- An Indian seafarer’s death in Hormuz highlights New Delhi’s growing exposure to Gulf instability.
- India’s energy, trade and Indo-Mediterranean ambitions depend on sea lanes it cannot fully secure.
- The crisis exposes the limits of strategic autonomy and shows why the Indo-Pacific increasingly begins at Hormuz.
The death of an Indian seafarer in the Strait of Hormuz is the latest sign of a challenge that New Delhi can no longer afford to treat as temporary.
Two Emirati tankers, the Mombasa B and the Al Bahyah, were hit by Iranian missiles while sailing through the southern lane of the Strait, in Omani territorial waters. According to the United Arab Emirates, one Indian crew member was killed and eight other seafarers were injured. India summoned the deputy head of mission of the Iranian embassy to lodge a formal protest. Another Indian national is also missing following a separate attack on the container ship GFS Galaxy.
These incidents come after a series of attacks that have steadily brought the conflict closer to India. In June, New Delhi had already urged the United States to halt attacks on commercial shipping after three US operations involved tankers carrying Indian crews. One of those attacks killed three Indian seafarers. The Indian government twice summoned Washington’s top diplomatic representative.
Now New Delhi is protesting to Tehran. The sequence matters. Within a matter of weeks, Indian citizens have been killed in operations linked to both sides of the conflict. India has important relations with Washington and Tehran, while its ties with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have grown considerably in recent years.
This places New Delhi in an increasingly complex position. India’s expanding economic interests, diplomatic partnerships and maritime presence mean that instability in the Gulf now has more direct consequences for the country than it did in the past. In many respects, this is the result of India’s growing international role.
Strategic autonomy has allowed New Delhi to avoid rigid alliances, cooperate closely with the United States in the Indo-Pacific, preserve its relationship with Iran and deepen economic and security ties with the Arab Gulf states. That flexibility remains a major diplomatic asset. The challenge emerging from Hormuz is how to complement it with the capabilities and partnerships needed to protect India’s expanding interests.
When several of India’s partners resort to military force in the same maritime space, New Delhi faces risks that diplomacy alone cannot always contain. The question is therefore not whether strategic autonomy has failed, but how India can adapt it to a more unstable and contested security environment.
The challenge has several dimensions. The most immediate concerns Indian citizens. Indian seafarers make up a significant part of the global maritime workforce. When a major commercial route becomes a conflict zone, the protection of shipping and the protection of Indian nationals become increasingly difficult to separate.
The question is no longer simply whether ships can continue to cross the Strait. It is also what protection seafarers can expect when entering high-risk waters and how India, shipping companies and regional partners can work together to reduce those risks.
Energy is the second concern. Hormuz remains the world’s most important oil chokepoint. Around 20 million barrels of oil per day passed through the Strait in 2024, equivalent to roughly one-fifth of global petroleum consumption. About 20 per cent of global liquefied natural gas trade also crossed Hormuz. Most of those LNG shipments were bound for Asian markets, with China, India and South Korea among the main destinations.
Then there is trade. India’s commerce with the Gulf Cooperation Council reached $178.56 billion in the 2024-25 financial year, accounting for more than 15 per cent of the country’s total foreign trade. The security of the Gulf therefore affects much more than the price of oil. It involves an expanding network of investments, ports, logistics, remittances, digital infrastructure and supply chains.
The final dimension is strategic.India has emerged as an increasingly important security actor in the Indian Ocean and as a power capable of connecting the Indo-Pacific with the Mediterranean. The crisis in Hormuz illustrates how this expanding role is creating new strategic requirements.
New Delhi can escort ships, gather intelligence, evacuate citizens and coordinate with coastal states. As its interests expand further west, however, India will increasingly need to strengthen the partnerships and capabilities required to respond to instability across a much wider maritime space.
Hormuz is therefore becoming a test of India’s evolution from a primarily Indian Ocean power into an actor with interests stretching from the Indo-Pacific to the Mediterranean.
The Indo-Pacific’s western frontier
The latest attacks also point to a broader problem with the traditional geography of the Indo-Pacific. For years, strategic debate has concentrated on the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the Strait of Malacca. Yet the economic security of India, China, Japan and South Korea begins much further west.
