neither will accept a shared account: Iran and the UAE have been unwilling to agree to a common narrative on the problem, which is precisely what a joint statement requires.
    4. India’s own position has divided the grouping: India’s position on Israel came into conflict with other members earlier this year, since the grouping has traditionally taken a much more critical line on Israel’s actions.

    Why does the United States pose the largest problem for the host?

    1. The accusation is about the dollar: The United States President has accused the grouping of plotting to overthrow the United States dollar’s domination of the global economy.
    2. The threatened instrument: He has been threatening tariffs on all members for planning to increase intra-BRICS payments and trade.
    3. What India is attempting in parallel: The government is seeking to restore ties with the United States administration on trade and on its Indo-Pacific strategy.
    4. The risk is not proportionate to the conduct: Hosting BRICS risks invoking American displeasure however irrational that displeasure is, so the host cannot manage the risk simply by adjusting the agenda.

    Why is a grouping that refuses the anti-western label still a counter to the G-7?

    1. The label the bloc rejects: The grouping prefers not to be called anti-western.
    2. What it functions as: It is a powerful counter to the G-7 and to western-led thinking.
    3. The scale behind the counter: BRICS accounts for half the world’s population, two fifths of the global economy and a fourth of global trade.
    4. Its energy position: It includes many of the world’s top energy producers and its biggest consumers, which gives it weight in energy markets that requires no declaration to exercise.
    5. The rise that produced this: BRICS was first conceptualised 25 years ago and convened a summit in 2009, and its countries have risen in global stature and economic heft since, with intra-BRICS trade benefitting.

    What does the presidency deliver for India?

    1. Heft on the global high table: Being part of BRICS gives India more weight in advancing its ambitions in global forums.
    2. Visibility from the chair: The presidency has ensured India prominence on the world stage.
    3. What a successful summit would signal: A presidency that reconciles the grouping’s competing strands would demonstrate the bloc’s capacity to act, and would count as a significant achievement for Indian diplomacy.
    4. The cost side of the same presidency: The prominence comes with exposure, since the host is read abroad as the author of whatever the bloc’s declaration says.

    Challenges to India’s BRICS presidency

    1. Consensus gives every member a veto over the text: A declaration requires all eleven members to agree, so the member with the narrowest interest sets the ceiling on what the document can say. Eg. The bloc’s Rio declaration of 2025 ran to 126 points, which is what accommodating every member’s preferred language produces.
      The Fix: Move contested political language into a chair’s statement issued alongside the declaration, so a single dispute does not shrink the agreed economic text.
    2. Enlargement raised the number of bilateral disputes inside the room: Every admission adds that member’s quarrels to the set the chair must accommodate in one document. Eg. The grouping now contains both Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose diplomatic relations were restored only in 2023.
      The Fix: Publish admission criteria requiring a candidate to hold working diplomatic relations with every existing member, so enlargement does not import an active rupture.
    3. The forum has no secretariat to carry work between summits: BRICS has no treaty and no permanent staff, so each chair rebuilds the agenda and the follow up machinery for a single year. Eg. Ministerial and working group outcomes are recorded in a declaration with no standing body tracking their implementation.
      The Fix: Create a small permanent secretariat funded by member contributions, mandated only to track commitments made in past declarations.
    4. The dollar question is a liability the bloc cannot settle: Members disagree on currency arrangements and the disagreement is read abroad as a shared plan, so the bloc absorbs the cost of a policy it has not adopted. Eg. Tariff threats have been aimed at every member over intra-BRICS payments, including at members that oppose a common currency.
      The Fix: State in the declaration that payment interoperability is a transaction cost measure and that no common currency is under consideration, so the agenda and the accusation are separated on the record.
    5. A chair’s agenda outlives the chairship only if the successor adopts it: A one year presidency sets themes that lapse where the next chair’s priorities differ. Eg. The sustainability agenda India is building on was the centrepiece of Brazil’s chairship the previous year.
      The Fix: Record a three year rolling work programme in the declaration, so an incoming chair inherits commitments rather than restating themes.

    Conclusion

    The presidency’s difficulty is not the agenda but the arithmetic. A grouping of eleven operating by consensus produces the text its least flexible member will accept. India’s gain from the chair is visibility, and visibility is also what attaches the bloc’s positions to the host. The two objectives this summit is being judged against, a document every member can sign and a relationship with Washington that survives it, pull in opposite directions and neither has been given up. What to watch is how the declaration handles the payments question, since that single paragraph is where the summit’s diplomatic cost will be set.

    Back2Basics: how BRICS takes decisions

    1. It is an informal grouping: BRICS has no founding treaty, no charter and no permanent secretariat, so it operates as a coordination forum rather than as an international organisation.
    2. The chair rotates annually: One member holds the chairship for a calendar year, hosts the leaders’ summit and sets the year’s agenda and meeting calendar.
    3. Decisions are taken by consensus: Every outcome document is adopted by agreement among all members, so no member can be outvoted and any member can withhold language.
    4. Outputs are political, not binding: A summit declaration records agreed positions and commitments with no enforcement mechanism, and implementation rests with each member’s own government.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS2, 10 marks] With the waning of globalization, post-Cold War world is becoming a site of sovereign nationalism. Elucidate.”

  • India’s BRICS balancing act

    Why in the News

    India is hosting the two day BRICS summit in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September 2026, and treats the grouping as a hedge against the Western economic order rather than a replacement for it. The United States and the European Union remain India’s largest export market and its largest source of investment. The same dependence has become a source of exposure. The United States imposed steep tariffs on India last year amid disagreements in trade deal negotiations, and India’s sovereign decision to purchase Russian oil during the Ukraine war turned it into a target. Tariffs are only the most visible instrument. Patent rules blocked a developing country waiver on vaccines at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, a widening American sanctions regime has repeatedly halted an Indian port project in Iran, and European environment linked trade measures now act as a barrier to Indian exports. India therefore has to reduce reliance on an order it cannot yet do without.

    Why does India treat BRICS as a hedge and not a replacement?

    1. The bloc’s weight has grown: The BRICS share of global gross domestic product (GDP) grew from 17% to 35% between 1995 and 2024, surpassing the G7’s share.
    2. The West still supplies the markets and the capital: The United States and the European Union continue to be India’s largest export market and its largest source of investments.
    3. Western integration built the services sector: Integration with Western economies aided the growth of India’s service sector, which is where most of the new, well paid jobs have been created.
    4. What the hedge could deliver, and when: Expansion of south-south trade, the geographic concentration of critical minerals in the BRICS region and growth in alternative development finance such as the BRICS bank could support India’s growth. None of this is a counter-balance to the Western economic order today, and it could reduce India’s reliance a decade on.
    5. The stated rationale for the hedge: A former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor argues that India should treat the emerging international financial architecture around BRICS and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a “risk mitigant” and a rational response to an ever-expanding sanctions regime.

    What did the TRIPS waiver refusal reveal about patent control?

    1. What was asked for: In October 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, India and South Africa sought a waiver of certain provisions of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement to help developing nations obtain vaccines and other life saving medicines.
    2. What TRIPS is: TRIPS is an international agreement administered by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that sets minimum standards for protecting intellectual property (IP) in every member country.
    3. Who backed the request: India, South Africa and sixty other developing countries pressed for the waiver.
    4. What happened to it: The developed countries turned the request down.
    5. How the episode is read: A former trade negotiator holds that the failure exposed the danger in an existing patent regime which accords “primacy to patents over patients”.

    How large has the Western sanctions regime become?

    1. The total and the single largest source: A working paper titled ‘Asphyxiation by Sanctions: Harm, Fear and Smog’, written by a former Reserve Bank of India governor, counts 1,325 sanctions imposed globally since 1949, of which 486 were imposed by the United States.
    2. The programmes currently running: The United States currently administers over 30 sanctions programmes, making it responsible for three times as many sanctions as any other country or international body.
    3. When the expansion happened: United States led sanctions jumped in recent decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
    4. The second largest sanctioner: The European Union is the second largest sanctioner after the United States.
    5. Trade and financial sanctions grew most: The paper’s decade wise count records financial sanctions rising from 4 in the 1950s to 327 between 2010 and 2022, and trade sanctions from 21 to 209 across the same span.
    6. Travel, military and arms restrictions followed: Travel sanctions rose from 8 to 205 over the same period, military aid sanctions from 1 to 62, and arms sanctions from 7 to 67, so the spectrum has widened from trade measures to military ones.
    7. The reach now includes the messaging layer: Iran and Russia have been removed from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), the secure global messaging network financial institutions use to transmit payment instructions.
    8. The label the paper applies: The paper calls the United States the “hegemonic sanctioner”.

