Melting Arctic ice is opening a window for India, and we need to act soon

For the last twenty years, India’s strategic thinking has been locked on one place, the ‘Indo-Pacific.’ The Quad, and freedom of navigation patrols and the long naval watch on China near the first island chain. That focus made sense, and it was the right call.

But north of everything Delhi has been watching, a second theatre has been quietly opening up, not replacing the Indo-Pacific, just running alongside it.

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The Arctic is now warming three to four times faster than the rest of the planet, according to recent assessments from the World Meteorological Organisation and America’s NOAA. A WMO report found the Arctic is set to warm more than three and a half times faster than the global average between 2025 and 2029, while NOAA’s own tracking shows Arctic annual air temperatures have been rising nearly three times faster than the global mean since 1980. And the Northern Sea Route, once the exclusive territory of Soviet icebreakers and polar explorers, is turning into real, usable infrastructure. Ice doesn’t wait for foreign ministries to give it permission before it melts.

The question is no longer whether the Arctic matters to India. It’s whether India will simply watch this new route open from the shore or step in and help build it.

A theatre made by ice, not ideology

The Arctic theatre isn’t being shaped by alliances or ideology. It’s being shaped by physics. Arctic sea routes could cut the distance between Northern Europe and Asia by as much as 40 per cent compared with the traditional path.

And this isn’t just theory. In 2024, Rosatom reported nearly 37.9 million tonnes of cargo moving along the Northern Sea Route, a record. There were also a record 92 transit voyages that pushed transit cargo past 3 million tonnes. Rosatom’s director general said in October 2025 that he expected roughly 20% more cargo the following year.

The real picture is a bit more layered than that headline suggests. When the final 2025 numbers came in, total NSR cargo had actually slipped to about 37 million tonnes, down slightly from the year before. Russian consultancy Gecon called it a second straight year of decline in overall volumes. But the transit segment, the part of the route that competes directly with Suez, carrying goods from China toward Europe, told a different story. It hit a record 103 voyages carrying about 3.2 million tonnes. One container ship, the Istanbul Bridge, even reached the English port of Felixstowe in just 20 days, against the 40-50 days a Suez or Cape route usually takes.

Arctic Circle and NSR, map by Brussels School on Geopolitics, shared by Velina Tchakarova on X

Western shipping majors have mostly stayed away. Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd have pulled back because of sanctions risk, and even China’s COSCO hasn’t sailed the route since 2022. But the specific lane that matters most to India’s calculations, the one linking Asia to Europe, is the one growing fastest.

The monsoon is written in the ice

Here’s the part of the story no other Indo-Pacific power can tell. Try asking Tokyo, Canberra, or Hanoi how the Arctic affects their monsoon. They’ll look at you blankly. Ask Delhi, and they’ll show you the data, less Arctic ice means unpredictable rains for millions of Indian farmers.

Scientists at India’s National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, working with South Korea’s polar institute, have traced how shrinking sea ice in the central Arctic and the Barents-Kara Sea is reshaping the Indian monsoon. When sea ice concentration falls in the central Arctic, rainfall drops over western and southern peninsular India but rises over north-western and central India, a redistribution, not simply less rain overall. M. Ravichandran, Secretary at the Ministry of Earth Sciences, has called climate-resilient infrastructure and deeper research into this Arctic-monsoon link a policy priority. 

Schematic of the suggested mechanism between The Arctic Sea Ice Extent (SIE) in Kara Sea and Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR) extremes during September

A monsoon that waters more than a billion people is being rewritten, one melting season at a time, in a sea most Indians will never see. That isn’t a metaphor. It’s a data point. It means India’s Arctic stake isn’t mainly about trade or minerals. At its core, it’s also existential, in a way no ally’s is.

A claim older than China’s

When China called itself a ‘near Arctic state‘ in its first official Arctic white paper in January 2018, it presented the region as a new frontier opening up for Asian powers. India’s claim to a seat at the table is older, by almost a century.

India’s link to the Arctic goes back more than a hundred years. It was one of the original high contracting parties to the Svalbard Treaty, signed in Paris in February 1920. India signed as part of the British Empire’s overseas dominions, alongside Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. China only joined the same treaty five years later, in 1925.

