Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for an “open and safe” Strait of Hormuz during a brief visit to the United Arab Emirates on Friday. Modi, whose plane was guided in and out of UAE airspace by military jets, received an honor guard and met President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan before leaving for the Netherlands.
Modi’s Abu Dhabi visit lasted only hours. But the image it produced — an Indian prime minister whose plane required military jet escorts to navigate Gulf airspace — captures the scale of the Iran war’s regional transformation more vividly than any diplomatic communiqué.
Why Military Jet Escorts Mattered
The UAE military jets guiding Modi’s aircraft into Abu Dhabi are not ceremonial. The Gulf’s airspace has been a contested military environment since February 28. Iran has fired anti-ship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones at UAE territory on multiple days.
UAE air defence systems have been in active engagement with incoming Iranian projectiles. Any civilian aircraft operating in the region requires situational awareness about the air defence environment that only military escorts can reliably provide.
The image of an Indian prime minister requiring military escorts for a brief commercial flight to Abu Dhabi is a direct consequence of 76 days of Iran war. It is the kind of visible regional disruption that Modi cannot ignore politically at home — India’s Gulf relationship involves millions of Indian migrant workers, billions in remittances, and more than 60% of India’s oil imports.
India’s Specific Stakes
India’s exposure to the Iran war has five distinct dimensions. First, the seafarers: nearly 20,000 Indian crew members are stranded in the Strait of Hormuz, the largest national seafarer community in the region. India’s National Union of Seafarers has reported “acute shortages of food, potable water, and essential medical supplies” for crew members who have been stuck on vessels in a war zone for 76 days.
Second, Operation Urja Suraksha: India deployed naval vessels specifically to escort Indian-flagged commercial ships through Hormuz — a mission that requires India’s navy to operate in a contested maritime environment where Iranian mines and gunboats have been actively attacking shipping. The operation’s cost — in fuel, personnel, and strategic naval assets — is ongoing.
Third, oil imports: India gets more than 60% of its crude oil from Middle Eastern sources. The Hormuz closure has forced India to pay higher prices for oil from Atlantic Basin sources and to draw down its strategic petroleum reserves. The government’s fuel subsidy bill has increased by billions of dollars per month to prevent consumer price shocks from triggering the kind of political unrest that elevated fuel prices historically produce in India.
Fourth, remittances: millions of Indian migrant workers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar are sending money home to families in India. The economic disruption to the Gulf states — from Iranian attacks, from the shipping crisis, from the energy market shock — affects those workers’ employment and income, reducing the remittance flows that support millions of Indian families.
Fifth, diplomatic positioning: India has carefully maintained relations with both Iran and the US, with both Saudi Arabia and Israel. Modi’s call for an “open and safe” Hormuz is not an alignment with any single party — it is India’s neutral formulation that supports the outcome (Hormuz open) without taking a position on who is wrong for keeping it closed.
India’s Role in the Endgame
Modi met President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, whose country has been under Iranian attack for three consecutive days.
Modi’s meeting with UAE President MBZ — whose country has been attacked by Iran — creates a specific bilateral context: India and the UAE sharing concerns about regional security and Hormuz access. The UAE’s OPEC exit, its hosting of Al Dhafra Air Base, and its role as the Gulf’s most internationally exposed state make it a natural partner for India’s Gulf diplomacy.
A Modi-MBZ conversation that includes both Hormuz reopening and post-war regional security architecture is exactly the kind of middle-power diplomatic engagement that the endgame requires alongside the US-China bilateral and the Pakistan mediation.
India has not picked a side in the Iran war. It will not. But with nearly 20,000 seafarers stranded, a navy actively escorting ships through a war zone, and a fuel import bill climbing by billions per month, New Delhi’s interest in a resolution is as urgent as any major economy’s — and Modi’s Abu Dhabi stop is the most visible signal that India is actively engaged in the endgame diplomacy that may finally close the MOU and end the world’s most expensive energy crisis.