    What does Chabahar show about sanctions risk to an Indian project?

    1. When it started: India’s plan to develop Chabahar Port in Iran began in 2003.
    2. The first halt: United States sanctions targeting Iran imposed a “hard break” on progress.
    3. The window that opened: The project was revived between 2015 and 2017 after the United States eased sanctions.
    4. The window that closed again: India signed a ten year agreement with Iran to operate and develop the port in 2024, and shortly afterwards the United States again warned of sanctions.
    5. What the sequence shows: The project’s viability tracked United States policy toward a third country rather than the project’s own economics or India’s own decisions.

    Why do BRICS members reject the European Union’s environment linked trade measures?

    1. The measures at issue: The European Union has implemented a range of environment linked trade regimes which act as a barrier to India’s export growth.
    2. The bloc’s stated position: BRICS nations have “condemned and rejected” the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and similar trade curbs, on the ground that they undermine their transition to a cleaner economy.
    3. The reading Indian trade experts give it: Indian trade experts hold that a trade and climate linkage through regulations such as CBAM is less about protecting the environment and more about promoting the interests of the developed world.
    4. The contrast with the tariff instrument: The United States has been explicit in using tariffs to cut imports from developing nations. The European measure arrives instead as an environmental regulation.

    Challenges to India’s BRICS hedge

    1. The grouping grants no market access: BRICS is not a free trade area and issues no tariff preference, so membership cannot substitute for the export markets the hedge is meant to make India less dependent on. Eg. India’s tariff reductions have come through bilateral agreements such as the one being concluded with the European Union, not through the bloc.
      The Fix: Negotiate a BRICS tariff preference on a narrow list of goods members already trade heavily in, so the grouping delivers a measurable trade gain rather than a declaration.
    2. Alternative development finance is too small to displace anything yet: The financing available through BRICS institutions is a fraction of what India raises from Western markets and from the older multilateral banks. Eg. India’s annual external commercial borrowing exceeds its entire cumulative borrowing from the BRICS bank.
      The Fix: Set a share target for BRICS sourced project finance inside the public capital expenditure plan, so the alternative is used rather than only cited.
    3. Mineral concentration is not the same as mineral access: The critical minerals sit inside the BRICS region and their processing capacity sits largely with one member, so geography does not convert into supply security for India. Eg. China accounts for the majority of global rare earth separation and processing capacity.
      The Fix: Tie offtake agreements with Brazil, South Africa and the Gulf members to refining capacity built in India, so the supply arrives in a processable form.
    4. A hedge invites the retaliation it is meant to insure against: Visible participation in the bloc has itself drawn tariff threats, so the insurance carries a premium paid in the very relationship being hedged. Eg. Tariff threats were directed at BRICS members over the grouping’s “un-American” policies.
      The Fix: Keep India’s BRICS agenda on development finance, payments efficiency and supply chains, and off currency displacement, so the hedge is defensible as economic policy rather than as alignment.

    Conclusion

    India’s position is not a choice between two economic orders. It is a dependence on one while building an option on the other. That option is not yet large enough to price, so every instrument the hedge rests on remains smaller than the exposure it is meant to offset. The cost of the hedge is already being paid in the relationship it insures against. What to watch is whether the Delhi declaration commits to anything carrying a number and a date, since a hedge that produces only text leaves the exposure where it was.

    Back2Basics: Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism

    1. What it is: CBAM is a European Union measure that charges an importer for the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in certain imported goods, set against the carbon price a European producer of the same good already pays.
    2. The goods it covers: It applies to cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen, the emission intensive sectors most exposed to import competition.
    3. How it is phased: A transitional phase requiring importers only to report embedded emissions ran from October 2023, and the definitive phase charging for those emissions began in 2026.
    4. India’s stated objection: India treats it as a unilateral trade barrier inconsistent with the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities, since it charges a developing country producer at a developed country’s carbon price.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2019, GS2, 15 marks] “The long-sustained image of India as a leader of the oppressed and marginalised Nations has disappeared on account of its new found role in the emerging global order”. Elaborate.”

  • What the recent trajectory of India-China ties means for the summit

    Why in the News

    The Chinese President arrives in India for the BRICS leaders’ summit, his third visit since assuming the presidency and the first after a gap of seven years. The summit is the stated reason for the trip, and its bilateral weight comes from what the visit interrupts, the border standoff that began in eastern Ladakh in 2020 and marked the low point of the relationship, now in its seventh year. Years of diplomatic and military-level talks produced a disengagement of troops in 2024, and a sequence of normalisation steps has followed, from direct flights to eased visas. The structural disputes behind the standoff are untouched by those steps, and the trade deficit and market access questions sit exactly where they did. That fault line, alongside a turbulent global environment, will shape what the summit can agree.

    What is the record of India-China border standoffs?

    1. The two early conflicts: The 1962 war was followed by border clashes in Sikkim in 1967.
    2. The Ladakh standoffs of the last decade: Major standoffs occurred at Depsang in Ladakh in 2013 and at Chumar in Ladakh in 2014.
    3. Doklam: A standoff at Doklam followed in 2017, in a sector away from Ladakh.
    4. Eastern Ladakh since 2020: The standoff that began in eastern Ladakh in 2020 is still ongoing, with about 50,000 Indian troops deployed along the Line of Actual Control, meaning the undelineated line separating the two sides’ positions.
    5. The casualties of June 2020: The clashes of June 2020 killed 20 Indian defence personnel, including an officer of Colonel rank, and at least four Chinese defence personnel.

    What has changed since the 2024 disengagement?

    1. The talks produced a withdrawal: Years of diplomatic and military-level talks led to a disengagement of troops in 2024, and incremental steps have since been taken to stabilise the relationship.
    2. Connectivity restored: Direct flights between the two countries resumed and visa restrictions were eased.
    3. Pilgrimage resumed: The Kailash Mansarovar Yatra was restarted.
    4. Investment rules relaxed: Restrictions on Chinese investments in India were relaxed.
    5. The visit itself is the signal: Travel to India after a seven year gap is read as a positive signal, and only to a degree.

    What has not changed?

    1. The trade imbalance: A massive trade deficit remains the defining feature of the economic relationship.
    2. Market access runs one way: The lack of market access for Indian businesses in China is frequently flagged as an issue.
    3. Enforcement action continues: India is acting against Chinese firms for tax evasion.
    4. Trust is the deeper casualty: Strategic and political trust has been diminished by a border standoff now in its seventh year.
    5. The Pakistan factor deepened it: Collusion between China and Pakistan during Operation Sindoor further worsened the crisis of trust and credibility.

    How far have the founding economies diverged since BRIC was named?

    1. The origin of the label: Goldman Sachs analysts described India, China, Brazil and Russia as the world’s emerging economies in 2001, and BRIC was born as a grouping in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
    2. China: It has become the second-largest economy in the world after the United States.
    3. India: It has grown at a modest rate and been outpaced by Beijing.
    4. Russia and Brazil: Russia has faced challenges from wars of its own making, and Brazil has floundered amid frequent regime changes and scandals.
    5. South Africa: A later entrant to the grouping, it has not lived up to expectations.
    6. The 2009 turning point: The first BRICS leaders’ summit was held in the shadow of the global financial crisis, and China emerged from that crisis stronger than many Western nations.

    How does China’s assertiveness show up beyond the border?

    1. Military growth follows economic growth: China has grown militarily, with big-power ambitions to dethrone the United States.
    2. Where the posture is visible: Its increasingly aggressive and assertive stance shows in its neighbourhood, in its actions in the South China Sea, in the Indo-Pacific, and on the borders it shares with India.
    3. India absorbs a disproportionate share: India has faced the brunt of border standoffs frequently, and the belligerence of the Chinese state under the current President has been greater than at any time in the recent past.

