The Media Line: India’s Influence in the Middle East: Balancing Energy, Workers, and the Saudi–Pakistan Defense Pact 

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India’s Influence in the Middle East: Balancing Energy, Workers, and the Saudi–Pakistan Defense Pact 

Gulf Countries are home to nearly half of India’s immigrant population, which brings skills and growth to the Middle East economies. 

 By Giorgia Valente/The Media Line 

India’s footprint in the Middle East is anchored in economics and sharpened by geopolitics. New Delhi imports the overwhelming bulk of its crude, and, in return, the Gulf hosts a vast Indian workforce whose remittances recycle into India’s economy. At the same time, Indian capital has begun placing strategic bets across the region—most visibly in ports and logistics—while Delhi navigates a difficult middle ground between the US, Europe and an expanded BRICS orbit that includes China, Russia and Iran. The relationship is being tested by new alignments, including Saudi Arabia’s defense pact with Pakistan, even as long-standing fundamentals—energy flows, labor corridors and emerging investments—push toward deeper interdependence. 

Professor Santosh Mehrotra, visiting professor at the University of Bath in the UK, set the energy baseline: “Right now, India imports about 80% of its oil. Only 20% is produced domestically—so we simply have no choice but to depend on the Middle East,” he told The Media Line. 

He traced how sanctions reshaped the supply mix: “India stopped taking oil from Iran because of US and European economic sanctions, and we substituted much of that with Russian oil. This is still considered problematic by Trump, so this is the reason why India got closer to BRICS recently more than the US We also import from Qatar, which is a major market for Indian exports,” he explained. 

For Mehrotra, scale drives strategy: “Because India has become the fourth-largest economy and, like China, must secure its energy needs, it is absolutely critical to maintain strong relations with all the Gulf countries,” he said. 

He also pointed to a continental lever: “We invested in the Chabahar port in Iran, with a railway line meant to link Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan, which has never granted us transit,” he noted. The state-to-state ties sit atop a broader economic lattice: “Saudi Arabia has been a very major partner for India as well,” he added. 

The human engine of this corridor is just as decisive. S. Irudaya Rajan, professor at the International Institute of Migration and Development in Kerala, underlined the scale: “India has both trade and migration links with the region, and almost half of all Indians living abroad are in six Gulf countries—Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates,” he told The Media Line. 

He explained why the Gulf differs from Western destinations: “An Indian migrant who goes to America is unlikely to send significant money back. In the Gulf, most do—about 80% leave families behind in Indian states. They invest in housing, health and education; much of that human development spending is financed by remittances,” he noted. 

The volume shows up every day: “You have from all sides of India about 45 to 50 flights arriving in the Gulf and each plane is full every time,” he said. He framed the corridor bluntly: “I call the route between India and the Gulf the biggest migration corridor, even more than the Mexico-US one,” he added. 

On the skills and earnings ladder, he added: “There are three types of workers who come from India—low-skilled, semi-skilled and high-skilled. In the case of the Gulf, you have higher numbers of low-skilled or semi-skilled workers, compared to the US migration which is made of the best brains of India,” he pointed out. 

Status is still second tier: “Who built Dubai? Migrants. Who built Abu Dhabi? Migrants. Migrants play a major role, but they are always treated as second-class citizens. The conditions are overall improving for them, and recently the UAE is now talking about golden visas,” he added. 

Demographics and global demand keep the pipeline open: “Many countries now ask India to sign labor-mobility agreements because they face labor shortages. India is in a position to supply workers and help build their economies. There will be political cycles and crises, but you can’t stop mobility. It must be safe, legal and orderly—and migrants will bounce back,” he noted. 

Capital has followed people and energy, though execution is uneven. Mehrotra pointed to the corporate layer in another Middle Eastern reality, Israel: “India’s big corporates—Adani particularly, a close friend of Prime Minister Modi—have become major port owners in India and have expanded abroad. The development of the Haifa port was handed to Adani Enterprises, encouraged to take up ports including Haifa,” he said. 

India-Israel ties, he noted, are comparatively new: “Our relationship with Israel has taken shape only since Prime Minister Modi came to power—really in the last seven or eight years. Partly it balances our historic ties with Palestine, but mostly it reflects that India is a defense-equipment importer and Israel is a major producer,” he said. He added a cautionary note on dual-use tech: “Israel’s electronic surveillance tools have been purchased by the Indian government and this cooperation is still ongoing,” he added. 

From the Saudi vantage point, Umer Karim, associate fellow at the King Faisal Center in Riyadh, stressed the traditional center of gravity: “Riyadh’s primary engagement with India is within the energy field,” he told The Media Line. 

Despite formal understandings, he saw delivery gaps: “Since the signing of the MoUs, there has not been any significant development in all the three fields, and one can say the relationship is still far from its full potential,” he noted. 

He pointed to headline projects that have yet to materialize: “Saudis have been interested in establishing an oil refinery, but it has not materialized”—while flagging where Indian money might gain traction: “For Indian investors, the hospitality, tourism and property sectors in Saudi Arabia offer promise,” he added. 

On newer concepts, he stayed cautiously optimistic: “The hydrogen-storage project—shipping to Saudi Arabia and then onward to Europe—remains promising, but there has not been any significant work done on it yet,” he said. On the labor market, his read aligned with Rajan’s demand story: “Demand is mostly for low-paid, low-skilled jobs that have not been affected by Saudization, and for now I don’t see any significant change,” he noted. 

All this unfolds while India straddles two gravitational pulls. Mehrotra captured the strategic tension: “India is walking a tightrope, maintaining close relations with the United States, Europe and Israel, while also being part of BRICS with China and Russia. This balancing act is not easy, but it reflects India’s geopolitical reality,” he said. 

He also signaled a more forward-leaning India: “China has been much more deeply involved in the Middle East; India has not played that kind of role. But with India now the fourth-largest economy, it cannot remain outside that game—you will see India much more present in the years to come,” he said. Rajan read the same dilemma through labor geopolitics: “Because many countries face worker shortages, India will keep getting requests for labor agreements. India can work with many partners to supply workers and help build their economies, and this will make the country always relevant internationally,” he noted. 

The balancing act grew harder after the Saudi-Pakistan defense agreement, which Karim saw as a direct stress test for India-Saudi ties: “I am not sure how the recent Saudi defense agreement with Pakistan will affect these projects. I think this pact will immensely damage the bilateral relationship. India may walk out of some investment initiatives, and Saudis may also feel less welcome in India. In short, Saudis for now have prioritized their defense partnership with Pakistan over the bilateral relationship with India,” he noted. 

Meanwhile, Mehrotra reassured that for now India will keep its ties with Saudi Arabia as usual: “It’s unlikely this will derail India-Saudi ties. Saudi knows India is the fastest-growing large economy in the world, and India’s energy and hydrocarbon needs are not going to fall. There are also many Indian workers in the kingdom—not only semi-skilled and construction workers, but many IT engineers—and growing links in tourism and a whole series of service industries,” he noted. 

He also concluded: “India is trying to keep close to the United States and Europe and deal with countries on the opposite spectrum—China, Russia, Iran. That’s not the way international diplomacy is conducted; if you try to be embedded in so many competing realities at once, you can pay consequences in the long run,” he said.