The* Gulf region has been a key employment destination for Indian workers, a major source of remittances and vital trading partner for India. Through an examination of speeches and policies and using constructivist discourse analysis, this chapter seeks to assess the nature and drivers of the strategic narratives of the previous Congress Party–led government of Manmohan Singh and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)–led government of Narendra Modi to engage the Gulf states and the Indian diaspora in the Gulf region. It is argued that India's engagement with the Gulf states since the 1990s has been shaped by varying domestic political projects that place emphasis on India's advancement as a market-driven state and society with a secular-social democratic identity, under the Singh government, and an identity of ‘marketised Hindutva’, under the Modi government. The chapter aims to compare the nature of engagement produced by these similar but distinct political projects. It also seeks to highlight the foreign policy impact of the external projection of domestic politics and the impact of foreign policy engagement in shaping domestic political projects.

Introduction

India's current policy towards the Gulf States has been advertised as a reinvention and a distinct move beyond just an economic engagement based on the supply of oil to one that encompasses the security and strategic spheres. There is, however, a certain continuity with previous Indian engagements with Gulf nations. India's foreign policy was first transformed significantly following the liberalization of the economy in the early 1990s, with economic security taking centre stage to assist a growing economy. Referring to the Gulf nations as India's ‘natural economic hinterland’, the goal of the Manmohan Singh government was to consolidate sustainable economic partnerships that would pave the way for strategic and political alliances, a direction that the current government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pursued actively. Broadly, India's priorities in the Gulf as identified by several governments have been geared towards energy security, trade, investment, strategic ties, and securing the interests of the large Indian diaspora. Another recurring aspect of India's engagement with the region has been to negotiate a tricky path between the Arab Gulf states, the relationship with Iran and to harbour increasingly closer ties with the Jewish state of Israel.