    Is BRICS an anti-West grouping or a non-Western one?

    1. The two framings are not the same: China and Russia have attempted to frame BRICS as an “anti-West” grouping, and India sees it as a “non-Western” grouping.
    2. India’s position rules out the first: India has built robust ties with the United States over the last 25 years and is courting Europe, Australia, Canada and other Western nations, so it is decidedly not anti-West.
    3. The dependence is stated plainly: India needs the West for access to capital and technology, and as a destination for its people, more than China or Russia do.
    4. Beijing’s self-placement within the bloc: China has viewed itself as the “first among equals” in the grouping, and long supported enlarging it beyond the original five, which produced the 2023 expansion to the present strength of 11 members.
    5. Western action against members complicates the divide: US tariffs on Brazil and political disagreements with South Africa cut across the distinction the members are arguing over.

    What does the convergence against US tariffs actually buy?

    1. The shared exposure: The US President’s arbitrary tariff moves have cornered countries around the world, including China and India, and the two now find themselves on the same side in attempting to counter the effects.
    2. China’s own position has weakened: After years of high economic growth, China has revised its expectations for the near future.
    3. India’s use of the summit: India is hosting the summit partly to signal to the United States that it has other partners in fields ranging from technology to fuel security.
    4. What those partners supply: The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have been investing in the Indian economy, Russia has stepped in as an energy supplier amid the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and Brazil is ready to partner on critical minerals.

    How has the West Asia war split the grouping?

    1. The sovereignty question it raises: The US war on Iran has raised questions about powerful nations violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of others, and both China and Russia are guilty of the same in their own neighbourhoods.
    2. The economic cost is common: Energy prices and inflation have risen, and BRICS countries, as part of the Global South, are bearing the brunt.
    3. Members sit on opposite sides of the same war: Iran is attacking US military bases in West Asia, and the United Arab Emirates hosts several US military bases and personnel.
    4. Why this needs China: Moving those two members towards cooperation and presenting a more unified flank requires Chinese weight alongside India’s hosting role.
    5. The scale of attendance raises the stakes: Leaders of over 30 countries and groupings are attending, so a failure to reconcile positions is visible well beyond the membership.

    Challenges to stabilising India-China ties

    1. The trade deficit is structural, not tariff driven: India’s imports are concentrated in the intermediate and capital goods its own manufacturing runs on, so restricting imports raises domestic costs rather than closing the gap. Eg. Active pharmaceutical ingredients, the chemical inputs a finished medicine is made from, are sourced largely from China even as India exports the finished formulations.
      The Fix: Tie the production incentive schemes for bulk drugs and electronic components to measured reductions in import dependence, with the baseline published.
    2. Disengagement is not de-escalation: Withdrawal from friction points leaves the roads, airfields and habitat built up behind the line in place, so force can return faster than it left. Eg. Both sides have retained the forward infrastructure constructed after 2020.
      The Fix: Negotiate a verifiable de-induction of forces and a written restoration of patrolling norms, rather than treating troop separation as settlement.
    3. There is no agreed line to defend: The Line of Actual Control is not delineated on a map both sides accept, so the same patrol is routine to one side and an incursion to the other. Eg. Each side maintains its own claim line across the Depsang plains.
      The Fix: Task the Special Representatives mechanism with a sector-by-sector exchange of maps, beginning with the sectors where no standoff has occurred.
    4. A third country sets the floor under India’s threat assessment: The military supply and intelligence relationship between China and Pakistan means a bilateral understanding does not reduce the threat India plans against. Eg. Chinese-origin platforms form the bulk of Pakistan’s recent fighter and naval inductions.
      The Fix: Keep the normalisation track and the security track formally separate and say so publicly, so trade and travel measures are not treated as concessions on security.
    5. Economic opening is being restored without reciprocity: Relaxing investment rules restores Chinese capital’s access to India without restoring Indian firms’ access to the Chinese market. Eg. Press Note 3 of 2020 required government approval for investment from countries sharing a land border with India, and its relaxation is not matched by a Chinese commitment.
      The Fix: Make each relaxation sector specific and conditional on a named market access commitment of comparable value.

    Conclusion

    The visit restores high level contact without touching what caused its absence. India and China now share an exposure to US trade measures, and shared exposure produces a common grievance more readily than a common position, since each retains the option of settling separately with Washington. The unresolved tension is that India needs Chinese weight to hold the grouping together on trade and energy, and needs the grouping not to be read as anti-Western, which is the framing Beijing prefers. What to watch is whether the summit declaration carries a joint position on unilateral trade measures, and whether the normalisation sequence extends from travel and pilgrimage to market access, which is the test of whether anything structural has moved.

    Back2Basics: Operation Sindoor

    1. What it was: Indian military strikes in May 2025 on terrorist infrastructure located in Pakistan and in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
    2. What prompted it: It followed the April 2025 attack on tourists at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir.
    3. How it ended: Several days of exchanges across the border were followed by an understanding between the two militaries to stop military action.
    4. Why it appears in an India-China item: Chinese support to Pakistan during those exchanges is cited as having deepened India’s trust deficit with China, separately from the border dispute.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2017, GS2, 10 marks] ‘China is using its economic relations and positive trade surplus as tools to develop potential military power status in Asia’, In the light of this statement, discuss its impact on India as her neighbor.”

  • Bogged down

    Bogged down

    Why in the News

    The tension is that the war’s declared objective and its actual battlefield no longer match, since the fighting now turns entirely on the Strait rather than on the nuclear programme.

    How did the war’s objective shift to the Strait?

    1. The stated aims have been displaced: The central focus of the war today is the Strait of Hormuz, not the nuclear facilities or the political order the campaign was launched to change.
    2. Iran chose the ground and Washington accepted it: Tehran forced the United States to fight over a problem it created rather than pursue Washington’s original objective, which is in itself a strategic victory for Iran.
    3. The chokehold has not been broken: Iran still maintains its control over the waterway, so the single condition the campaign now exists to remove remains in place.

    What has the escalation actually consisted of?

    1. Iran has crossed into attacks on military vessels: This is the first time in months that Iran has targeted United States warships, apparently seeking to break the naval blockade.
    2. The United States has crossed a red line in return: By striking Iranian oil tankers in retaliation, Washington extended the war to commercial shipping under Iranian flag.
    3. Six vessels struck in one round: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s parallel armed force reporting to the Supreme Leader, announced that it had struck six vessels in the Gulf, three tankers and three United States-linked ships, in retaliation for the American attacks on oil tankers, and vowed to expand strikes against United States ships.
    4. The exchange has spread to land targets: The return to American strikes triggered Iranian attacks on United States bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan.

    Why has economic warfare not changed Iran’s position?

    1. The policy shifted from strikes to pressure and then back: The United States President moved the focus of Iran policy to economic warfare last month, announcing new sanctions and tightening the United States Navy’s blockade of Iran’s ports. Unable to find a way out, Washington returned to strikes.
    2. The workaround was matched: The United States managed to get some oil tankers through the Strait via a southern route along the Omani coast, and Iran continued to target vessels taking that route.
    3. Economic pain has raised Iran’s risk appetite rather than lowered it: Iran has emerged more assertive despite its economic difficulties, and the more Washington seeks to trap it in an economic gridlock, the less risk-averse Tehran becomes.

    What does the absence of a theory of victory mean?

    1. Neither instrument has produced a change of position: Neither the military effort nor the economic warfare has forced Iran to alter its stance, and the Strait remains unsafe while the toll on the global economy mounts.
    2. Attrition has replaced strategy: The administration is ‘mowing the lawn’, a doctrine taken from the Israeli playbook that seeks to periodically degrade an adversary’s attack capability without attempting to defeat it.
    3. Iran is running its own attrition strategy: Tehran pursues ‘debasification’, pushing United States military presence away from its immediate periphery each time it retaliates.
    4. Both sides are chasing an outcome neither can reach: Each seeks escalation dominance, the ability to raise the level of force to a point the other cannot match, and the war therefore risks spiralling out of control.