That’s exactly the reason when Union Minister Jitendra Singh released India’s first Arctic policy, ‘India and the Arctic: Building a Partnership for Sustainable Development,’ in March 2022. He traced India’s Arctic engagement back a century, to that 1920 signature in Paris. It’s a fair reply to anyone who calls India a late entrant just playing catch-up to Beijing. But it shouldn’t be stretched too far. Signing a treaty in 1920 is not the same as owning an icebreaker in 2026. A serious case for India’s Arctic role has to hold both truths at once, the century-old legal claim at the table, and the very real capability gap that still exists today.

Slow and steady: How India got here

Line up the dates, and you’ll see it. India was late to the paperwork, but early to the ground game.

Himadri, India’s Arctic research station in Svalbard, opened in July 2008. Five years later, India became an Arctic Council observer, sitting at the table with China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. The formal Arctic Policy didn’t arrive until March 2022, fourteen years after Himadri. But by then, India was already deepening its presence. In December 2023, Delhi launched its first winter science expedition to Himadri, pushing the station toward year-round operations.

Himadri Station in Svalbard

But the Arctic wasn’t the only piece moving. In September 2019, Prime Minister Modi visited Vladivostok for the Eastern Economic Forum, the first Indian Prime Minister to set foot in Russia’s Far East. There, he announced a $1 billion line of credit for development projects in the Russian Arctic and launched India’s ‘Act Far East’ policy. It was a signal, India wasn’t just watching the Arctic from Svalbard. It was building a corridor to reach it. That corridor became the Chennai-Vladivostok Eastern Maritime Corridor, launched in November 2024. A direct sea link between Indian ports and Russia’s Far East, cutting transit times by up to 16 days compared to the traditional route via Suez. In December 2025, during Putin’s visit to New Delhi, India and Russia formalized the connection: the Chennai-Vladivostok corridor would link directly to the Northern Sea Route, creating a continuous maritime axis from the Indian Ocean to the Arctic.

The 20th India-Russia Annual Summit, Vladivostok 2019

The logic is simple. Vladivostok is India’s gateway to the Arctic. From there, Indian ships can access the Northern Sea Route, Russian Arctic ports like Murmansk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and the resource-rich Far East. In July 2024, Russia’s Far East and Arctic Development Corporation signed an MoU with the Indian Chamber of International Business in Vladivostok to foster joint investment projects. In December 2025, the two countries committed to intensifying trade and investment cooperation in the Far East and the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation.

In May 2025, Indian representatives joined the seventh BRICS Working Group on Ocean and Polar Science and Technology in Brasília. And in May 2026, at the Third India-Nordic Summit in Oslo, the first Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Norway in 43 years, the Nordic states welcomed deeper Indian involvement in polar research.

Call it what you want. It’s not a sudden pivot. It’s fifteen years of small, deliberate steps. Easy to miss if you’re looking at one year at a time. Hard to explain away once you see the whole line. Himadri in 2008, Vladivostok in 2019, Arctic Policy in 2022, Chennai-Vladivostok corridor in 2024, BRICS polar roadmap in 2025, and Nordic Summit in 2026. India wasn’t waiting for permission. It was building the path, one step at a time.

The Russia opening

Since 2022, the other seven Arctic Council states have frozen Russia out of formal cooperation as the region’s security architecture shifted decisively toward NATO. That left Moscow looking outside the traditional Arctic club for partners, and it found two, China and India.

In December 2025, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was building dedicated Arctic working groups with both countries, naming India specifically as a priority partner in developing the Northern Sea Route. That wasn’t just talk. Weeks earlier, in October 2025, Russia had signalled strong interest in India’s inclusion in the Arctic Council as part of a push for deeper NSR cooperation. Then, during President Putin’s state visit to New Delhi in December 2025, India and Russia concluded a formal agreement on training Indian seafarers for polar shipping operations. The two sides also opened talks on jointly constructing four Arctic-class vessels worth roughly $750 million, sitting alongside India’s own $8 billion shipbuilding incentive package already under way.

This is the same structural gap India has already exploited in energy markets since 2022, buying discounted Russian oil while the West looked away. Except this time the asset isn’t a tanker. It’s an entire ocean.

