Diversification is a non-negotiable option to bolster India’s supply chain resilience through which it can help shape a more multipolar, equitable critical minerals economy
For decades, India’s energy security debates revolved around oil tankers, choke points, and strategic reserves. Today, that vocabulary feels outdated. The new arteries of power are quieter and less visible: lithium oxides, nickel sulphates, graphite anodes, and rare earths. They do not arrive in dramatic convoys, but their absence can be just as crippling. In a world fractured by geopolitical uncertainty, export controls, and resource nationalism, India’s clean energy transition is increasingly and repeatedly being hostage to critical mineral supply chain hegemony..
This is not a distant or abstract risk. India’s clean energy ambitions are underwritten by a significant import dependence: lithium, cobalt, and nickel are sourced almost entirely from overseas markets, a majority of graphite is imported, and critical segments of rare earths and a significant portion of our reliance for battery precursor processing remain concentrated in China.
This exposure deepened further in 2024, with a sharp rise in lithium oxide imports from China alongside significant increases in nickel sulphate and artificial graphite inflows over the previous year. These are not marginal fluctuations or routine trade volatility; they represent step-changes in dependence at precisely the moment when clean energy deployment is accelerating.
Such jumps lock India deeper into concentrated supply chains, amplify exposure to geopolitical shocks, and risk hard-wiring mineral insecurity into the country’s energy transition unless corrective action is taken now.
When Supply Chains Become Tools of Statecraft
Disruptions to the supply chain have also become commonplace which gives currency to mainstreaming of the term “supply chain weaponisation”. Export restrictions, border tensions, and certain presidential announcements are all contributing to the strategic use of trade and resource dependencies as instruments of geopolitical leverage which can reshape markets overnight and constraining national policy autonomy.
China’s decision to impose rare earth export controls in 2025 had implications for India, followed by similar restrictions directed at Japan recently, illustrating how minerals critical to clean energy, defence, and advanced manufacturing are no longer treated as neutral commodities, but increasingly blurred with tools of statecraft. The geo-technical concentration of the (almost) entirety of the critical minerals’ supply chain in the hands of a few creates a structural asymmetry that leaves import-dependent countries like India vulnerable.
Why India Cannot Sit Outside Supply Chain Consortia
India has recognised this challenge and has begun engaging with developed economies through strategic partnerships and consortiums. These efforts matter, but they are insufficient on their own. Many are framed through the lens of risk mitigation, finding alternatives to China without
fundamentally reshaping the structure of the supply chain.
The recent G7 meeting in Washington is a case in point. Being part of trusted mineral alliances like MSP, EU’s Critical Raw Materials Club, Supply Chain Resilience Initiative with Japan and Australia, QUAD and others, these should allow India priority access during periods of scarcity, and a voice in shaping emerging rules on stockpiling, ESG standards and others. Such platforms provide India with a leverage of collective bargaining power to negotiate better terms with producers and pool risk across jurisdictions. However, on its own these measures won’t be sufficient.
Redesigning Supply Chains Through Development Cooperation: A CRF Recommendation
It is imperative that India must now reconceptualise and re-define its critical mineral security as a long-term institution-building framework. This means moving beyond extractive, transactional models towards development-oriented partnerships particularly with mineral resource-rich countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Indo-Pacific. These regions sit at the intersection of
immense geological potential and underdeveloped industrial capacity.
They are also increasingly and quite vocally seeking out alternatives to dependency-driven arrangements that have historically delivered little local value. This convergence of supply potential and political willingness presents India with a strategic opening that must be actively seized. National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM) through KABIL is already empowered to make overseas investments. The pace of engagements and the timeline for discussion to project development needs to be increased.
A recent study undertaken by the author using a 6-criteria based approach examined resource endowment, midstream capacity, geo-strategic balancing, ease of doing business, geopolitical alignment, and mutual benefit potential. The research posits that a diversified strategy anchored in development cooperation offers India multiple advantages. First, it systematically reduces concentration risk by spreading supply across geographies and political systems. Second, it allows India to address its most acute vulnerability: the midstream gap.
Partnering with countries willing to co-invest in these stages rather than exporting raw ore can help India secure semi-processed or battery-grade materials while simultaneously building industrial ecosystems abroad. This will allow to offset the current geopolitically concentrated chokepoints across the value and supply chain, build long-lasting relationships anchored on goodwill and mutual
beneficence.
Consider graphite: countries like Mozambique and Sri Lanka offer great options- the former offers scale and the latter hosts one of the highest qualities of graphite known in the world. Neither has deep processing capacity yet, but both present opportunities for joint beneficiation, technology transfer, and long-term offtake agreements. Similar logic applies to lithium and rare earths in Namibia, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam, where governments are increasingly asserting control over raw exports and seeking non-China partners who can help build domestic value chains.
For nickel and cobalt, Botswana and Madagascar illustrate how India can tap into relatively stable jurisdictions or existing processing hubs without reinforcing extractive asymmetries. These geographies are also increasingly open to foreign investment and guidance towards their clean energy portfolio. While OECD-centric narratives usually cast them as commercially unattractive, India must undertake its own due diligence grounded in context-specific risk assessment rather than inherited investment orthodoxies.
What distinguishes this approach from traditional resource diplomacy is not just economics, but legitimacy. Development cooperation, when done credibly, creates shared stakes. It links mineral access to infrastructure development, workforce training, institutional capacity-building, and environmental governance. This is particularly important at a time when mining projects face mounting social resistance and ESG scrutiny as the world moves towards standards-based markets.
To sustain and scale these partnerships, India should expand and ring-fence allocations under NCMM through dedicated budget lines linked to targeted, country- specific engagement strategies. This will require institutionally and financially empowering KABIL with earmarked funding windows for high-potential jurisdictions, enabling it to move beyond exploratory engagement towards structured investment, offtake, and co-development arrangements. Considering the upcoming Union Budget 2026-27, this is a timely window to act.
Timing, Path Dependence, and Lock-In Risks
India is uniquely positioned to pursue this path. India, formerly being under the British Raj, is well averse with the risks and politics of resource curse. Meaning, we are not going to engage in the same repetitive patterns. India can credibly frame mineral partnerships within a broader Global South framework by emphasising co-creation rather than mere extraction. Our experience with digital public infrastructure which we are sharing open-access to African countries, skill and capacity development initiatives through ITEC scholarships, and infrastructure-led growth provides tangible growth opportunities.
When mineral diplomacy is embedded within wider cooperation on energy, digital systems, education, and culture, it becomes more resilient to uncertain political shocks. There is also a strategic timing angle that India cannot afford to ignore. As countries across Africa and Asia recalibrate their mineral policies by renegotiating contracts, and courting new partners, the window for shaping supply chains is narrowing. Late entry risks ceding ground to actors who move faster, even if their models are less sustainable. India has already seen how delayed engagement can
translate into lost strategic space like in Myanmar, Bolivia, etc.
Diversification is a non-negotiable option to bolster India’s supply chain resilience. If India gets this right, it can do more than safeguard its own transition. It can help shape a more multipolar, equitable critical minerals economy, where resource-rich countries are partners rather than peripherals. In a fractured geopolitical landscape, that may be India’s most enduring contribution to the clean energy
era.
(Meheli Roy Choudhury is a Research Consultant at Chintan Research Foundation (CRF). Views expressed are personal)
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