Narendra Modi will visit Norway next week, 43 years after an Indian prime minister went to this small European country. Close observers of the scene argue that this visit may be linked to the fact that Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has excluded Adani Green Energy from its investment universe in February this year because of corruption charges – which the prime minister of India may be in a position to neutralise now that corruption charges against the Adani group have been lifted in the US. This episode offers a good opportunity to review the way this group and the Indian state have helped each other internationally – or not.Who is the dalal of whom?In the US in the 1950s, when the CEO of General Motors, Charles Wilson, was appointed secretary of defense, he said there was no conflict of interest in this nomination because he “thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors and vice versa”. This quote, that was subsequently applied to Exxon too, has now become the symbol of the embeddedness of business and politics in the US. In India, this process has gained momentum after 1991 and, subsequently, has taken a more personalised turn with the rise of oligarchs. The most successful of them all is undoubtedly Gautam Adani, who has cultivated a close relationship with Modi for at least 25 years. But has it helped India abroad? The question arises because of the Adani group’s growing investments out of India and the fact that, after 2014, Adani accompanied the prime minister on most of his trips abroad for some time. This is further complicated by allegations that during his official visits to foreign countries, Modi laid the groundwork for negotiations that the Adani Group then pursued, often with a view to massive investments.Also read: ‘Comprised PM Struck Adani Release Bargain’: Opposition on Reports that US May Drop Fraud, Bribery ChargesThe group naturally benefited from these projects, but so did the Modi government, as these initiatives created a special (dependent) relationship between the recipient countries and India. This pattern was implemented with particular diligence toward India’s neighbours – who sometimes saw these contracts as a good way to counterbalance China’s presence on their soil and, of course, as vehicles for economic development. In Bangladesh, such a scenario unfolded as early as 2015. In June, during an official visit, Modi pledged to help Sheikh Hasina’s government overcome the country’s difficulties in securing electricity supplies. Two months later, the Adani Group and the Bangladesh Power Development Board signed an agreement under which a thermal power plant in Jharkhand would supply Bangladesh with electricity. The project’s implementation was formalised during Hasina’s visit to India in 2017. In the case of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa met Modi in New Delhi in February 2020 to discuss debt relief for Sri Lanka’s $60-billion debt burden and sought a $400 million line of credit for development projects. The Sri Lankan government had called on the Adani Group to develop the Port of Colombo – thereby somewhat counterbalancing its alignment with China. Local unions refused to allow the contract to cover the East Container Terminal due to its strategic nature (linked to its very large capacity), but Adani secured a majority stake in a 35-year BOT (Build, Operate, and Transfer) agreement for the West Container Terminal. Adani met President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and then Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in October 2021 to finalise the deal with the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA).Regarding Nepal, the Indian government has expressed concern to the authorities in Kathmandu about the Chinese construction of the Pokhara and Bhairahawa airports. It seems that New Delhi has banned low-altitude flights over India by aircraft bound for these airports to undermine their commercial viability. As a result, they came to a standstill. One Nepalese newspaper went so far as to write that this situation would be resolved only once the management of these airports is entrusted to Adani (which currently operates six Indian airports). Narendra Modi and Gautam Adani at the Vibrant Gujarat summit. Photo: X/Files.The governments of India and Nepal discussed this issue in June 2023, and in January 2024 the Nepalese finance minister traveled to Gujarat for in depth discussion with the Adani group and it emerged that the group could take over the management of Bhairahawa Airport and Tribhuvan (Kathmandu) – in addition to the construction of an airport in Bara (near the India-Nepal border).Beyond South Asia, the Adani Group has also worked in tandem with the Indian government in East Africa. In Tanzania, once again, Modi’s and Adani’s India emerged as a useful counterweight to China, which had proposed building a port in Bagamoyo in 2015. In 2016, Modi made an official visit to Dar es Salaam. In 2019, the Chinese withdrew from the Bagamoyo project. In 2023, the new president, Samia Suluhu Hassan visited India. In May 2024, the Adani Group signed a 30-year concession agreement with Tanzanian authorities for the management of a terminal at the Port of Dar es Salaam. A similar scenario unfolded in Kenya. On December 5, 2023, during his meeting with Modi, Kenyan President William Ruto was introduced to Adani by the Indian Prime Minister in New Delhi. In March 2024, Adani proposed to Kenya that it modernise Nairobi Airport – following which the Kenyan government issued a call for bids and awarded the contract to Adani. Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. Photo: PMO via PTI/Files.The Adani Group also contributed to deepening India’s relations with Israel, which had taken a new turn as early as 2017 with Modi’s visit to Tel Aviv. As early as 2018, the Adani Group and Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, Elbit Systems, formed a joint venture to produce a drone, the Hermes 900 UAV, which have been used in Gaza after 2022. In July 2022, the Israeli government, which had launched the privatisation process for the Port of Haifa, announced that the consortium led – with a 70% stake – by the Adani Group had won the contract. In September 2024, the Adani Group established a joint venture with the Israeli group Tower Semiconductor to manufacture components used in semiconductor production, one of the industrial sectors that Modi considers a key economic priority. India’s relationship with Israel – and in particular the takeover of the Port of Haifa – is of particular importance to the Modi government due to the role it hopes to play in implementing the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor.Since this corridor is intended to extend all the way to Europe, the Indian government may also rely on the Adani group to gain a foothold in Greece, one of the gateways to Europe that the Chinese have already utilised by establishing a presence in the port of Piraeus. Modi visited Greece in August 2023, marking the first such visit by an Indian prime minister in 40 years. His