None of this means picking Moscow over Washington or Tokyo. It means strategic autonomy doing what it’s supposed to do, keeping a door open that everyone else’s has shut. The Arctic Institute has pointedly asked why India has not worked more closely with fellow democracies in the Arctic, instead opting for closer cooperation with a regime the other seven Arctic states have largely cut off. That tension is real, and a serious case for India’s Arctic policy has to name it rather than talk around it.

Parliament enters the Ice Age

On 30 July 2026, an Indian parliamentary committee did something no Indian institution had done before. It put the Arctic and Antarctic at the centre of a foreign policy report, not a footnote to science policy. The Standing Committee on External Affairs, chaired by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, tabled ‘India’s Role and Presence in the Arctic and Antarctic Regions’ in the Lok Sabha during the Monsoon Session. The committee had adopted the report nine days earlier, after hearing from the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the Environment Ministry and the Ministry of External Affairs. Tharoor called the subject ‘rather obscure’ but said the polar regions are far more important than people think.

Its central recommendation consisted of India appointing a ‘polar ambassador’ to pursue polar diplomacy more effectively and push for full member status of the Arctic Council. The committee noted that all Arctic Council states, and most non-Arctic observers including Japan, China, Singapore and South Korea, already have such a position. It went further. It recommended a quadrilateral agreement among India, Japan, Singapore and South Korea, the Council’s four Asian observers, to strengthen Asia’s collective voice, and noted that development of NSR shipments between India and Russia is being actively pursued, alongside India’s Chennai-Vladivostok Eastern Maritime Corridor, operational since November 2024. It also recommended the government buy polar research vessels, citing a shortage of icebreaker ships as a real constraint on India’s polar work.

Perhaps most striking is what it asked India to become, not just a scientific observer of the Arctic, but the voice of the Global South inside its governance.

The Hard truths

A serious case for India’s Arctic role has to start by admitting what it still lacks. India doesn’t yet have a dedicated Arctic class icebreaker of its own. It leases and borrows what it needs, which is exactly why the committee’s call to buy polar research vessels matters. The December 2025 talks with Russia on jointly building four ice-class ships are a real first step toward closing that gap. But they remain talks, not ships already delivered. India also runs just one permanent Arctic station, while China has poured far more into polar infrastructure and icebreaking capacity in the thirteen years since both countries became Arctic Council observers together.

Sovcomflot, Russia’s largest shipping company, Icebreaker.

And there’s the question the Arctic Institute has already asked in public. Why has India built its Arctic strategy so heavily around Russia, instead of coordinating more closely with fellow democracies that are just as close to the Arctic, like Japan or Norway?

The honest answer is strategic autonomy, not sentiment, and partly economics, the same discounted oil logic that has shaped India’s Russia policy since 2022. India has kept open a channel that almost no other major democracy still has. That channel may prove valuable precisely because it’s scarce. But it is also a wager that India can keep close ties with Moscow, Tokyo and Washington all at once, indefinitely, without ever being forced to choose.

What Delhi should do now?

The parliamentary committee has basically handed India a clear to-do list. Five things on it stand out as the most important.

Get the ships built

A proper Arctic capable ship (Polar research vehicle) is the single most practical and fundamental demand on that list. The conversations with Russia about four icebreaker ships have to turn into signed contracts, not stay as talking points. 

Here’s the awkward reality. Russia operates the world’s biggest nuclear icebreaker fleet, and the only nuclear-powered ones anywhere, while India still has none. Back in December 2025, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov confirmed discussions on building four non-nuclear icebreaker ships in India, valued at more than ₹6,000 crore. Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, is already looking at Indian shipyards, both public and private, for the work. This isn’t simply about purchasing ships. It’s about joint construction, transferring technology, and training Indian crews for polar operations.

Connect the Arctic to the routes India already runs

Formally tie the Northern Sea Route into the International North-South Transport Corridor and the Chennai-Vladivostok Eastern Maritime Corridor. That way, the whole thing looks like a natural extension of India’s existing connectivity plans rather than a sudden new idea. 

The INSTC already links India, Iran and Russia by sea, rail and road, and it brings cargo from St Petersburg to Mumbai down to about 25 days instead of the usual 40 via Suez. The Chennai-Vladivostok corridor, which started running in November 2024, gives Indian ports a direct east-west line into Russia’s Far East. Add the Northern Sea Route, and you suddenly have a continuous path from the Indian Ocean up through Vladivostok, into the Arctic, and out toward Europe. Rosatom is actively inviting Indian involvement in NSR projects and offering priority access to icebreaker escorts and ports.