    Challenges to reviving a negotiated framework

    1. The declared aim of regime change is incompatible with a negotiated outcome: No government negotiates the terms of its own removal, so the objective and the talks track cancel each other out. Eg. The talks channel collapsed within months of being opened while the military campaign continued.
      The Fix: Separate the nuclear file from the political objective and negotiate only the first, as the 2015 nuclear agreement did.
    2. Verification capacity has been destroyed along with the facilities: Strikes on nuclear sites remove the baseline against which any future inspection regime would measure compliance. Eg. Access for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors has been the recurring breaking point since the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was agreed in 2015.
      The Fix: Restore inspector access as the first deliverable of any revived framework, before sanctions relief is discussed.
    3. American commitments carry a credibility discount: A negotiated framework abandoned once is harder to sell domestically in Tehran the second time. Eg. The United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018 despite Iranian compliance being certified.
      The Fix: Anchor any revived understanding in a United Nations Security Council resolution rather than in an executive arrangement that a change of administration can reverse.
    4. A pause that leaves the blockade in place gives Iran no reason to stop: Iran’s attacks on shipping are its only instrument against the economic siege, so a ceasefire on attacks alone asks it to surrender the leverage. Eg. Iranian targeting of the southern route began after the blockade of its ports was tightened.
      The Fix: Pair a halt to attacks on shipping with a defined easing of the port blockade, so each side gives up an instrument simultaneously.
    5. The costs land on third-party importers with no say in the war: Energy importers absorb the freight, insurance and price consequences of an unsafe Strait without being party to the dispute. Eg. India draws a large share of its crude oil imports from West Asian suppliers whose cargoes transit the Strait.
      The Fix: Convene the major Asian importers as a bloc to press both sides on the narrow question of shipping safety, separately from the nuclear dispute.

    Conclusion

    Six months of strikes and sanctions have moved neither Iran’s position nor the safety of the waterway. The war has produced an unresolved tension rather than a stalemate that can simply be held: the party with overwhelming military superiority cannot convert it into an outcome, and the party under economic siege grows less cautious the tighter the siege becomes. The talks track collapsed once and remains the only route either side has actually attempted, which is why its revival, rather than the next round of retaliation, is the development to watch.

    Back2Basics

    1. Strait of Hormuz: The sea passage connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, and the only maritime outlet for oil exported from the Gulf producers.
    2. Geography: It is about 33 km wide at its narrowest point, with inbound and outbound shipping lanes only a few kilometres wide, bounded by Iran on the northern shore and by Oman and the United Arab Emirates on the southern shore.
    3. Why it is a chokepoint: Roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil moves through it, and there is no alternative sea route out of the Gulf, so a threat to the lane transmits directly into global crude prices.
    4. Bypass capacity: Pipelines run by Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea and by the United Arab Emirates to Fujairah can carry only a fraction of the volume that normally transits the Strait.

    [2018, GS2, 15 marks] In what ways would the ongoing US-Iran Nuclear Pact Controversy affect the national interest of India? How should India respond to this situation?

  • Moscow-Kyiv to Delhi, connect the dots

    Moscow-Kyiv to Delhi, connect the dots

    Why in the News

    India has stepped up its diplomatic engagement on the Russia-Ukraine war, holding senior-level meetings in both Moscow and Kyiv. The engagement follows an American track that has produced contact without a settlement. Negotiators for the United States President met the Russian President over the weekend, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) travelled secretly to Moscow two weeks earlier to press the Kremlin to cut a deal. Neither belligerent has changed position on the ground, since each of the two great powers supplies the other’s adversary in a separate conflict. The tension is that India now holds access to both capitals at a moment when the mediator with actual leverage is stretched across two theatres.

    What access has India actually acquired?

    1. A meeting at the level of the Russian presidency: The External Affairs Minister met the Russian President directly rather than through the standing bilateral machinery.
    2. The war raised at a multilateral summit: The Prime Minister took up the war with the Russian President at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, urging an end to it “for humanity’s sake”.
    3. A reciprocal opening in Kyiv: The External Affairs Minister travelled to Kyiv. The Ukrainian President thanked India for its “commitment to ending this unjust war”.

    Why has the American track not converted contact into a settlement?

    1. The intelligence channel has been reopened at the top: The last known visit to Russia by a serving CIA Director was nearly five years ago, made to warn the Kremlin that Washington knew of its plans to invade Ukraine. That deterrence effort failed, and the present visit was reportedly aimed at persuading Moscow to cut a deal.
    2. A reset announced more than a year ago has changed nothing: The two governments have talked since their summit at Anchorage and remain on opposing sides of two active conflicts.
    3. Each power arms the other’s adversary: The United States supplies Ukraine with intelligence to strike targets inside Russia. Russia does the same for Iran in the Gulf.

    What does the conduct of the war show about its direction?

    1. Neither side will back down under escalation: Russia has intensified drone and missile strikes on Ukraine. Ukraine has relentlessly targeted Russian energy infrastructure.
    2. The damage has reached Russian domestic supply: The disruption has been severe enough for Moscow to turn to India for petrol imports, and restrictions on fuel sales have been imposed across Russia.
    3. The war is leaking into third countries: A series of suspected acts of sabotage across Europe is being investigated for possible links to Russia. Any loss of life on European soil raises the risk of the conflict spilling further into the continent.

    What would a realistic first step look like?

    1. A ceasefire basis before a settlement: The immediate requirement is to bring Moscow and Kyiv back to the table and establish a basis for a ceasefire, rather than to open with terms neither will accept.
    2. A narrow opening ask rather than a comprehensive one: Protection of energy and civilian infrastructure, along with commercial shipping lanes in the Black Sea, is available as a first step because it serves both belligerents’ own interests.
    3. A collective call rather than an Indian one: New Delhi can use the BRICS summit it hosts, with the Russian and Chinese Presidents expected to attend, to build a collective call for confidence-building measures instead of a solitary appeal.

    Challenges to an Indian mediation role

    1. India is an interested party in the war’s economics: Discounted Russian crude has made Russia India’s largest oil supplier since 2022, so any Indian proposal is read in Kyiv and Brussels through the trade relationship. Eg. Moscow’s turn to India for refined petrol deepens the same commercial dependence.
      The Fix: Separate the commercial track from the diplomatic one by routing the peace effort through a designated special envoy rather than through the ministries that handle energy trade.
    2. No leverage exists over the party financing Ukraine’s defence: The war’s outcome turns on American intelligence and weapons supply, and India holds no instrument that touches that flow. Eg. Strike intelligence for targets inside Russia is supplied by Washington, not by any BRICS member.
      The Fix: Aim at a humanitarian and infrastructure truce that neither capital needs American consent to accept, rather than at a comprehensive settlement.
    3. BRICS is not a conflict-resolution forum: The grouping has no mediation machinery, no secretariat with a political mandate and no record of brokering a ceasefire. Eg. It issued no collective position when the war began in 2022.
      The Fix: Seek a narrow chair’s statement on infrastructure and shipping protection rather than a group position on the war itself.
    4. Both belligerents currently believe escalation still pays: A mediator arrives with nothing to offer when neither side has reached the point of exhaustion. Eg. Ukraine’s strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and Russia’s intensified missile campaign both increased through the current phase.
      The Fix: Hold an offer of monitoring and verification capacity in reserve, so India has something concrete to supply once a pause becomes attractive to both.
    5. India’s own track record is regional, not extra-regional: New Delhi has not brokered a ceasefire between two states outside its immediate neighbourhood, so its convening power rests on access rather than on precedent. Eg. Its wartime role so far has been the delivery of humanitarian consignments and the evacuation of students.
      The Fix: Build the role incrementally through technical facilitation, beginning with grain, nuclear-plant safety and prisoner exchange files.

    Conclusion

    Access to both capitals is a diplomatic asset that decays if it is not converted into a specific ask. The two governments that can end the war are simultaneously arming opposite sides of a second one, which is the ceiling any external mediator runs into. The concrete thing to watch is the BRICS summit in New Delhi from 11 to 13 September, and specifically whether its outcome document names infrastructure and shipping protection at all.

