The 21st century is witnessing a new global scramble over critical minerals – the rare earths and battery metals essential for green energy, electronics, defence, and more. As the International Energy Agency notes, materials like lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and rare earths (for magnets) are “crucial to battery performance” and power technologies from solar panels to EVs. Ensuring reliable supplies of these minerals has thus become a “major priority” and a key part of energy security worldwide. Recent disruptions – from pandemic-induced logistics breakdowns to China’s surprise export curbs on rare-earth magnets – have highlighted the fragility of global supply chains. For India, heavily dependent on imports, this is a wake-up call. As an official press release warns, critical minerals are essential for a country’s economic development and national security, and their concentration in a few locales can create dangerous bottlenecks. In other words, securing these materials is imperative for India’s strategic autonomy and ontological security – the state’s confidence in its own identity and continuity.
The Strategic Imperative
India’s vulnerability in the realm of critical minerals is stark. The nation remains 100 percent import-dependent for lithium, cobalt, and nickel—minerals indispensable for manufacturing electric vehicle batteries and energy storage systems. For rare earth elements, India imports significant volumes from China, which controls approximately 70 percent of global mining and 85-90 percent of processing capacity. This dependence creates both economic and strategic risks. The defence dimension amplifies these concerns. Rare earth elements are integral to precision-guided munitions, radar systems, fighter aircraft, and naval vessels. India’s defence modernisation programs, coupled with its semiconductor manufacturing ambitions, cannot progress without secure access to these materials. The convergence of energy transition goals—50 percent non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030—and defence requirements makes critical mineral security a cornerstone of national sovereignty.
Navigating Geopolitical Fragmentation
India’s critical mineral strategy unfolds against intensifying resource nationalism. China’s October 2025 export controls extended beyond raw materials to processing equipment—centrifuges, vacuum furnaces, and separation systems—targeting capability rather than merely volume. For India, this represents both a challenge and an opportunity.
The challenge lies in immediate supply disruptions. India’s electric vehicle sector depends heavily on imported battery components. China’s restrictions on rare earth magnets, particularly neodymium-iron-boron varieties essential for EV motors, threaten production timelines and cost structures.
The opportunity resides in diversification imperatives. India’s membership in the Minerals Security Partnership, a US-led plurilateral initiative comprising 14 countries, provides frameworks for co-financing and strategic project selection. India’s accession to the MSP Finance Network connects domestic financial institutions with international counterparts, mobilizing capital for exploration and processing infrastructure.
Simultaneously, India is strengthening bilateral partnerships. Agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Russia’s energy sector entities diversify supplier relationships. The amended Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act now permits National Mineral Exploration Trust funds to finance overseas acquisitions, providing institutional backing for Khanij Bidesh India Limited (KABIL)’s expanding footprint.
Strategic Autonomy and Ontological Security
Ultimately, control over critical minerals is about more than economics – it’s about India’s strategic autonomy and even its sense of security. Foreign policy experts often emphasize that a state’s ontological security – its stable identity and independence in the international system – is undermined if it depends on others for core needs. For India’s self-image as a rising, self-reliant power, being beholden to external suppliers for defence and technology inputs is unacceptable. One analysis explicitly notes that integrating mineral-security initiatives with initiatives like Atmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India “consolidates India’s strategic autonomy and global stature”. In practical terms, mastering our own mineral supply means that India can pursue its development path and foreign policy without being coerced by supply disruptions. It also reinforces international confidence in India as a dependable partner. In short, securing critical minerals feeds into India’s state identity and sovereignty, not just its economy.
Policy Recommendations and Future Strategy
To translate these goals into reality, experts recommend a multi-pronged strategy:
- Scale up Domestic Exploration and Processing: Increase spending on geological surveys and incentivise private-sector exploration in frontier regions. Utilize advanced technologies (GIS mapping, satellite surveys) and expand the Mineral Exploration Trust. Fast-track approvals and lease auctions to speed project starts. Build dedicated Mineral Processing Parks to enable local refining of lithium, nickel, REEs, etc., and upgrade existing smelters.
- Financial De-risking: The mining value chain is long and capital-intensive. Public-sector undertakings (PSUs) and development banks should play anchor-investor roles. For example, government loans and grants can de-risk early exploration, while EXIM Bank can offer special lines of credit to mining ventures. Establishing an insurance fund or political-risk guarantee (backed by the Treasury or multi-lateral banks) would encourage foreign investment in mining. Performance-based subsidies (recoverable from future royalties) can ensure the state recoups support only when projects succeed.
- Circular Economy and Recycling: Promote recycling of e-waste, batteries, and industrial scrap to reclaim critical minerals. Provide financial incentives (tax credits, subsidies) for battery recycling plants and research into rare-earth recovery. This not only eases demand on mines but also aligns with sustainability goals. The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and partners estimate that scaling up recycling could cut new mining needs by 25–40% for key minerals by 2050.
- Strategic Stockpiles: Follow the NCMM’s lead in building reserves of critical minerals, analogous to petroleum reserves. Maintain buffer stockpiles (uranium and phosphates are precedents) to tide over temporary export disruptions.
- International Cooperation and Standards: Continue diversifying import sources via bilateral resource pacts and multilateral forums. Negotiate supply-chain cooperation (i.e, joint research programs, shared inventories) with allies. Advocate for global fair-trade rules on minerals (against export bans).
- Capacity Building: Train a skilled workforce in mining and metallurgy, and support R&D for extraction/processing technologies. Establish Centres of Excellence (as planned) to innovate low-impact mining and new battery chemistries (which can broaden India’s mineral base).
- Regulatory Reforms: Simplify land acquisition and environmental clearances for strategic mineral projects, while ensuring sustainability. Streamline the auction process to be transparent and speedy. Periodically update the critical minerals list to reflect technological changes, and conduct national risk assessments (as recommended by policy studies).
Key takeaway: A whole-of-nation approach is essential. Domestic exploration, processing, and manufacturing capacities must be strengthened while simultaneously exercising smart diplomacy and building resilient trade partnerships. Embedding critical minerals security into Make in India, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and green industrial missions ensures that India’s energy transition and technological modernization remain stable. This integrated strategy safeguards long-term economic growth, strategic autonomy, and national resilience in an uncertain global landscape.
Conclusion
India’s rise to great-power status depends fundamentally on securing the raw materials of the future. Critical minerals – though often unfamiliar to the broad public – are the hidden ingredients of power generation, advanced manufacturing, renewable energy systems, and cutting-edge defence technologies. The current global concentration of these resources and the ability to refine them being restricted to a handful of countries exposes a strategic vulnerability but also opens a unique historical opportunity for India. By accelerating domestic geological exploration, investing in refining and processing infrastructure, nurturing advanced materials industries, and forging resilient international mineral partnerships, India can convert a structural dependency into an engine of national power. Doing so will reinforce India’s strategic autonomy and ontological security by building up confidence that the nation can chart its destiny without fear ofexternal coercion or supply-chain shock. As policy, industry, and technology align, India is well-positioned not merely to raise its status in the global economy of strategic minerals, but to be seen as a stable and resilient industrial power.
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