In December 2025 India and Russia signed several maritime MoUs that treat the INSTC, the Chennai-Vladivostok corridor and the Northern Sea Route as one connected network. The committee isn’t asking Delhi to invent anything fresh. It’s simply asking it to join up the lines it has already drawn.

Move from buying cargo to owning a share

 Stop limiting yourself to shipping Russian Arctic oil and start taking an equity stake in the projects, the same way ONGC Videsh has done in other places. A pure customer has no real voice while an investor does.

Since 2021 ONGC Videsh has been discussing a minority stake in Russia’s Vostok oil project, which holds an estimated 44 billion barrels of high quality crude, and in the Arctic LNG-2 project on the Gydan peninsula. Gazprom Neft first invited ONGC Videsh into its offshore Arctic work as early as 2017. Even further back, in 2012, ONGC Videsh was already looking at Russian Arctic blocks with ExxonMobil and ENI. India has put about $16 billion into Russian oil and gas overall, but most of that money sits in Siberia and the Far East rather than the Arctic itself.

The committee’s message is straightforward. India needs to shift from buyer to partner. Ownership gives you influence over pricing, production and access. Just buying the oil leaves you dependent on the seller’s terms.

Create a group that doesn’t wait for the Arctic Council’s approval 

The Arctic Council has been largely frozen since 2022, when the other seven members suspended work with Russia after the Ukraine invasion. In that situation the committee’s idea of a quadrilateral with Japan, South Korea and Singapore looks more practical in the short term than waiting for all eight Arctic states to agree on anything. All four countries are Asian observers on the Council. All four run polar research programmes. All four want Arctic access without getting stuck in the Russia-West standoff. Japan already has two icebreakers. South Korea has one. Singapore has none, but it is a major shipping hub. India also has none, yet it already operates Himadri in Svalbard, is expanding its research presence, and currently holds the BRICS chair.

Such a quadrilateral would not replace the Arctic Council. It would simply work around the blockage, concentrating on joint research, shared logistics, and coordinated positions on the Northern Sea Route, data exchange and climate monitoring. The committee is not telling India to walk away from the Council. It is telling Delhi to stop sitting around waiting for the Council to thaw.

Make full use of the BRICS chair while India still holds it  

India has the BRICS presidency through 2026, exactly when Arctic issues and Global South concerns are starting to overlap. That is a concrete, time limited tool, not some vague future chance, and it vanishes the moment the chairship ends. 

In May 2025 the BRICS Working Group on Ocean and Polar Science and Technology held its seventh meeting in Brasília and approved a five-year plan for joint polar research. Russia, Brazil, South Africa and China all have their own Arctic or Antarctic interests. Brazil runs an Antarctic station. South Africa has a Southern Ocean programme. China operates two Arctic stations and an icebreaker fleet. India’s 2026 presidency is the moment to lift polar cooperation from a working-group topic to a summit priority.

India should use the BRICS chair to present itself as the voice of the Global South in Arctic affairs. That means treating the Arctic not only as a resource zone but as a climate zone, one where melting ice in the far north already influences monsoon patterns across the Global South. It means pressing for technology sharing, joint research and fairer access to polar resources. And it means acting now, while the gavel is still in Delhi’s hands. Once the chairship ends, that lever is gone.

Representative Image via AI

Conclusion: Passenger or pilot

None of this means India has to walk away from the Indo-Pacific, or pick Moscow over its other partners. It simply asks Delhi to stop treating the Arctic as a side hobby for scientists, and start seeing it for what the ice has already decided. It is a live strategic theatre, one that carries a monsoon, a shipping lane, and a century-old claim to a seat at the table. The ice isn’t going to wait for any committee to meet again.

The route is opening. The monsoon is already shifting. And for the first time, Delhi has a clear parliamentary mandate to act, not just watch from the sidelines. India’s claim to the Arctic didn’t begin this year. It began in Paris, in February 1920. The only question left is whether, in 2026, India finally starts behaving like it.

Passenger, or one of the pilots? Customer, or partner? The ice is melting.

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