India's Energy Diplomacy: The Role of Foreign Policy in Securing Energy Security and Promoting Sustainable Development

With growing economic and geopolitical weight, energy security is becoming increasingly important for the Indian foreign policy and international relations. The paper focuses on energy diplomacy of India as one of the strategies for obtaining reliable sources of energy supplies and promotion of sustainable development. With high dependency on imports of hydrocarbons, especially of crude oil, reaching 90%, the Indian energy security is exposed to risks caused by price fluctuations, geopolitical factors, business risks, and maritime constraints. Against this backdrop, we discuss the role of the Indian diplomatic efforts via bilateral energy deals with energy exporting countries, multilateral and Mini lateral frameworks, energy investments abroad, strategic petroleum reserves and energy connectivity projects for securing energy security of India. The paper draws attention to the Indian energy ties with the Middle East, Russia, Central Asia, and South Asia. Also, we highlight the transition from traditional energy diplomacy to renewables-based initiatives like International Solar Alliance, Global Biofuels Alliance, and green-hydrogen partnerships. India's energy strategic autonomy is defined as the country's attempt to maintain a balance between its efforts at managing international interdependencies and developing strategic reserves of suppliers, technologies, markets, and critical minerals while avoiding dependence on a particular supplier. It is possible to note that there is a dilemma in the country's energy security and climate policies in terms of using carbon energy to achieve economic development goals while following the international decarbonization agenda of a climate leader. The conclusion drawn from the paper is that the Indian foreign policy should be more comprehensive by addressing energy security, geopolitics, technology, connectivity, climate, and sustainable development aspects to strengthen India's role as an energy consumer in the global community.