'Strategic autonomy' amid the Hormuz crisis

The Strait of Hormuz has long been understood as one of the world’s principal energy chokepoints. Yet for India, its significance had often remained abstract. The crisis made it concrete. A substantial proportion of India’s imports of crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) normally moves through the Persian Gulf and the Strait. Before the crisis, 45-50 per cent of India’s imports of crude oil, around half its LNG supplies, and nearly 90 per cent of its LPG imports were typically dependent on this maritime passage. The vulnerability was, therefore, not simply about the price of oil. It extended into electricity generation, fertiliser production, petrochemicals, transport, and household consumption.

The immediate economic consequences were significant. India’s basket of crude oil, which had been around $69 a barrel before the crisis, moved above $114 in April as fears over supply disruption intensified. The costs of freight and insurance costs rose sharply while pressure on the rupee compounded the inflationary impact of higher energy prices.

India’s response was, therefore, necessarily pragmatic. Rather than attempting to eliminate its dependence on the Gulf overnight — a structural impossibility — it sought to reduce the immediate exposure. Around 70 per cent of imports of crude oil were reportedly rerouted away from the strait, compared with approximately 55 per cent before the crisis. Russia became even more important as an alternative source, aided in part by temporary sanctions waivers by the United States (US). India also increased purchases from the US, the Atlantic Basin, West Africa, and other suppliers.

This response demonstrated the value of diversification but it also exposed its limitations. India’s energy diversification had reduced its dependence on any single supplier, but it had not sufficiently reduced its dependence on particular maritime routes. Diversification of suppliers is not the same thing as diversification of supply chains. Oil can be purchased from Russia, African countries, or the US, but if the transportation infrastructure remains vulnerable to geopolitical disruption, the strategic problem is only partially addressed.

The US emerged as an important beneficiary of this shift. Energy supplies from America became increasingly significant for India, with the US emerging as a leading supplier of LNG and LPG during parts of the crisis. This created an opportunity for the US and India to deepen their energy relationship. Yet the significance of this development extended beyond commercial trade. Energy interdependence provided another layer to the broader India-US strategic partnership, linking the two countries’ economic relationship with their shared interest in maintaining stability across the Indo-Pacific and western Indian Ocean.

India also drew upon its strategic petroleum reserves although the crisis demonstrated that existing reserves provide only a limited cushion against a prolonged disruption. Emergency administrative measures, including the use of instruments such as the Essential Commodities Act to prioritise critical sectors, underscored the seriousness with which India viewed the situation. The lesson was straightforward: Reserves are indispensable, but they cannot be a substitute for structural resilience.

The government, therefore, had to manage the crisis at sea, as well as on land. Indian naval assets undertook escort and security operations in the Gulf of Oman under Operation Urja Suraksha. At the same time, India resisted being drawn into a broader multinational military coalition. This distinction was important.

This was where diplomacy became as important as logistics. India’s diplomatic strategy was characteristic of its contemporary foreign policy: Intensely engaged, deliberately flexible, and resistant to binary choices.

India did not formally condemn either the US and Israel, or Iran in a manner that would have foreclosed its room for manoeuvre. Instead, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to leaders in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan and Israel, while External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar remained engaged with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi.

The objective was not mediation for its own sake. It was crisis management in pursuit of clearly defined Indian interests. The most important of these was ensuring the safety and movement of Indian commercial vessels and seafarers. Such outcomes illustrated the practical value  of maintaining relationships with actors whose interests are often fundamentally opposed to one another.

Indian diplomacy also reflected the recognition that the Persian Gulf cannot be viewed through a single strategic lens. Israel remains an important partner in defence and technology. The Gulf Arab monarchies are indispensable sources of energy, investment and employment for millions of Indians. Iran remains important for India’s connectivity ambitions, particularly through Chabahar and the wider effort to reach Central Asia and Afghanistan. The US, meanwhile, has become a central partner in India’s strategic and economic architecture.

It was not the challenge, therefore, to choose among these relationships but to prevent one from destroying the others. This is precisely where the crisis tested India’s concept of strategic autonomy. Strategic autonomy is often misunderstood as the ability to remain equidistant from competing powers. In practice, however, autonomy requires the capacity to absorb shocks without allowing external dependence to dictate national choices. The Hormuz crisis demonstrated that diplomatic flexibility can preserve the room for manoeuvre, but only when it is backed by material capabilities.

