Hormuz Strait remains central issue in diplomatic conversations

The Strait of Hormuz has emerged as the latest key flashpoint in the escalating West Asia war. US President Donald Trump threatened to strike Iran's power plants if the Strait is not opened to shipping in 48 hours. Iran pushed back by threatening to target US and Israel-linked energy infrastructure and desalination plants in the Gulf region.

Away from the battlefield, the Strait has now become the key talking point in frenetic diplomatic conversations since Trump announced a pause on the strikes on Iran. The need for ensuring safe and unhindered navigation through the Strait, a shipping lane which accounts for about 20 % of the world's energy movement, has amplified in all the telephonic conversations Modi has had in the last 10 days with the top leaders of the Persian Gulf countries, including Iran, and Trump.

In fact, India has stepped up its diplomatic engagements aimed at restoring peace in West Asia by several notches. Modi spoke twice to the P\president of Iran twice, the emir of Qatar, the king of Jordan and the Sultan of Oman since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February.

More importantly, the Indian prime minister flagged the issue of passage of ships through the Hormuz Strait when he spoke to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian over phone the second time and also condemned attacks on critical infrastructure.  The Indian prime minister has also spoken to several other world leaders, including those from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel since the conflict began on 28 February.

India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has in the last four days engaged with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, New Delhi-based top diplomats of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and separately with the Iranian Ambassador to India. All these clearly demonstrate that the Hormuz Strait has remained the centre-piece of peace efforts in West Asia.

In doing so, India's foreign policy direction has pronouncedly shifted from non-alignment and neutrality to multialignment that has enabled its engagement with all stakeholders with equal felicity. It is this multialignment that has ensured that at least four Indian-flagged ships carrying energy could proceed through the Hormuz Strait unharmed.

The Modi government has not allowed itself to be held back by the strident domestic opposition criticism which accused India of being partisan through the absence of a formal condemnation of the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the timing of the visit by the prime minister to Israel in late February.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted oil and gas supply to India and several other Asian countries since the West Asia war broke out following the attacks by the US and Israel on Iran and the latter's retaliatory strikes. The long-term impact of the attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf was flagged by Modi in his speeches in parliament, which was the first articulation of the government's assessment of the situation and prospects of peace in West Asia.

Of particular concern to India was the attack on Qatar's Ras Laffan industrial city, which hosts the world's largest LNG refining facility, has caused anxieties for India which has depended heavily on gas imports from its single biggest supplier. Qatar is the largest supplier of LNG and LPG to India. According to official data, Qatar supplied LNG worth $6.39 billion and LPG worth $3.21 billion to India in 2024-25). India also imports ethylene, propylene, ammonia, urea, and polyethylene from Qatar. Indian Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal acknowledged during the weekly media briefing that with the attacks, "our LNG supply is going to be impacted."

While the West Asia war does impact India's energy security, New Delhi's policy in this area is changing over the years as it has gone about diversifying its sources of oil and gas from away from total dependence on the Gulf to Russia, the US, Africa and Latin America. India's own strategic petroleum reserves, which Modi in his speech in parliament estimated to be at over 5.3 million tonnes, and ramping up the inventories of state-owned oil marketing companies, means that India can today think about not just shedding dependence only on one source but turn to building a buffer which can hold out against a potential sudden shock.

Another key takeaway from India's heightened pitch of keeping the Hormuz Strait free for navigation is the presence of its navy as a maritime power. Indian media reports said the cargo ships through the Hormuz Strait were escorted by Indian navy warships in the midst of the conflict. These warships were deployed on being diverted from their mission of neutralizing the threats of piracy and sabotage by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and submarines.