Oil and gas cross Hormuz before entering the Indian Ocean. Goods travelling between Asia and Europe must navigate the waters around Bab el-Mandeb and the Suez Canal. New infrastructure corridors are intended to connect Indian ports with Gulf logistics hubs and Mediterranean markets.
Hormuz is increasingly the western frontier of Asian economic security. This is particularly relevant for India.
Over the past decade, New Delhi has invested heavily in building an Indo-Mediterranean geography based on closer relations with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Israel and Europe. Initiatives such as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor reflect India’s growing role in the economic and strategic networks connecting Asia to the Mediterranean. The current crisis underlines the importance of protecting that emerging geography.
Infrastructure cannot be separated from the security environment surrounding it. A corridor may reduce transport costs and delivery times, but its long-term success also depends on the resilience of the maritime and logistics networks around it. The same applies to energy diversification.
Buying oil from a wider range of Gulf producers reduces dependence on individual suppliers. Yet continued instability around major maritime chokepoints highlights the need for broader resilience strategies.
For New Delhi, the challenge is therefore no longer limited to keeping Hormuz open during a crisis. It is about strengthening the resilience of the entire strategic corridor connecting the Gulf to the Indian subcontinent.
Beyond diplomatic protests
India’s immediate response is likely to remain cautious. New Delhi has every reason to condemn attacks on civilian shipping without allowing itself to be drawn into the confrontation between the United States and Iran. It will also continue working with Oman, the UAE and other regional actors whose cooperation is essential for monitoring shipping and assisting crews.
This diplomatic flexibility gives India considerable room for manoeuvre. At the same time, the succession of attacks suggests that diplomacy will increasingly need to be supported by stronger mechanisms for protecting Indian interests.
India will have to address the protection of its seafarers, the responsibilities of shipowners, procedures for crossing high-risk waters and the ability of the Indian Navy to sustain an extended presence in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman.
The crisis also raises questions about India’s capacity to withstand prolonged disruptions to energy supplies. At the end of 2025, India’s strategic petroleum reserve held around 21.4 million barrels of crude oil. Expanding storage capacity and developing more flexible supply arrangements could become increasingly important as India’s economy and energy requirements continue to grow.
The disruption that began in 2026 has already demonstrated how quickly reduced traffic through Hormuz can affect Gulf oil production. In April, the US Energy Information Administration estimated that Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain could collectively shut in more than nine million barrels per day of production because of limited storage capacity and export constraints.
For India, greater resilience will require a combination of diplomatic engagement, naval presence, larger reserves, arrangements for overseas storage, alternative transport routes and more flexible supply contracts.
These measures would not represent a departure from India’s existing strategy. They would be a natural extension of its growing role across the Indian Ocean and the wider Indo-Mediterranean region.
Learning to live with persistent risk
The most important lesson from the attack on the Emirati tankers is that the danger did not disappear with earlier attempts to de-escalate the crisis. It has become intermittent. Ships may resume sailing through the Strait. Oil prices may fall. Governments may announce that freedom of navigation has been restored. But as long as the actors involved retain both the capability and the willingness to attack commercial shipping, any return to normality will remain fragile.
On July 7, the risk level for shipping in Hormuz was once again raised to “severe”, while the number of vessels crossing the Strait fell to one of its lowest levels in weeks. Over time, this intermittent insecurity may prove more consequential than a complete closure of Hormuz. Higher insurance premiums, crews unwilling to enter dangerous waters, shipping delays, rising freight costs and pressure on strategic reserves could gradually turn insecurity in the Strait into a permanent tax on Asian energy trade.
For New Delhi, the death of another Indian seafarer makes the challenge increasingly urgent. India is expanding its presence across the Gulf, East Africa and the Mediterranean. It is emerging as a central security actor in the Indian Ocean and as a key node in the networks connecting Asia and Europe. That success is also expanding India’s strategic geography.
The challenge now is to ensure that the partnerships, capabilities and resilience needed to protect Indian interests evolve at the same pace. Hormuz is therefore more than an energy chokepoint. It is becoming an important test of India’s emergence as a power whose interests increasingly connect the Indo-Pacific, the Gulf and the Mediterranean. And it may also be where the Indo-Pacific truly begins.
