September 22, 2025 07:24 AM IST First published on: Sep 22, 2025 at 07:24 AM ISTPrime Minister Narendra Modi is right. One of the greatest dangers facing India is the country’s dependence on foreign countries, he said while addressing an event in Bhavnagar, Gujarat on September 20. For all the talk of strategic autonomy and multi-alignment, what we are faced with is the opposite — strategic and multi-dependence. Our governments, our businesses, and we ourselves, as Indians, have contributed to the state we find ourselves in with China, Russia, and the US. We seem to be in a foreign policy corner.With China, we are dependent on a range of manufacturing products, from everyday household consumer items to commodities and capital goods. As middle-class Indians, we are hooked on Chinese consumer items, all the way up to white goods. We need Chinese precursor chemicals, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), without which our famed pharmaceutical industry would collapse. As for commodities, India imports most of its rare earth metals, which are vital for batteries and other electronic devices, and polysilicon, wafers, and solar cells from China. We are increasingly dependent also on Chinese fertilisers and tunnel boring equipment. We are assembling mobile phones in larger numbers, but key components are imported including from China. Most of our computers are also from China. We buy large amounts of semiconductors from China as well.AdvertisementWith Russia, we are heavily dependent on arms and oil. Our arms dependence is difficult to put an exact number on. Estimates vary from 60 to 70 per cent dependence in key platforms and systems including spares. While India has tried to diversify to F6rance, Israel, and the US, dependence on Russia goes back a long way, to the 1970s, and it is hard for the armed forces to wean themselves off Russian equipment. Domestic production is increasing, but except for capital ships, India depends on Russian equipment for all three services, the army, air force, and navy. Our oil purchases from Russia were small, at about 4 per cent of our oil needs in 2022. Since then, we peaked at about 40 per cent of our oil purchases from Russian sources. Major refineries in India are now heavily dependent on Russia’s supplies.With the US, we are dependent on four things — markets for our exports, H-1B visas for our professionals and student visas and Green Cards for our young, key military armaments and components (including GE engines for our indigenous fighter aircraft, the Tejas), and counterbalancing against China’s power in the Indo-Pacific. The US is our largest export destination. Indians in recent years have topped the list of H1-B visa recipients, up to 70 per cent of those issued. Indian students in the US rival Chinese students in terms of numbers, and the US is the top destination for our students going abroad. Plus, which elite and middle-class Indian family does not dream of a Green Card for their young? American arms and military technology are seen as vital for India’s defence modernisation, including assault rifles, helicopters, missiles, reconnaissance, cargo, and fighter aircraft, and unmanned aerial systems, among others. And whether we say it publicly or not, we do count on Washington to be a strategic backstop against Beijing in the Indo-Pacific.Dependence on these three powers means that we are in a tight corner. New Delhi cannot afford to offend China over the border and India’s relationship with the US beyond a point. It cannot offend Russia over the Ukraine war, its arms sales to China, and its burgeoning relationship with Pakistan. And it cannot annoy Moscow by stopping oil imports altogether either. Finally, it cannot offend the Americans over tariffs and India’s relations with China and Russia as well as Iran beyond a point.AdvertisementOur foreign policy difficulties have become clear ever since President Donald Trump declared war on India’s tariffs and oil imports from Russia. The American President’s actions have brought our overall dependence on China, Russia, and the US into sharp focus. This is as much of a wake-up call as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the country’s predicaments after the end of the Cold War were in 1989.most readThe road ahead is clear enough, though traveling down that road will be even more difficult than the road of economic reforms in the 1990s. How do we fix our dependence over such a wide range of economic goods and other needs? As the prime minister noted, we require a revolution in manufacturing. Despite several changes rung in by the government, our manufacturing companies, in the private and public sector, are not rising to the challenge. The Indian economy, since the 1990s reforms, has averaged roughly 7 per cent GDP growth rates. Yet, our manufacturing sector stubbornly refuses to take off.Manufacturing is not the only bottleneck – we desperately need various commodities including energy, rare earths, and APIs, and must diversify our suppliers of these plus increase domestic sourcing. We also need to diversify our exports. Above all, though, we need to galvanise the “animal spirits” of our manufacturers.The writer is visiting professor of International Relations, Ashoka University, and emeritus professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore