From Israel to Iran, Modi 3.0 eyes deepening of India's Middle East ties

AP Muhammed Afsal

Jun 15, 2024

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses his supporters after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won in country's general election, in New Delhi on June 4, 2024. Modi claimed election victory for his party and its allies on June 4, but the opposition said they had "punished" the ruling party to confound predictions and reduce their parliamentary majority. (Photo by Money SHARMA / AFP) (Photo by MONEY SHARMA/AFP via Getty Images) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses supporters after his Bharatiya Janata Party won general elections, New Delhi, June 4, 2024. — MONEY SHARMA/AFP via Getty Images

NEW DELHI — Despite electoral setbacks that forced the Bharatiya Janata Party to rely on political allies to govern, Narendra Modi was this week once again sworn in as India’s prime minister, allowing his government to continue to pursue policies in the Middle East that it had begun implementing in 2014.

In winning a third consecutive term, Modi accomplished a feat previously only achieved by India’s first postcolonial prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. During Modi’s second term (2019–24), his government adopted Think West, a foreign policy approach focusing on the countries to India’s immediate west. Indian policy purists refer to the region as West Asia, rather than the “colonial” Middle East.

In May on the War on the Rocks platform, Chietigj Bajpaee, a senior research fellow on South Asia at the UK think tank Chatham House, wrote that this “westward engagement” is not new for India. Rather, such past relations had been “held hostage” by various factors, such as India’s Cold War opposition to the United States, the Palestinian cause and “limited” engagement with Israel, and a “preference for engaging secular, socialist regimes,” such as Egypt and Iraq, rather than “conservative kingdoms,” for example, Saudi Arabia. Almost everything related to these factors has now changed.

UAE stands out in Gulf