    Back2Basics

    1. Confidence-building measures: Reciprocal steps taken by adversaries to reduce the risk of accidental escalation and to make each side’s intentions readable, adopted without either side conceding its political position.
    2. Typical forms: Advance notification of military exercises, hotlines between commands, limits on deployments in a defined zone, and agreed exclusions of a category of target from attack.
    3. Why they precede a ceasefire: They require no agreement on the disputed issue itself, so they can be adopted while the war’s causes remain unresolved.
    4. Precedent in this war: The Black Sea Grain Initiative of 2022 allowed Ukrainian grain exports to resume under an inspection arrangement without either belligerent altering its war aims.

    [2019, GS2, 15 marks] “The long-sustained image of India as a leader of the oppressed and marginalised Nations has disappeared on account of its new found role in the emerging global order”. Elaborate.”

  • The Gulf is calling and New Delhi must listen

    The Gulf is calling and New Delhi must listen

    Why in the News

    Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan have entered a collective defence arrangement, the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, at India’s western maritime doorstep. The agreement follows an American retreat into an unpredictable “selective engagement” posture, which has opened a security vacuum that regional states are now filling with new partners. India’s West Asia policy was built for the opposite condition. The United States guaranteed regional security and kept sea lines of communication open, so India could hedge between Riyadh, Tehran, Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi without accepting security obligations to any of them. That posture, called multi alignment, bought influence while the region wanted markets, labour and capital. The region now wants security guarantees, and India has none on offer.

    What is the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement?

    1. Three capabilities in one arrangement: It links Gulf capital to Turkish defence technology and to Pakistani military manpower and skill, inside a collective defence framework.
    2. It is framed as defensive: The pact is presented as a way of managing shared vulnerabilities among its members rather than as a bloc aimed at any particular state.
    3. Its significance is structural: It signals that West Asia’s security framework is being rewritten, and that the rewriting is being done by actors whose strategic interests run counter to India’s long term objectives.

    What did India’s multi alignment rest on?

    1. The region was read as an economic hinterland: West Asia was treated as a critical source of crude oil, a reliable destination for outbound labour and a vital conduit for remittances.
    2. Hedging was the default in a crisis: India balanced relations between competing power centres and declined security obligations to any single capital.
    3. The framing was macroeconomic: The region’s geography, oil and gas reserves, capital accumulation and appetite for imported labour and skills positioned it as the bridge between a debt burdened West and a rising Asia.
    4. Distance was itself the asset: Being friendly to all without being too friendly to any was the point of the policy, since an obligation to one power centre would have cost access to another.

    What has changed in the region’s security market?

    1. Distancing has lost its value: West Asian capitals no longer treat non alignment or multi alignment as a virtue, and are actively seeking dependable security partners.
    2. Diplomatic and commercial offers no longer buy influence: What is sought is naval patrols, intelligence sharing, defence industrial collaboration and credible counter terrorism capability, not platitudes and routine economic cooperation.
    3. The vacuum is filled by whoever arrives first: Türkiye has already converted the opening into a treaty commitment, and regional security arrangements will coalesce with or without Indian participation.
    4. The exposure is concrete: Hostile regional pacts and the growing influence of external powers bear directly on India’s trade routes, its energy security and the welfare of millions of Indian citizens in the Gulf.

    Why does economic infrastructure not buy security?

    1. Low cost weapons defeat capital intensive assets: The eruption of hostilities involving Iran showed that state of the art port facilities, energy networks and logistics corridors remain vulnerable to low cost drones in grey zone, asymmetric warfare, meaning attacks kept below the threshold of declared war and carried out by deniable or irregular means.
    2. A secure enclave is not secure: Hyper secure economic zones stay exposed to spillover from the instability around them, because the perimeter is not where the risk originates.
    3. The Gulf model is hostage to perception: The economy runs on foreign corporations and expatriate labour, so talent and capital exit as rapidly as they arrived once security risk crosses a psychological threshold.
    4. A corridor is only as strong as its worst link: Disruption at a narrow naval chokepoint or along an overland route stalls the whole supply chain, whatever the quality of the infrastructure at either end.

    What hard moves are available to India?

    1. Build presence at the chokepoints: The named priorities are the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman, the Gulf of Aden, the waters off the Somali coast and the Bab el-Mandeb.
    2. Convert presence into standing arrangements: Joint maritime patrols, permanent logistics access arrangements and interoperable surveillance networks with friendly Gulf states are what turn deployments into a net security provider role.
    3. Sell capability rather than only buying it: India’s defence manufacturing base can offer West Asian states an alternative source of hardware and technology, with collaborative ventures, exercises carrying real operational content and deep intelligence sharing replacing procurement discussions.
    4. Use minilaterals rather than alliances: Security frameworks with the United Arab Emirates or Israel, and separately with Saudi Arabia, build a counterweight against hostile axes without the rigidity of a Cold War style alliance.

    Challenges to an Indian security role in West Asia

    1. India holds no base of its own in the region: Sustained naval presence at several chokepoints needs repair, replenishment and crew rotation ashore, which an access agreement does not guarantee during a crisis. Eg. India’s logistics in the western Indian Ocean rest on access to Port Duqm in Oman rather than on infrastructure it controls.
      The Fix: Convert existing access arrangements into pre stocked logistics hubs with agreed wartime access clauses, so replenishment does not turn on a host government’s decision mid conflict.
    2. A Gulf security partnership collides with the Iran relationship: Deeper security alignment with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi narrows the space for India’s connectivity investments in Iran. Eg. The Chabahar port project has already run into payment and equipment difficulties because of exposure to United States sanctions.
      The Fix: Keep the maritime role functional rather than political, built around freedom of navigation and anti piracy tasks from which Iran also benefits.
    3. Pakistan’s institutional depth in Gulf security cannot be matched quickly: Decades of troop deployments, training missions and personnel exchanges give it standing that a new partner cannot replicate through joint exercises. Eg. Pakistani personnel have served in Saudi Arabian training and internal security roles across successive decades.
      The Fix: Compete where the incumbent is weak, in maritime domain awareness, satellite surveillance and cyber defence, rather than in ground manpower.
    4. The defence export base is small relative to the offer: Supplying a serious regional partner requires sustained production, spares and lifecycle support, which the Indian ecosystem has demonstrated in a narrow band of systems. Eg. India’s defence exports remain concentrated in components, subsystems and a small number of complete platforms.
      The Fix: Anchor offers to systems with a proven service record and a committed spares chain, instead of promising a full spectrum supplier relationship the industrial base cannot yet sustain.
    5. A guarantor role imports the region’s own quarrels: Standing commitments make India a party to disputes among partners who are themselves in conflict with each other. Eg. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates backed rival factions in Yemen while both are named as prospective Indian partners.
      The Fix: Restrict commitments to maritime and counter terrorism tasks with defined geographic limits, excluding participation in intra regional ground conflicts.

    Conclusion

    The currency of influence in West Asia has changed from investment to protection, and India’s instruments were built for the older one. Trade volume and a large resident population do not translate into a seat in a security arrangement, which is what the region is now assembling. The marker to watch is whether the Mecca arrangement acquires operational content, meaning a joint command, basing rights or a published exercise calendar, since that is the point at which a signed pact becomes a standing capability. India’s answer will register in the same currency or it will not register at all.

    India and West Asia

    1. The policy has a named progression: A pro Arab, Non Aligned Movement era stance gave way to full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992, a “Look West” policy in 2005 centred on the Gulf Cooperation Council, and a “Think West” approach from 2014 that added maritime security, counter terrorism and investment to oil and diaspora.
    2. Energy is the base of the relationship: The region supplies nearly 60 percent of India’s crude oil and about 70 percent of its liquefied petroleum gas and liquefied natural gas requirements.
    3. The Gulf is India’s largest trading bloc: India-GCC bilateral trade stood at $178 billion in FY 2024-25, making the Gulf Cooperation Council India’s largest trading partner bloc.
    4. The human link is the largest anywhere: About 10 million Indians live and work in West Asia, and the region contributes roughly 38 percent of India’s global remittances.

    Government Initiatives and Frameworks for India-West Asia Relations

    1. I2U2: A grouping of India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, working on joint projects in food and energy security.
    2. India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC): A rail and shipping corridor intended to link India to Europe through the Gulf, bypassing the Suez route.
    3. India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA): A bilateral trade agreement that removed tariffs across most trade lines and deepened investment flows between the two countries.
    4. Chabahar port agreement: A ten year contract signed in 2024 to operate the Shahid Beheshti terminal in Iran, giving India a land and sea route to Afghanistan and Central Asia that avoids Pakistan.

