Reimagining Regionalism: India’s Strategic Engagement with Middle Eastern Multilateral Institutions

The transformation of India’s foreign policy in the Middle East in the twenty-first century can increasingly be understood through the lens of multilateralism. Traditionally, India relied largely on bilateral engagement with regional states, adopting a modular and issue-based approach that allowed it to maintain balanced relations with competing actors across the region. However, evolving geopolitical realities, economic interdependence, and the growing importance of connectivity and maritime security have gradually encouraged India to supplement this bilateral framework with new forms of multilateral engagement. This chapter examines this transition through three emerging institutional and strategic platforms: the I2U2 grouping, the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), and India’s expanding maritime multilateralism in the western Indian Ocean and the broader Gulf region. The chapter argues that India’s contemporary engagement reflects a form of strategic pragmatism that blends sectoral diplomacy with flexible alignments rather than rigid alliance structures. Within the I2U2 framework, India has embraced a model of functional multilateralism that prioritizes cooperation in practical and developmental sectors such as renewable energy, food security, digital governance, and infrastructure development. At the same time, India continues to maintain a careful diplomatic balance among major regional actors, thereby preserving its strategic autonomy while expanding opportunities for economic and technological collaboration. India’s transition from being primarily a connective participant to an emerging architect of trans-regional connectivity initiatives is particularly visible through its role in IMEC. By leveraging regulatory diplomacy, logistics coordination, and digital trade infrastructure, India is positioning itself as a key stakeholder in shaping emerging economic corridors that link South Asia with the Middle East and Europe. In parallel, India’s participation in maritime frameworks—most notably the Combined Maritime Forces and other cooperative security arrangements—demonstrates its growing role as a cooperative security provider in an increasingly contested maritime environment stretching from the Arabian Sea to the Red Sea. The chapter further explores broader strategic patterns shaping India’s regional posture, including its preference for flexible multilateral platforms, its strategy of constructive hedging among competing powers, and its integration of economic statecraft with elements of normative leadership. Despite these gains, the study acknowledges persistent structural constraints, including limited institutional depth within new platforms, continuing regional volatility, and enduring geopolitical tensions across the Middle East. Nevertheless, India’s evolving multilateral approach represents a distinctive example of middle-power diplomacy that is adaptive, principled, and strategically autonomous, offering a pragmatic alternative to coercive or bloc-based regionalism in an era of strategic flux and institutional fragmentation.