Having adopted a state led Planned Economy Model, the Indian economy between 1947 and 1980 – in spite of its ambitious Five Year Plans – had grown at an annual average rate of 3.5 percent. Given an annual population growth of over 2 percent, the country’s per person income, consequently, had lumbered on at a sub 2 percent rate of growth. The economic reforms initiated in the early 1990s changed the picture. India’s economy now began to grow at an annual average of over 6 percent. Population growth having declined to under 2 percent per year, per capita income grew at an average over 4 percent in the last three decades.¹

Between 2000 and 2014, India’s energy consumption doubled implying an improved quality of life for an increasing number of Indians.² India too caught the world’s attention as a region of rising energy consumption. India’s rising economic heft also saw energy demand rise in tandem with its neighbour, China, making comparisons between the two common.

However, geo-politically, given its long legacy as the leader of the non-aligned movement, India remained a reluctant power, hesitating to imagine a larger geo-political role for itself even as it came to terms with its increasing economic clout. Even so, in the face of a rising energy demand, several forays for acquiring energy assets abroad – were acts bound to lead to a wide range of interpretations as to its actions and motives.

The geo-political narrative of the nineties tended to frame the Indian approach to securing energy supplies, particularly oil supplies as ‘mercantile’ and ‘realist’.³ Meanwhile, in spite of the much-touted economic reforms, the interference of the State in energy pricing continued, leading most to conclude that India’s half-hearted economic reforms would continue, along with China’s, to threaten the emergence of a rule based multilateral order for global energy governance. The dominant role of the state in the domestic energy sector as well as the com- petition between Indian and Chinese national oil & gas companies (NOCs) to ac- quire hydrocarbon assets around the world only served to strengthen this belief.⁴

But then came 2008. Global growth stagnated. Even as China and India continued to grow, albeit slower, a deceleration in energy demand growth and the collapse of oil and gas prices globally, reduced the strategic as well as commercial value of the hydrocarbon assets held by Indian and Chinese NOCs overseas. Simultaneously, global pressure on reducing carbon-di-oxide (CO ) emissions, and the emergence of 2 competitive low carbon technologies further eroded the validity of this narrative.

In the emerging energy geo-political narrative, India now is the key to global energy decarbonisation plans. The hope is that much of India’s yet-to-be installed energy infrastructure could be based on low carbon energy sources. India’s energy demand is still projected to account for 30 percent of the world’s incremental energy demand over the next two decades. However, the emphasis has shifted to how this demand can be met from non-fossil fuels.⁵

This chapter seeks to examine the core values that inform geopolitical narratives on energy and contextualize them in the framework of the political economy that the authors insist, will eventually shape India’s energy policy. The paper will argue that key values such as selfreliance (in resource and in technology), development (economic progress) and social justice (energy justice) embedded in the local dimensions of energy policy, have historically influenced, and will continue to influence strategic vectors such as dependence, resilience and identity and inform India’s position in multilateral bargaining environments.