    Challenges in India’s West Asia Engagement

    1. Energy import concentration: A large share of India’s crude and gas comes from a single region whose export routes run through two narrow straits. Eg. Qatar supplies roughly 40 percent of India’s liquefied natural gas imports.
      The Fix: Expand long term contracts with West African, American and Australian suppliers, so no single region carries a majority of the import basket.
    2. Remittance dependence at the State level: Household incomes and State finances in parts of India rest on Gulf transfers that fall the moment the regional economy contracts. Eg. Kerala reported roughly a 20 percent decline in monthly Gulf inflows during the 2026 crisis.
      The Fix: Widen the destination mix for emigrant workers through skill mobility agreements with Japan, Germany and Australia, so remittance flows are not tied to one region’s business cycle.
    3. Fertiliser and food input exposure: Gulf sourced urea and phosphate underpin Indian crop cycles, so a shipping disruption reaches the farm within a season. Eg. Long term potash and phosphate supplies from Jordan and Oman are central to India’s fertiliser availability.
      The Fix: Hold buffer stocks timed to the Rabi and Kharif input calendars, and widen phosphate sourcing towards Morocco, so one corridor’s closure does not hit a sowing season.

    [2018, GS2, 15 marks] In what ways would the ongoing US-Iran Nuclear Pact Controversy affect the national interest of India? How should India respond to this situation?”

  • Rajnath releases new framework for defence diplomacy

    Rajnath releases new framework for defence diplomacy

    Why in the News

    The Defence Minister has released Raksha, a strategic framework setting out India’s road map for defence diplomacy and global defence partnerships over the next ten years.

    Pillars of the Raksha framework

    1. Bilateral and multilateral defence partnerships: Deepening defence relationships with individual states and within groupings is the first stated pillar.
    2. Joint military exercises: The framework provides for expanding the scale and range of joint exercises with partner forces.
    3. Capacity building with friendly countries: Training and capability assistance to partner militaries is treated as a distinct instrument rather than a by-product of exercises.
    4. Indigenous defence exports and maritime security: Promoting exports of indigenously developed systems under Make in India, and strengthening maritime security, complete the set of pillars.

    How does the framework use defence exports as a diplomatic instrument?

    1. The industrial objective is tied to the diplomatic one: Export promotion is placed inside a diplomacy document, so a sale is treated as a partnership rather than as a transaction.
    2. The positioning sought: The framework seeks to establish India as a reliable global defence manufacturing partner.
    3. The route named: International cooperation is to be expanded around indigenously developed defence technologies, rather than around licensed or assembled platforms.

    What does the net security provider role commit India to?

    1. A first responder duty: The framework places India as a net security provider and first responder in the Indian Ocean Region, which requires capacity to act before a partner state formally requests help.
    2. A stated regional commitment: The road map records a commitment to ensuring peace, stability and security across the region.
    3. Maritime security as the operating theatre: The Indian Ocean Region framing makes the maritime domain the principal arena in which the other pillars are exercised.
    4. A decade long planning horizon: A ten year design replaces case by case engagement, which changes what can be promised to a partner and over what period.

    Challenges to India’s defence diplomacy

    1. Exports remain concentrated in low value items: Much of India’s defence export value is components and subsystems supplied to foreign manufacturers rather than complete platforms. Eg. Aerostructures, forgings and subsystems account for a substantial share of the export figure India reports each year.
      The Fix: Set platform level export targets by category in the framework’s review, reported separately from the aggregate value.
    2. Capacity building commitments outrun training capacity: Offering training slots to partner militaries requires physical capacity at Indian institutions, which is finite and allotted well in advance. Eg. Foreign officer vacancies at Indian staff and war colleges are limited and booked years ahead.
      The Fix: Fund dedicated foreign trainee capacity at named institutions inside the framework, rather than from existing service training budgets.
    3. First responder assets are committed elsewhere: The same ships and aircraft carry out relief, escort and patrol tasking in overlapping waters. Eg. Naval units deployed for anti piracy escort in the western Indian Ocean are the units nearest to most regional relief tasks.
      The Fix: Ring fence a standing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief task group with pre positioned stores in the region.
    4. Export promotion collides with partner sensitivities: A sale to one regional state can strain relations with its rival, which turns a commercial decision into a political one. Eg. India’s supply of BrahMos missiles to the Philippines drew objections from China.
      The Fix: Publish a case by case political clearance process for defence exports, so industry can price the risk of refusal before bidding.
    5. A framework document carries no reporting duty: A ten year horizon with no interim review point cannot be tested against performance at any stage before it ends. Eg. The document states pillars without naming an annual reporting mechanism against them.
      The Fix: Fix a mandatory annual report against each pillar, carrying indicators for exercises held, officers trained and export value.

    Conclusion

    Defence diplomacy has been run through individual visits, exercises and agreements decided one at a time. A published decade long framework changes the planning horizon and states the objective, and it does not by itself create an institution to execute it. The marker to watch is whether the framework acquires a named owner and an annual review reporting against each pillar, or remains a statement of direction.

    Back2Basics: Net security provider

    1. What the term means: A state that supplies security to others in its region, rather than only securing itself, through presence, capability and assistance extended to partner states.
    2. How India uses it: The formulation entered Indian strategic vocabulary around 2009 and is applied to the Indian Ocean Region, where India’s navy is the largest resident force.
    3. What it involves in practice: Anti piracy patrols, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, evacuation of nationals, hydrographic survey support and maritime domain awareness shared with partner states.
    4. The policy vehicles: The Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) vision, the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, and coastal radar chains built for partner countries.

    [2025, GS3, 15 marks] Why is maritime security vital to protect India’s sea trade? Discuss maritime and coastal security challenges and the way forward.”

  • [3rd September 2026] The Hindu OpED: Reducing India’s exposure to U.S. tariff risks

    [3rd September 2026] The Hindu OpED: Reducing India’s exposure to U.S. tariff risks

    Question (2025 – GS2): “Energy security constitutes the dominant kingpin of India’s foreign policy, and is linked with India’s overarching influence in Middle Eastern countries.” How would you integrate energy security with India’s foreign policy trajectories in the coming years?
    Linkage: This question directly addresses the concept of energy security as a “kingpin” of foreign policy. The U.S. sanctions act forces India to navigate its sovereign energy import strategy (specifically from Russia) while attempting to shield its vital foreign policy trajectories and trade arrangements with Western partners from massive tariff penalties.

    Mentor comment

    The U.S. Senate has passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, authorising tariffs of up to 100% on countries among the top five importers of Russian crude or gas. Combined with existing forced-labour tariffs, India’s cumulative U.S. tariff exposure could reach 110%. The Act exposes a conflict between India’s energy security strategy and its trade relationship with the United States.

    Why has Russian crude become a trade exposure rather than an energy choice?

    1. Diversification of supply produced concentration of risk: India moved towards Russian crude to reduce its import bill and gain room to manoeuvre amid global uncertainty, and that single decision now determines its tariff status in an unrelated market.
    2. The volumes are still rising: Imports nearly doubled within 2026, from 4.54 million metric tonnes (MMT) in January to 8.96 MMT in May.
    3. The cost is diplomatic before it is fiscal: Securing the supply has complicated the management of ties with the United States, which seeks to discourage these purchases, and the Russia sanctions legislation is the formal expression of that pressure.

    How does India’s cumulative tariff reach 110 per cent?

    1. A tariff was already imposed before this Bill: The United States applied forced labour tariffs on 60 countries, including India, under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, adding a 10% tariff on India in place of an expired 10% duty levied under Section 122.
    2. The sanctions provision stacks on top: If the Russia sanctions legislation becomes law, the additional 100% authorisation takes India’s cumulative tariff to 110%, among the highest applied to any country.
    3. The comparator is also India’s competitor: China’s cumulative tariff would reach 112.5%, since both countries are major importers of Russian crude, so relative price competitiveness in the United States market shifts less than the absolute number suggests.

    What does a tariff confrontation cost the Indian economy?

