From his tea plantations in northeast India, Anshuman Kanoria keeps one eye on the weather and the other on the geopolitical situation in the Red Sea. By attacking merchant ships in this region, where 70% of European imports transit through the Suez Canal, the Houthi rebels in Yemen have cut maritime traffic by around half.

The detour via the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa, increases the journey time by at least 10 days and triples the cost of transporting tea from India to London, Paris and St Petersburg (Russia). "This increase comes on top of soaring fertilizer prices and our production costs," deplored Kanoria, who fears losing market share to Kenya, another tea producer closer to the European Union, with which the EU signed a trade agreement in 2023.

Another issue is the availability of ships. Delayed longer to navigate around Africa, ships bound for Calcutta, the Indian port where tea is loaded, are likely to become scarce. "Some people send their harvests by truck to the other end of India, to the west coast, where there are more sea links, but it's too complicated and risky," said Kanoria.

According to estimates from the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, a center affiliated with the Indian government, the crisis in the Red Sea could cost the country $30 billion (about €27.5 billion) in exports, thereby reducing them by 6.7% for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2024, compared to the previous year. "We are monitoring the issue closely," said Secretary of State for Commerce Sunil Barthwal, at the beginning of January.

"It's also the country's energy security that's at stake, with India importing 86% of its oil and gas consumption," pointed out Kabir Taneja, a researcher at the Observer Research Foundation, a Delhi-based think tank. "Yet the Red Sea was the only alternative to the Strait of Hormuz [located between Iran and the United Arab Emirates], whose traffic was disrupted in 2019 due to tensions between the US and Iran." Any slight increase in the price of oil could have significant political repercussions just a few months ahead of India's general elections, scheduled for May.

"India is on the front line of this crisis because of its geographical proximity to it," said Isabelle Saint-Mézard, a professor at l’Institut Français de Géopolitique. "It is protecting its interests by deploying frigates to monitor sea routes without joining the US-led coalition, while at the same time negotiating with Iran." India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar visited Tehran in mid-January, where he expressed his "concern" at the situation, which has "a direct impact on India's energy and economic interests."

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