India Turns to BRICS, Emergency Energy Planning and Maritime Vigilance as West Asia War Hits Shipping and Fuel Routes
India has signalled a more structured and multi-layered response to the widening West Asia war by combining diplomatic outreach through forums such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, emergency energy planning at home, tighter maritime monitoring in the Persian Gulf and renewed efforts to protect its vast diaspora in the Gulf region.
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| File Photo: PM NaMo |
According to the Russian side, the ministers also backed a role for the SCO and BRICS in de-escalation efforts and in creating conditions for a durable settlement based on “a balance of the legitimate interests of all parties.”
That matters because it shows India is not confining itself to bilateral crisis management but is also looking at multilateral platforms where it has room to push for restraint without being forced into the binary alignments shaping the war.
At the same time, New Delhi’s response is being driven as much by hard national interest as by diplomacy. The government said two Indian nationals have been killed and one remains missing after merchant vessels came under attack during the current West Asia conflict. It also said one Indian injured in Dubai remains in contact with the Indian Consulate, while another Indian injured in Israel is recovering well.
Those casualties have sharpened the urgency of India’s response because the war is now directly affecting Indian seafarers, Indian citizens and shipping linked to India’s trade routes.
That was evident in India’s statement on the attack on the Thai ship Mayuree Naree in the Strait of Hormuz, which was bound for Kandla. India said it deplores the fact that commercial shipping is being made a target of military attacks and warned that the “intensity and lethality” of such attacks appear to be increasing.
It stated that targeting commercial shipping, endangering civilian crews or impeding freedom of navigation and commerce should be avoided. In effect, New Delhi is now openly framing the war as a direct threat to commercial navigation and India-linked maritime trade.
The domestic policy response shows the extent of the supply risk. At an inter-ministerial briefing, officials said 70% of India’s crude imports are now routed outside the Strait of Hormuz, up from about 55% earlier.
India’s crude supply, the government said, remains secure, and volumes currently secured exceed what would normally have arrived through Hormuz during this period. Two additional crude cargoes are already on the way, and refineries are operating at very high utilization rates, in some cases above 100%.
That is the most important immediate economic fact in India’s favour. While global commentary around the war has focused heavily on Hormuz, New Delhi is trying to show that its crude system is no longer as singularly exposed as it once was.
But the same cannot be said of LPG. Officials said India imports about 60% of its LPG consumption, and of those imports about 90% come through the Strait of Hormuz. That makes LPG the clearest pressure point in India’s fuel basket.
The government has therefore moved into active demand and supply management. It said domestic LPG production has been increased by about 25% after refineries and petrochemical complexes were directed to divert propane, butane, propylene and butenes streams into the LPG pool.
The entire domestic LPG output is now being directed toward household consumers, while non-domestic LPG is being prioritized for essential sectors such as hospitals and educational institutions.
A three-member committee of executives from IOCL, HPCL and BPCL has been set up to review allocations to restaurants, hotels and other commercial users. The minimum gap between LPG bookings has also been increased from 21 to 25 days as a temporary demand-management measure.
India has, as is evident, entered the phase of managing internal behavioural responses such as panic booking and hoarding. The government said field feedback indicates some hoarding behaviour, and the Union Home Secretary has advised states and Union Territories to act against black marketing and stockpiling of essential commodities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking on Wednesday, appealed to the public not to panic and not to believe rumours, and said India would navigate the situation successfully under the principle of “India First.”
Natural gas is another area under stress. Officials said 47.4 MMSCMD of gas supply has been affected under force majeure conditions, though alternative sourcing is under way. A Natural Gas Control Order issued on March 9 under the Essential Commodities Act is now governing allocation.
Domestic PNG supply and CNG for vehicles will receive full supply, while tea industries, manufacturing units and other industrial consumers connected to the gas grid will receive around 80% of their previous six-month average. Fertilizer plants will receive about 70%, while refineries and petrochemical units are taking cuts of roughly 35% to protect higher-priority sectors.
The broader point is that India is trying to absorb the shock through internal prioritization rather than wait passively for the market to settle. That is consistent with its decision to welcome the International Energy Agency’s release of emergency oil stocks.
The government said it stands ready to take appropriate measures, as necessary, to support global market stability in alignment with IEA efforts. India is only an associate member of the IEA but the statement suggests New Delhi wants to be seen as part of the stabilizing response rather than merely a vulnerable consumer.
The maritime side of the response is equally significant. Officials said 28 Indian-flagged vessels are operating in the Persian Gulf region, including 24 vessels west of the Strait of Hormuz with 677 Indian seafarers onboard and 4 vessels east of the strait with 101 Indian seafarers.
Their safety is under continuous monitoring through 24-hour control rooms set up in the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and the Directorate General of Shipping. Indian-flagged vessels and Indian seafarers have already been directed to adopt enhanced security measures and comply with reporting protocols.
At the same time, the government has engaged the National Shipping Board in a high-level review of the maritime sector’s vulnerabilities amid what it described as evolving geopolitical and trade dynamics.
The meeting, chaired by Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, focused on operational pressures on maritime trade, supply chain disruption and the need to enhance India’s shipping resilience and fleet capacity. That points to the fact that New Delhi is beginning to treat the war as a structural shipping and logistics challenge that could reshape cargo flows, insurance costs and India’s maritime planning.
Diplomatically, India’s outreach on Tuesday also extended beyond Moscow. Jaishankar spoke separately with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Lavrov, indicating that New Delhi is maintaining parallel conversations across multiple poles rather than tying its West Asia diplomacy to one camp. The idea appears to be to keep channels open with Europe, Russia and Gulf partners simultaneously while preserving India’s own room for manoeuvre.
That broader strategy fits with the message embedded in the Lavrov call, that BRICS and SCO could become part of the diplomatic architecture for de-escalation. For India, these forums offer a way to back dialogue and restraint without appearing subordinate to Western military logic or Iranian retaliation. They also allow New Delhi to frame the crisis around stability, trade, energy security and sovereign interests rather than ideological blocs.
Meanwhile, the human dimension remains enormous. Officials have said that the welfare of the roughly one crore Indians in GCC countries remains a top priority. Missions have helped stranded Indians, including tourists and transit passengers, return from places such as Muscat, Riyadh and Jeddah. Around 9,000 Indians remain in Iran, with students and pilgrims relocated to safer cities outside Tehran and assistance being arranged for land crossings into Armenia and Azerbaijan so they can board commercial flights back to India.
What is emerging, then, is a distinctly Indian crisis-management model. Diversify energy routes, ration and prioritize vulnerable fuels, monitor shipping in real time, keep commercial ports stable, support evacuations through regular missions, crack down on domestic hoarding, and simultaneously use multilateral diplomacy to argue for de-escalation.
The government is not presenting this as a wartime posture but as a calibrated national response to a conflict that is increasingly threatening India through shipping lanes, fuel flows and citizen safety rather than through any single military front.
That is also why the call with Lavrov matters beyond symbolism. At a time when the war is fragmenting the international response, India is making clear that it wants normalization, de-escalation and a sustainable settlement based on balanced interests, while also quietly preparing for a prolonged disruption. The diplomacy and the domestic preparedness are now moving together.