    1. The method: Two global trade simulations were run using the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) dataset and model, a general equilibrium framework that traces how a tariff shock in one market propagates through production, demand and trade flows in every other.
    2. The sanction scenario: Modelling a 110% United States tariff on India, with other countries facing forced labour tariffs and China facing 112.5%, India’s welfare declines by nearly $47 billion, and gross domestic product, output, domestic demand, exports and imports all contract.
    3. The trade contraction is the largest single effect: Aggregate exports fall by 5.1% and imports by 5.2%, reflecting disrupted trade flows and weaker economic activity. A prolonged tariff confrontation imposes substantial costs on India’s growth and trade performance.

    Does export diversification offset the shock?

    1. The second scenario changes only the destination mix: The same tariff environment was modelled alongside export diversification, proxied by a full India-European Union free trade agreement.
    2. The direction of the result reverses: Welfare improves by $26.3 billion, gross domestic product turns positive, and sectoral output and domestic demand recover by around 1%.
    3. Trade integration replaces the lost market: Aggregate exports rise by 3.1% and imports by a moderate 2.6%, indicating stronger production and deeper integration with alternative markets.
    4. The policy implication is separable from the oil question: Even if India continues procuring Russian crude for energy security, the adverse effects of the tariffs are mitigated to a large extent by diversifying where it exports.

    Why is diversification not a sufficient answer on its own?

    1. It depends on demand India does not control: Diversification works only to the extent that other markets can absorb additional Indian exports, and without adequate external demand it remains limited on paper.
    2. The United States cannot be written off: It remains one of India’s largest export destinations, so diversification is an addition to that market rather than a replacement for it.
    3. Domestic constraints cap the gain: Trade facilitation delays, non tariff barriers, weak logistics and standards, and a product mix concentrated in lower value goods all limit how much of a new market India can actually capture.

    Challenges to export diversification as a response to tariff risk

    1. A free trade agreement is not the same as realised exports: Tariff concessions deliver nothing where Indian exporters cannot meet the destination market’s standards and compliance requirements. Eg. Indian shrimp and spice consignments have faced repeated European Union border rejections over antibiotic and pesticide residue limits.
      The Fix: Fund accredited testing and certification laboratories at export clusters, so conformity assessment happens before shipment rather than at the importing port.
    2. Rules of origin can neutralise a preference: A partner country can grant duty free access and still block goods that use imported inputs beyond a stated value addition threshold. Eg. Indian electronics assembly relies heavily on imported components, which restricts qualification under strict origin rules.
      The Fix: Negotiate cumulation provisions that count inputs sourced from other partner economies towards the value addition requirement.
    3. Logistics cost erodes the tariff advantage: Higher freight and dwell times offset the duty saved when the alternative market is farther away than the one being replaced. Eg. Container dwell time and inland haulage costs remain a recognised drag on the delivered price of Indian goods.
      The Fix: Sequence dedicated freight corridor and port connectivity completion against the entry into force dates of the trade agreements being signed.
    4. Concentration simply moves rather than disappears: Replacing dependence on one large market with dependence on one large agreement reproduces the same vulnerability under a different flag. Eg. The exposure being addressed here arose precisely because a single destination carried a disproportionate share of Indian exports.
      The Fix: Set a ceiling share for any single destination in the export promotion strategy, and target Africa, Latin America and West Asia alongside the European Union.

    Conclusion

    The finding that matters here is that the loss is a function of market concentration rather than of the tariff itself. That reframes the policy problem: the question is not how to make the tariff go away, but how to make the destination mix wide enough that a tariff in any one market cannot set the direction of the whole economy. Trade agreements deliver that only when the supply side can use them, which means testing and certification capacity, faster clearance, and movement up the goods quality ladder have to be built before the agreements enter into force rather than after. The measure of success is not the number of agreements signed but the share of exports the largest single destination accounts for.

    About India-United States Trade and Investment Ties

    1. Scale of the relationship: Bilateral trade between the two countries stood at $149.84 billion in 2025-26.
    2. India runs a surplus, and it is narrowing: India’s trade surplus with the United States narrowed to $34.4 billion in 2025-26 from $40.89 billion in the previous financial year.
    3. Investment flows both ways: The United States is the third largest investor in India, with cumulative foreign direct investment inflows of $70.65 billion between 2000 and 2025.
    4. Indian capital in the United States: About 163 Indian companies operating there have created over $40 billion in tangible investments.

    Challenges in India-United States Relations

    1. Preferential access has already been withdrawn once: Trade concessions granted unilaterally can be revoked without negotiation, which makes them an unreliable base for export planning. Eg. The United States revoked India’s benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences in 2019, citing a lack of equitable access.
      The Fix: Convert the interim trade arrangement into a binding bilateral trade agreement, so market access rests on treaty commitment rather than on unilateral grant.
    2. Digital and data rules pull in opposite directions: Indian data localisation requirements conflict with the operating models of United States technology firms. Eg. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and its rules govern cross border transfer of personal data on terms those firms have contested.
      The Fix: Negotiate an adequacy style mutual recognition arrangement covering data transfer, so compliance is assessed once rather than jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
    3. Intellectual property standards remain contested: India is placed on the United States Priority Watch List for what is described as weak patent protection in pharmaceuticals. Eg. The dispute centres on Section 3(d) of the Patents Act, 1970, which bars patents on new forms of known substances without enhanced efficacy.
      The Fix: Run a standing bilateral working group on patent examination practice, so the disagreement is litigated technically rather than through annual watch list designations.
    4. Mobility restrictions hit India’s largest services export: Immigration and visa restrictions raise the cost of the delivery model on which Indian information technology services depend. Eg. A $100,000 fee on H-1B petitions materially changes the economics of onsite deployment.
      The Fix: Conclude a social security totalisation agreement and push services mobility commitments into the trade negotiation rather than treating them as an immigration matter.

    Back2Basics: Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974

    1. What it is: A provision of United States trade law that allows the United States Trade Representative to act against a foreign country’s acts, policies or practices that are found to be unjustifiable or unreasonable and to burden United States commerce.
    2. What action it permits: It authorises retaliatory measures, including additional duties on imports from the country concerned, without requiring a prior finding by any multilateral body.
    3. Why it is contentious: Unilateral retaliation under it sits uneasily with the World Trade Organization dispute settlement system, which requires disputes to be adjudicated before countermeasures are applied.
    4. How India has encountered it: India has been the subject of Section 301 action before, including the investigation into its equalisation levy on digital services.

  • To Zohran Mamdani: The RSS chief you may not know

    Why in the News

    A senior advocate who served as one of three mediators in the Ayodhya-Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute has written an open letter responding to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s criticism of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, recounting Bhagwat’s role in restraining celebration after the 2019 Ayodhya settlement and in the later Gyanvapi mosque controversy in Varanasi. The piece sets Bhagwat’s public restraint against a moment when the judiciary itself, rather than the RSS, departed from the settled position on the Places of Worship Act, 1991.

    What role did Bhagwat play around the Ayodhya settlement?

    1. Restraint after the 2019 verdict: Bhagwat insisted there should be no celebration or jubilation over the Ayodhya outcome, since this would be provocative to the other side, and the moment passed largely without triggering wider unrest.
    2. A stated limit on the RSS’s claims: Bhagwat said the RSS’s interest was confined to the Ram Mandir and that it was not seeking to reclaim any other place of worship, a statement the writer says helped temper the Vishva Hindu Parishad’s publicly stated list of other disputed mosques.

    What happened in the Gyanvapi case, and how did Bhagwat respond?

    1. A departure from precedent in the Gyanvapi ruling: Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, then a puisne judge who had earlier delivered part of the Ayodhya judgment, remarked in the Gyanvapi case that it remained open to the court to examine whether the site was a mosque or a temple, a position the writer characterises as a departure from the Ayodhya judgment’s own reasoning on the Places of Worship Act.
    2. Bhagwat’s public intervention: Bhagwat responded the following day by saying “one cannot go looking for shivlings in every mosque,” a statement the writer frames as running counter to the direction the Court’s own remark had opened up.

    Conclusion

    The writer argues that Bhagwat’s recorded public positions, restraint after Ayodhya and the remark against searching for shivlings in every mosque, reflect a stated commitment to inter-community harmony that Mamdani’s criticism of the RSS chief does not account for, and proposes that the two meet and talk during Bhagwat’s visit to the United States.

