In a major reciprocatory gesture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarks on a two-day go to to Jeddah on the invitation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. This go to comes practically 19 months after the Crown Prince’s go to to New Delhi throughout India’s G20 presidency in September 2023. That is Prime Minister Modi’s third go to to the Kingdom after 2016 and 2019, sixth worldwide go to this 12 months, and fifth go to to the Center East for the reason that Israel-Hamas struggle broke out in October 2023. Towards the backdrop of heightened regional instability within the Center East—from the protracted battle in Syria and a dramatic change of energy within the nation to the continuing Israel-Hamas struggle—PM Modi’s go to indicators a renewed diplomatic push to deepen the Indo-Saudi strategic arc.
The timing couldn’t be extra important. With the worldwide order in flux and nice energy competitors intensifying, significantly amid the US-China commerce struggle, international locations like India and Saudi Arabia are more and more seen as stabilising forces able to balancing competing alignments. For India, Washington’s latest tariff hike—reaching as much as 245 per cent on key Chinese language imports—opens up new financial alternatives, particularly as Beijing appeals to New Delhi to spice up bilateral commerce. Concurrently, India is encouraging the US to rechannel its manufacturing and funding flows in direction of India, carving out area as a viable various to China. Saudi Arabia, for its half, is taking part in a diplomatic balancing act of its personal—sustaining deep ties with the US whereas additionally welcoming China’s position as a mediator within the Saudi-Iran détente.
Amid this complicated interaction of geopolitical undercurrents, the revival of the India-Center East-Europe Financial Hall (IMEC) emerges as a important focus. India has saved IMEC’s momentum alive by signing an intergovernmental framework with the UAE, encouraging personal gamers just like the Adani Group to develop connectivity by the Haifa port, and launching the India-Mediterranean Initiative (IMI) with European companions. Saudi Arabia’s position, in that context, is indispensable in turning the imaginative and prescient of IMEC into actuality, and Modi’s go to could function a platform for advancing an analogous intergovernmental framework with Riyadh.
The go to can be anticipated to revisit the 2019 bilateral agreements—lots of which have but to be totally realised. As an illustration, the Crown Prince had unveiled a plan value of US$100 billion to be invested in India which stays to be materialised. Moreover, given rising considerations about threats to important infrastructure, particularly these posed by non-state actors such because the Houthis within the Pink Sea, each international locations are more likely to discover methods to embed IMEC inside broader safety cooperation frameworks. The present Nationwide Safety Advisor-level dialogue could also be expanded to include strategic infrastructure safety, particularly below the ambit of IMEC.
Moreover, Modi’s outreach underscores India’s bigger imaginative and prescient of International South solidarity amid world disarray. Because the Center East prepares to host key diplomatic guests, together with the anticipated go to of President Trump in Might to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s position in shaping the brand new world order shall be below the highlight. Additionally it is an opportune time to ask Saudi Arabia – main regional energy within the Center East – to think about becoming a member of India’s MAHASAGAR initiative, aimed toward making a collaborative maritime arc throughout the Indo-Pacific and the Western Indian Ocean. His prior visits to Mauritius, Thailand and Sri Lanka and African outreach to affix the initiative adopted by Saudi visitation is symbolic of India’s intention to attach the Gulf to MAHASAGAR below Saudi Arabia’s management.
Furthermore, India and Saudi Arabia, pushed by converging nationwide pursuits, rising power interdependence, and mutual aspirations for regional stability, are more and more embedded inside overlapping regional safety complexes. Within the Center East, each international locations are deeply invested within the stability of the Gulf—India as a web power importer and residential to a big diaspora of round 9.5 million of which 2.5 million reside in Saudi Arabia alone, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a regional anchor navigating delicate fault strains, together with the Iran query and the shifting US safety footprint.
Within the Indo-Pacific, the place India’s strategic calculus is evolving amidst China’s assertiveness, Saudi Arabia’s rising eastward engagement following its “Look East” coverage—by investments, port partnerships, and curiosity in multilateral groupings like BRICS+—locations it firmly inside India’s prolonged maritime neighbourhood. Globally, their positions as rising powers looking for larger autonomy in a turbulent world order have aligned their visions for multipolarity, financial and peace corridors like IMEC, meals and power safety, and countering non-state threats reminiscent of piracy and terrorism. In such a context, the 2 nations will not be merely bilateral companions, however more and more co-stakeholders in shaping the strategic structure of a wider arc—from West Asia to the Indo-Pacific and past. Thus, their lively participation in world initiatives, management roles inside their respective areas, and calibrated multilateral engagements replicate how each India and Saudi Arabia are rising as accountable center powers.
In essence, this go to is about unfinished enterprise and about changing intentions into actions. Whereas many points of the bilateral relationship are essential and ripe for growth, Prime Minister Modi’s go to will essentially be about deepening the structure round 4 strategic pillars, particularly, accelerating developments on IMEC, addressing the evolving regional safety complicated, navigating world realignments with strategic readability, and finishing the circle on long-overdue bilateral initiatives. As each international locations navigate shifting alliances and rising alternatives, PM Modi’s Jeddah journey may mark a defining second in reenergising the India-Saudi partnership for a world in transition.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the writer’s personal.
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