India’s economic exposure to the crisis was a reminder of this distinction. India could speak simultaneously to Washington, Tehran, Jerusalem and the Gulf Capitals, but it could not prevent global oil prices from rising. It could negotiate safe passage for its ships, but it could not control the security environment of the strait. It could diversify suppliers, but it could not rapidly construct alternative maritime routes.

The crisis, consequently, gave new urgency to India’s connectivity initiatives. Chabahar acquired greater strategic significance because access to Iran’s port provides India an alternative route towards Central Asia — a route that does not depend entirely on the Gulf maritime system. The International North-South Transport Corridor similarly assumed greater importance as a means of diversifying India’s continental connectivity. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, though dependent on a complex political environment of its own, acquired another strategic rationale: Resilience.

This is an important evolution in Indian strategic thinking. Connectivity can no longer be understood merely as an instrument of trade promotion. In an era of geopolitical fragmentation, connectivity is also an instrument of national security.

The crisis also reinforced the importance of the Gulf to India’s conception of the Indian Ocean. For decades, India’s strategic discourse focused heavily on the eastern Indian Ocean and the Indo-Pacific, particularly in response to China’s expanding maritime presence. Hormuz demonstrated that India’s western maritime environment deserves equal attention. The security of the western Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the approaches to the Gulf directly affects India’s economic security.

This has implications for India’s emerging role as a security provider. A country that seeks a larger role in the Indian Ocean cannot afford to be merely a consumer of maritime security. It must possess the naval capabilities, logistical infrastructure, intelligence networks, and diplomatic partnerships necessary to protect its commercial interests during crises. The Indian Navy’s role during the Hormuz disruption was, therefore, significant not simply because it protected vessels but because it demonstrated the increasingly blurred boundary between economic and maritime security.

At the same time, India must recognise that maritime capability alone cannot resolve its energy vulnerability. The longer-term answer lies in a combination of larger strategic reserves, greater renewable-energy penetration, and diversifying suppliers of crude oil and gas. The transition to cleaner energy will not eliminate India’s dependence on external supplies in the near term, but it can reduce the scale and strategic significance of that dependence over time. The human dimension of the crisis was equally important. Millions of Indians live and work across the Gulf, with the broader Indian diaspora in the region representing a major source of remittances and an important pillar of India’s external economic position. Any prolonged conflict that endangered these workers would, therefore, have consequences extending well beyond evacuation and consular protection.

The crisis reminded India that its West Asia policy is also a diaspora policy.

The June 2026 US-Iran memorandum of understanding and subsequent de-escalatory measures provided some relief by facilitating limited maritime transits. Yet the return of some traffic did not immediately restore the old strategic normal. Residual risks, intermittent attacks, and uncertainty surrounding the durability of the arrangements meant that India could not simply return to business as usual. Indeed, that may be the most important consequence of the crisis. The old assumption that Hormuz would remain open because all major actors had an interest in keeping it open was shown to be inadequate. Chokepoints are secure only so long as political incentives, military calculations, and regional stability reinforce one another. Once those conditions break down, commercial dependence becomes strategic vulnerability.

For India, the answer cannot be disengagement from the Gulf. The opposite is true. The crisis has demonstrated that India needs deeper engagement with the region, not less. But that engagement must be accompanied by greater resilience. Stronger ties with Gulf states, continued engagement with Iran, deeper energy cooperation with the US, and sustained defence relations with Israel need not be mutually exclusive. What must change is India’s capacity to withstand the failure of any one relationship or route.

The crisis, therefore, did not invalidate India’s multi-alignment. If anything, it demonstrated why such a strategy remains useful. “Strategic autonomy,” ultimately, is not simply about having multiple partners. It is about having multiple options. The crisis this year made that distinction unmistakable. India’s immediate response showed considerable diplomatic agility and operational competence. Its longer-term response will determine whether the lessons of Hormuz are genuinely absorbed. Hormuz was, therefore, less a temporary energy shock than a strategic warning. Whether India can convert that warning into durable capability will determine how much freedom of action its foreign policy can actually sustain in the next crisis.