    What is the Places of Worship Act, 1991?

    1. Statutory freeze on religious character: The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 mandates that the religious character of every place of worship, as it existed on 15 August 1947, be maintained and prohibits its conversion, with the Ayodhya dispute exempted as a case already in litigation when the law was enacted.
    2. Held to embody a Basic Structure value: In the Ayodhya judgment, the Supreme Court held that the Act embodies the constitutional values of secularism and is part of the Basic Structure of the Constitution.

  • The Mecca pact is for joint defence. Against whom?

    Why in the News

    Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have signed a Joint Defence Agreement, referred to in this analysis as the “Mecca pact,” carrying a mutual-defence clause compared to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, under which an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. The comparison to Article 5 raises the immediate question the headline poses, against which threat the pact is actually directed, with Houthi forces, Iran, and Israel named as the candidate threats it is read against. The pact’s timing also intersects with a separate memorandum of understanding on the Iran nuclear deal, adding a second thread India has to track alongside the pact itself.

    What does the Joint Defence Agreement commit its signatories to?

    1. A mutual-defence clause modelled on collective-security logic: The agreement’s central provision commits Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan to treat an attack on any one signatory as an attack on all three, the same collective-defence logic that underlies Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the military alliance built around that mutual-defence guarantee among its member states).
    2. Brings together a nuclear-armed state and two major regional military powers: Pakistan’s status as a nuclear-armed state, combined with Saudi Arabia’s financial weight and Turkey’s military capacity, gives the pact a combined military profile larger than any one of the three could offer bilaterally.
    3. Formalises a defence relationship that predates the pact: Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have a long-standing defence relationship, including reported Saudi financial support for Pakistan’s military and nuclear programmes over past decades, which the new agreement puts into a formal, named framework.

    Against which threats is the pact actually directed?

    1. Houthi forces in Yemen: Houthi missile and drone attacks have targeted Saudi Arabia and shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden for years, making the Houthis the most immediate, active threat the pact’s signatories face along their own borders and sea lanes.
    2. Iran, as the region’s other major military power: Saudi Arabia’s regional rivalry with Iran, sharpened further by the 2026 US-Israel strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites, gives Saudi Arabia reason to seek a codified defence guarantee involving Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent.
    3. Israel, given the pact’s timing after West Asia’s 2026 escalation: The pact follows a period of intense regional escalation involving Israel, Iran, and Iran-backed proxies, a context in which any new Gulf-Pakistan defence arrangement is inevitably read partly through an Israel lens even without an explicit reference to it.

    How does the pact intersect with the separate Iran nuclear deal memorandum of understanding?

    1. Parallel track on Iran’s nuclear programme: A separate memorandum of understanding addressing Iran’s nuclear programme is under discussion around the same period as the Mecca pact, giving the region two live tracks, a defence pact among Sunni-aligned states and a nuclear negotiation track involving Iran, that could pull regional alignments in different directions depending on how each concludes.
    2. Pact could complicate, or could reinforce, de-escalation efforts: A formal defence pact perceived as directed at Iran could harden Tehran’s position in the parallel nuclear talks, or it could give Saudi Arabia the security assurance needed to support a negotiated outcome rather than an escalatory one.

    What does the pact mean for India?

    1. Pakistan gains a codified Saudi and Turkish security backer: A mutual-defence commitment involving Pakistan changes the calculus of any future India-Pakistan military confrontation, since an escalation with Pakistan could now, at least in principle, draw a response from Saudi Arabia or Turkey under the pact’s terms.
    2. Turkey’s inclusion adds a NATO-member dimension: Turkey’s own NATO membership means a pact linking a NATO member’s mutual-defence commitment to Pakistan introduces an additional layer of complexity into how India reads any future crisis involving Pakistan.
    3. India’s own West Asia relationships face a balancing test: India maintains a Special Strategic Partnership with both Saudi Arabia and Israel and a distinct, cooperative relationship with Iran; a pact that positions Saudi Arabia more explicitly within a defence framework alongside Pakistan tests India’s ability to keep engaging all three without one relationship undercutting another.

    Conclusion

    The Mecca pact’s Article 5-style mutual-defence clause is read here as most plausibly directed at the combination of Houthi forces and Iran, with Israel present in the background given the region’s 2026 escalation, rather than at any single named adversary. For India, the pact’s most consequential feature is not who it targets but that it gives Pakistan a codified Saudi and Turkish security backer, a shift India’s own West Asia balancing act will now have to account for.

    India and West Asia

    1. About: West Asia, encompassing the Gulf Cooperation Council states, Iran, and Israel, is a region where India pursues parallel Special Strategic Partnerships with rival powers, a policy sometimes described as India’s “de-hyphenation” approach to the region.
    2. Energy and economic weight: The region supplies close to 60 percent of India’s crude oil and about 70 percent of its LPG and LNG needs, and the Gulf Cooperation Council bloc was India’s largest trading-partner bloc in 2024-25 at $178 billion in bilateral trade.
    3. Diaspora and remittance stakes: Roughly 9 to 10 million Indians live and work across West Asia, a diaspora whose remittances form a major share of India’s total inward remittance flows.
    4. Strategic connectivity stakes: The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) and Iran’s Chabahar Port both depend on regional stability, giving India a direct interest in how any new defence alignment in the region affects that stability.

    Challenges in India’s West Asia policy

    1. Regional volatility complicates strategic autonomy: Escalating conflicts, most recently the 2026 US-Israel strikes on Iran and Iran’s retaliatory closure of the Strait of Hormuz, force India to react to swings in the region’s security situation that it does not control. Eg. Nearly 700 Indian seafarers were reported stranded near the Strait of Hormuz during the 2026 crisis. Fix. Maintain standing evacuation and diplomatic-contingency protocols for Indian nationals and shipping specific to a Hormuz or Red Sea closure scenario.
    2. Energy import dependence leaves India exposed to regional shocks: India imports roughly 85 percent of its crude oil needs, a significant share from West Asia, exposing it directly to price spikes and supply disruption from regional conflict. Eg. Brent crude crossed $120 a barrel during the 2026 Hormuz blockade. Fix. Accelerate diversification of crude and LNG sourcing alongside continued build-out of strategic petroleum reserves.
    3. A new Pakistan-linked defence pact narrows India’s room with Saudi Arabia: A formal Saudi-Pakistan-Turkey defence agreement puts a security commitment to Pakistan inside the same framework as India’s own strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia. Eg. Saudi Arabia has historically also provided financial support tied to Pakistan’s defence establishment. Fix. Use the India-Saudi Strategic Partnership Council to seek explicit reassurance that the pact’s mutual-defence clause is not read as extending to an India-Pakistan contingency.
    4. Connectivity projects remain hostage to regional conflict: IMEC’s viability depends on a stable transit route through West Asia, and continuing conflict renders the corridor commercially non-viable in the near term. Eg. The corridor’s planned Israel-linked Mediterranean leg is directly exposed to any renewed Israel-related escalation. Fix. Prioritise near-term investment in the corridor’s less conflict-exposed segments, such as Gulf-to-India maritime links, while the land-transit leg remains unviable.
    5. Balancing three rival partnerships simultaneously: India’s parallel Special Strategic Partnerships with Saudi Arabia and Israel, alongside its distinct cooperative ties with Iran, require continuous diplomatic management to prevent one relationship’s demands from constraining another. Eg. India’s Chabahar Port investment in Iran periodically runs up against US sanctions pressure tied to India’s separate ties with Washington. Fix. Seek issue-specific, sanctions-compliant carve-outs for Chabahar-related transactions, as India has previously secured for humanitarian trade with Iran.

    Back2Basics: Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty

    1. The provision of the North Atlantic Treaty, 1949, under which an armed attack against any one member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is treated as an attack against all members, triggering a collective self-defence response.
    2. Has been formally invoked only once in NATO’s history, following the September 2001 attacks on the United States.
    3. Serves as the reference model against which other mutual-defence clauses, including the one in the Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan Joint Defence Agreement, are commonly compared.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS2, 10 marks] With the waning of globalization, post-Cold War world is becoming a site of sovereign nationalism. Elucidate.”