Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s actions in the wake of the US-Israel attack on Iran show how far he has strayed from a longstanding Indian consensus on strategic autonomy. For successive governments, this has meant developing closer economic and security ties with the West without abandoning strategic relationships with states like Russia and Iran, anchored on critical technologies and energy security.
Three avoidable blunders in PM Modi’s handling of the US-Israel attack on Iran have laid bare the hollowness of his claims to global leadership and jeopardised India’s energy security. These are the actions of a compromised leader.
There are three important sets of interests that any Indian government has to balance in West Asia:
- India is dependent on the US for trade and investment, and on Israel for weaponry.
- Iran is an energy supplier to India and can shape world oil and gas prices, including by controlling the Strait of Hormuz. It is also a regional power that borders Russia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
- The Gulf monarchies are important oil, gas and fertiliser suppliers to India and home to some 1 crore Indians in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Given this complex interdependence, the logical course for India would have been to maintain equidistance from the warring parties, offer its services as an honest broker if necessary and stick to its traditional stance of upholding a “rules-based order” that has served India well for several decades. This would at a minimum have meant postponing the state visit to Israel and offering condolences on—if not criticising—the illegal assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei.
Also read: Khamenei’s assassination—what did US achieve by ripping up international law
The three mistakes
First, we bizarrely signalled a tilt toward Israel with a Prime Ministerial visit on the eve of a war that everyone and their uncle knew was likely. Second, we remained silent when Khamenei was assassinated (rules, anyone?) and the Modi government went so far as to instruct heads of mission worldwide not to sign Iranian condolence books before reversing course and sending the Foreign Secretary—rather than a Cabinet Minister—to sign the Iranian Embassy’s condolence book. Third, we mutely accepted the sinking of the IRIS Dena, an Iranian naval vessel, by the US Navy just days after that ship had visited India as our guest for the MILAN naval exercises.
We had nothing to say about the assault on Iran, but co-sponsored a UN resolution condemning Iran’s attacks on its Persian Gulf neighbours. The latter step was understandable given our ties to the Gulf, but only highlighted our strange silence on the attack on Iran itself. And now we are reduced to essentially begging the Iranian government to let stranded Indian ships sail out of the Persian Gulf.
Some analysts have presented the Opposition’s demand for a stronger Indian response to the attack on Iran as a “knee-jerk reaction” or an attempt to attain some level of “abstract purity“. But a fearful silence is not the only alternative to full-throated condemnation. What is the point of getting a seat at the “global high table” if you are going to remain mute? As former National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon said, “It’s not strategic to keep your mouth shut”.
Manmohan Singh—who did more than any other Prime Minister to promote India-US relations—had the confidence to calmly state, during his July 2005 official visit to the US, that the invasion of Iraq “was a mistake“.
Nor has India’s deference to Washington been rewarded. The Trump administration reduced—but did not eliminate—punitive tariffs only after India opened up its agriculture market; and that too was unnecessary since the US Supreme Court struck down the tariffs just two weeks later. The US announced in New Delhi that it would restrict India’s export competitiveness and would “allow” India to temporarily buy Russian oil for the next 30 days. Not to forget how Trump publicly announced—65 times at last count—that he had ended Operation Sindoor, and invited Pakistan’s Army Chief Asim Munir to lunch at the White House.
So where do we go from here? Events will play themselves out, and India can only hope that the disruption to energy markets will be contained. Iran wants to make this as painful for the US as it can, and India will suffer the collateral damage. The government has no choice but to engage with Iran to try to ameliorate its impact.
Modi didn’t even try to prevent a war that has the potential to devastate the Indian economy and his own political capital. History is instructive here. The 1973 oil shock fed the political turmoil in India that ended in the Emergency. The 1979 oil shock helped sweep out the Janata government in India and Jimmy Carter in the US. As a political actor, Modi is incentivised to do everything he can to protect the Indian economy and his political capital from an oil shock. The fact that he signalled a tilt toward the US and Israel suggests that he is acting against both his own and his country’s interests. The question remains unanswered: Whose interest is he serving?
Amitabh Dubey is a Congress member. He tweets @dubeyamitabh. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)