Maduro Falls, Oil Politics Rise: What the Capture of Nicolas Maduro Means for India | Image:
AP
New Delhi: When U.S. forces moved against Venezuela, and Nicolás Maduro was flown into American custody, Washington framed it as the overdue toppling of a fraudulent strongman. For India, the images from Caracas carry a far sharper message: in the age of Trump, U.S. power is willing to redraw political maps, and energy flows in one sweep. This is not just about Latin America, it is a live test of whether India can defend its strategic autonomy, energy security, and foreign policy choices when a superpower decides to “run” another country’s oil.
Strategic Autonomy In A World Of Armed Sanctions
India’s foreign policy since Independence has rested on one core instinct: never become anyone’s pawn. That instinct has survived the Cold War, U.S. unipolarity, and now the fracturing multipolar order. The Maduro capture challenges this doctrine by fusing three tools, military power, sanctions, and control over resources, into one coercive package.
India has no desire to be seen as backing a leader accused of electoral fraud and repression. Equally, it has no intention of blessing a precedent where regime change, custody of a head of state, and control over an oil sector are asserted unilaterally by force.
Energy Security
On the surface, India appears less exposed to Venezuelan turmoil than it was a decade ago. Refiners such as Reliance and Nayara, once major buyers of Venezuelan heavy crude, have drastically reduced purchases under the weight of U.S. sanctions, compliance risk, and easier access to discounted Russian oil. Venezuela, once a significant supplier, had already dwindled to a marginal share of India’s crude basket.
Yet energy security is about optionality, not just current volumes. Venezuela holds some of the largest proven oil reserves in the world and was historically a valuable source of heavy crude suited to Indian refineries and a site of Indian upstream investment. The prospect of U.S.-supervised “restructuring” in Caracas could, reopen doors for India.
If Washington treats Venezuelan oil as a controlled asset, allocating access first to U.S. and allied refiners and tying any Indian participation to broader political concessions, then what looks like an opportunity becomes leverage.
Great-Power Rivalries: Risks And Red Lines For India
Venezuela is becoming the largest contest between the U.S., China and Russia. Maduro leaned heavily on Moscow and Beijing for loans, weapons and diplomatic cover. His removal weakens their Western Hemisphere footprint and reminds the world that U.S. hard power has not retired, merely become more selective.
For India, three risks stand out. First, the normalisation of regimechange politics. If the international system shrugs at the idea that a leader can be branded illegitimate and physically removed without a robust multilateral process, it lowers the bar for similar actions elsewhere. India is not Venezuela, but as a state that resists alignment with Russia, Iran and China, it cannot be relaxed about doctrines that make regime type a pretext for force.
Second, the spread of extraterritorial enforc
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