Explained : The Modi government’s silence on Khamenei’s killing does not shield Indian interests and Its Impact

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence after the United States’ submarine strike on the IRIS Dena, an Iranian warship, is not an isolated diplomatic choice. It is the culmination of a pattern in which India absorbs strategic humiliation in its own maritime neighbourhood while pretending that its restraint comes free of cost. Within hours of leaving an Indian naval event it was invited to, the Iranian warship was sunk in international waters off Sri Lanka by a US Navy torpedo—the first such American kill since the Second World War—in what is technically not a declared warzone, but very much within India’s sphere of influence. The Modi government refused to even publicly acknowledge that this crosses a red line. Its silence told every regional and extraregional actor that New Delhi is willing to tolerate kinetic action by a third party in waters it claims are vital to its security and status.

​The strike directly challenged India’s own non-negotiables: keeping sea‑lanes for commerce and energy secure, avoiding entanglement in the US–Iran confrontation, and preventing the normalisation of great‑power military strikes just outside its littoral. Technically, Washington can hide behind the fact that the IRIS Dena was in international waters. Politically, however, everyone can see what happened: an invited participant in an Indian fleet review, transiting home through what New Delhi has called an area of “critical stakes,” was blown out of the ocean without so much as a prior public warning, and India swallowed it. Ask a simple counterfactual: if the same ship were sailing out of a People’s Liberation Army Navy fleet review and hugging Chinese approaches, would the US have risked torpedoing it in similar fashion? The answer, self‑evidently, is no, which only underlines how Washington reads India under Modi—not as a power whose red lines must be respected, but as a quiescent partner whose equities can be overridden. Accepting the submarine strike further entrenches the perception that New Delhi has quietly acquiesced to a US‑led expansion of the warzone into its own maritime backyard.

India’s response to the US–Israel strikes on Iran last week too was marked by a conspicuous and calculated silence, which appears increasingly less like strategic restraint and more like a retreat from its own long‑held principles. Even after the unprecedented assassination of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Modi government shirked away from condemning the violation of Iranian sovereignty, offering instead vague appeals for “dialogue and diplomacy” while sidestepping the core issue: an unprovoked cross‑border strike by two of its strategic partners. New Delhi’s silence on these issues stands in stark contrast to India’s professed commitment to territorial integrity and international law. It also follows closely on the heels of Modi’s high‑visibility visit to Israel, which ended just before the attack on Iran. A statement by our ministry of external affairs on the attack described India as “a proximate neighbour with critical stakes in the security and stability of the region,” which has caused “these developments [to] evoke great anxiety.” By quantifying its exposure— that “almost one crore Indian citizens” live and work in the Persian Gulf—the government is trying to suggest that even a statement condemning Iran’s decapitation would jeopardise their safety.

The argument that India must remain silent to protect its Gulf interests is flawed from New Delhi’s own strategic perspective and does not hold water when examined closely. Instead, it seems driven by increasing perceptions, both at home and abroad, that the Modi government has quietly pushed India into the US–Israel camp. The premise that Gulf states would somehow endanger the ten million Indians living there, as punishment for an Indian condemnation of Khamenei’s assassination, strains credibility. These states want to keep everyone in their countries safe, and Indians are as safe or unsafe as any other residents. Indian deaths in these countries during the conflict have occurred despite India’s muted response.