discussions with Prime Minister Mitsotakis included the Adani Group’s plans to acquire a stake in the ports of Kavala, Volos, and Alexandroupoli. To the cases reviewed here, one could add the less-conclusive ones in Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia.What is good for Adani is not necessarily good for IndiaThe collaboration between the Modi government and the Adani group has helped strengthen ties with certain countries, such as Israel, but has had more mixed results or even proved counterproductive in other cases. Countries that had turned to India to avoid compromising their national sovereignty by cooperating with China feared they might face the same risk and/or denounced corrupt practices. In several cases, their governments, taking advantage of a change in leadership, subsequently canceled many contracts. In Sri Lanka, President Dissanayake, elected to replace Rajapaksa in 2024, canceled a contract – signed by his predecessor – for the Adani Group to build a wind farm in Mannar worth approximately $440 million. This decision followed months of controversy in which India’s methods had been called into question by various stakeholders: the chairman of Sri Lanka’s Ceylon Electricity Board had testified before a Sri Lankan parliamentary committee that Modi had subjected President Rajapaksa to “pressures” to secure this contract – which had sparked strong public outrage across the country.In parallel, NGOs filed a lawsuit in Sri Lankan courts to challenge the very high price at which the Adani Group planned to charge for the electricity produced by its wind turbines. Another contract of the same kind was also canceled by the interim government of Bangladesh following the fall of Hasina – the very one we described above. International experts indicated that Bangladeshis would pay electricity nearly five times more than what they were paying for already. Also read: After Hindenburg, Italian Bank Probed Adani Links, Reported Suspicious Transactions: FTThe head of the interim government, Muhammad Yunus, challenged this unfair contract, arguing that Hasina had signed it without discussing the details with the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and primarily to please the Modi government. When the Adani Group presented a bill for $800 million to the leaders in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi government attempted to renegotiate a contract marred by a lack of transparency, but to no avail. Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani on April 3, 2026. Photo: @gautam_adani/X via PTI .In late October 2024, the Adani Group then halved the amount of electricity sent to Bangladesh – which set about paying the arrears. This allowed the country to regain full power supply during the second half of 2025 – but the resentment of the Bangladeshi people, already fueled by Modi’s support for Hasina, was further heightened. In Kenya, all contracts signed with the Adani Group were ultimately canceled. The contract for the airport was first suspended by a local court after a whistleblower, Nelson Amenya, provided evidence that the Adani Group had received preferential treatment compared to its main competitor. However, another project involving the construction of high-voltage power lines worth $736 million was signed by the government of Kenya and the Adani Group – before it too was suspended by a court in October 2024. These two contracts, totaling $2.5 billion, were ultimately canceled in November 2024 by President Ruto: the outcry from lawmakers upon hearing this announcement is a telling sign of the resentment that had built up against the Adani Group, which was frequently accused in the press of engaging in illicit practices and taking advantage of pressure exerted by his government. The country where the Adani Group’s activities caused the most harm to India, however, was Australia, one of the few countries where the Adani Group had a presence prior to 2014.In fact, it was in 2010 that the group acquired a coal mine in Queensland and began developing it by building a railway line to the port of Abbot Point – which it had purchased – in order to transport the coal to India. This project sparked street protests and legal challenges due to its environmental impact and the way it would displace Aboriginal people from their land. Australian authorities eventually facilitated its financing, but the protests did not subside. An environmentalist MP, Bob Brown, staged multiple sit-ins outside the Indian Embassy in Canberra and crisscrossed the country, calling for a halt to the mine during the 2019 elections. The website he created, “Adani Watch,” is a source of information used around the world. In Australia itself, one of the criticisms that has made the Adani group very unpopular concerns its ability to avoid taxes.Finally, legal proceedings were initiated against the Adani group in the United States in 2024. The year before, the group had already been shaken by a report from short-seller Hindenburg Research, whose allegations of accounting fraud, manipulation of stock price and money laundering in tax havens had caused it to lose (temporarily) $155 billion in market capitalisation – the joint venture between the Adani Group and the French company TotalEnergies lost, for example, 85% of its market value between January and October 2023. In 2024, it was the US justice system that destabilised the group. According to the Brooklyn prosecutor, between 2020 and 2024, Adani and seven other employees of his group participated in a system of bribery payments to political and IAS officers, totaling more than $250 million, which harmed US interests in two ways: first, it helped the Adani Group win bids in which US companies were also competing, and second, the Adani Group sought to raise funds from US citizens without disclosing these practices to them (sic).In response to the Hindenburg report and these revelations, the Total group which had committed to investing $50 billion in a joint project with Adani – in the hydrogen sector – decided to suspend all new investments.In this context, the Indian government has been exposed to criticism from the leader of the opposition in the lower house of parliament, Rahul Gandhi, who, in February 2023, presented photos of Modi and Adani enjoying themselves away from cameras, in a flight, on their way to some foreign country. File photo of Rahul Gandhi holding up a photograph of Narendra Modi in a private jet with Gautam Adani in the Lok Sabha, February 7, 2023. Photo: Screengrab via Sansad TV.Gandhi then declared: “This is not India’s foreign policy. This is Adani’s foreign policy”. In fact, the blurring of lines is so evident that in response to the Hindenburg report, the Adani Group’s chief financial officer, sent on official business, claimed, standing before a huge Indian flag, that these attacks were aimed at India. Christophe Jaffrelot is Senior Research Fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King’s College London, Non resident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Chair of the British Association for South Asian Studies.