Why India should recognise South Yemen’s independence

An Indian security guard was rescued from the Red Sea on July 10, 2025, after Yemeni Houthis sank the Eternity C, the ship on which he worked. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), meanwhile, helps the Houthis target Red Sea shipping not only out of animus toward Israel and the United States, but also because Revolutionary Guards-owned transport companies lose out financially if India-Middle East Economic Corridor (IMEC) traffic bypasses Iran.

As a regional superpower and the world’s fourth largest economy, India also relies on freedom of navigation and stability and security in the Indian Ocean basin. Rather than follow the West’s tired and failed strategies on Yemen, India should take the diplomatic lead.

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For too long, Western priorities and assumptions have shaped policy toward Yemen. First and foremost, the US, the UK, and the UN have prioritised unity over defeating the Houthis. Outside powers have also promoted a big-tent approach. Both approaches make defeat of the Houthis and restoration of security impossible.

The assumption that broad coalitions bring peace and stability is rooted in wishful thinking rather than evidence. Forcing US President Donald Trump to share an office with Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party nominee for the post Trump contested and won, would bring dysfunction, not smooth governance. Yet the international community forces divergent groups together into Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council. President Rashid al-Alimi represents the General People’s Congress, the former political party of Yemen’s long-time leader Ali Abdullah Saleh. Vice Chairmen of the Council come from the Southern Transitional Council, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Saleh’s own family. Other tribal leaders and religious agendas fill out the council.

The practical problem with the Council, though, is that each member promotes his agenda over the paramount goal of defeating the Houthis. Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood branch too often supports Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and facilitates the smuggling of weaponry to the Houthis. Their actions make them liable to the former terror designation, yet they remain a Trojan Horse inside the Presidential Leadership Council. Other northern officials prioritise undermining southern success over Houthi defeat. Aden has a surplus of fuel oil in its storage tanks, yet northern officials will not allow them to sell it. Residents of Aden suffer through 45-degree Celsius days with high humidity and no electricity for fans, let alone air conditioners.

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The greater problem, however, is the unchallenged belief among many diplomats that unity brings stability. In Yemen, that has never been the case. The British colonised Aden in 1839 as a coaling station to support British commerce and shipping to and from India. The Aden Colony became the Aden Protectorate, which then formed the Federation of Arab Emirates of the South and finally the Federation of South Arabia before the British withdrew and Communist insurgents formed the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, colloquially called South Yemen.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, North and South Yemen united, but it was not a happy marriage. South Yemen has always been more cosmopolitan, tolerant, and progressive. It sought to leave the union in 1994, but North Yemeni forces conquered and occupied the region. Even if outside powers date Yemeni unity to 1990, the Houthi conquest of Sanaa in 2014 led South Yemen to restore its de facto autonomy.

Put another way, Yemeni unity accounts for only 13 per cent of Yemeni history. Not by coincidence, those 24 years represent the most tumultuous and least stable time in Yemeni history. Any honest historical assessment would conclude that Yemen is most stable with South Yemen—or South Arabia, as many residents now see themselves—independent. The notion that there must be only one Yemen makes no logical sense when there are 22 Arab states, two Albanias (one called Kosovo), and two Romanias (one called Moldova). The international community recognised Kosovo and Moldova for purely practical reasons, as they recognised that forcing unity could actually worsen regional conflict.

Here, India should play a diplomatic role. South Yemenis orient themselves toward India. Many Indians immigrated into Aden during the period of British control and chose to stay following South Yemen’s independence. Today, Indian heritage is a source of pride. Some Yemenis introduce themselves as Indian, and it is common for Yemenis whose families arrived from India five generations back to still speak Hindi and know their home regions and towns.

As India seeks to secure the Indian Ocean basin, it should leverage positive feelings toward India to support former British protectorates like Somaliland and South Yemen in their quests for independence. Under Jawaharlal Nehru, India became the intellectual and diplomatic centre of anti-colonialist sentiment. Today, his goal is incomplete. India could resume its intellectual and diplomatic leadership, leverage its Indian diaspora, and bring stability to South Arabia and the Gulf of Aden by forcing other influential states to reconsider the stale assumptions underpinning their diplomacy.

Michael Rubin is director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.