ISAS Working Papers

As happened in the early 1990s, when India adopted the ‘Look East’ policy towards the Southeast Asia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is signalling the greater importance of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf for India. He has been delineating the parameters and components of the relations through intense political engagements with the aim of transforming the transactional nature of the bilateral ties, and he is adding economic and strategic substance. There are number of challenges before meaningful progress is achieved but there are sufficient indications that, under Modi, India is turning west and befriending Gulf Arab more aggressively than in the past.