Two days after the United States and Israel launched attacks that killed Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and hundreds of others—including more than 160 children in a strike on a girls’ school—a United States submarine torpedoed and sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean as it was returning from participating in the multinational naval exercise MILAN hosted by India.
Only days earlier, the ship had been docked in Visakhapatnam as an invited participant in India’s flagship multilateral naval exercise. The vessel took part in ceremonial events, including a parade attended by the President of India.
Yet shortly after leaving the region, the Iranian frigate was destroyed by torpedoes fired from an US nuclear submarine near the southern coast of Sri Lanka, roughly twenty nautical miles from the port of Galle. Sri Lanka’s navy launched rescue operations and pulled 32 sailors from the water. Around 160 members of the crew died at sea.
The vessel and its crew had only days earlier been welcomed as guests of the Indian Navy. They had participated in ceremonies and professional exchanges at India’s invitation. Yet the unarmed ship was attacked almost at India’s doorstep while departing the region.
The destruction of an invited naval guest within India’s maritime neighborhood—by a military with whom Prime Minister Modi has sought closer alignment—raises uncomfortable questions for India. The Indian government’s subsequent silence is striking; by withholding both public condemnation of the attack and condolences for the lost sailors, New Delhi risks self-inflicted humiliation. For a ship welcomed by India to be sunk without a formal response suggests a concerning subordination of regional prestige to diplomatic convenience.
Meanwhile in Washington, The US Secretary of War publicly boasted of the sinking of the Iranian frigate by its submarine near India. The contrast could not be starker. This is not an isolated episode. Despite the United States violation of Iranian sovereignty and the killing of Iran’s head of state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, India has remained silent.
Modi - Israel
The attack on Iran and the killing of Khamenei began soon after Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel and his address to the Knesset. The nature of the visit was humiliating in itself. He was reportedly not invited as an official guest of state but rather as a personal guest of Bibi Netanyahu, a war criminal.
Modi addressed a Knesset session that was boycotted by the opposition, while non-members filled vacant seats. He was also awarded a hitherto non-existent Knesset Medal drummed up particularly for him. There, he smiled and simpered and proclaimed solidarity with Israel against terrorism, all the while Israel and the United States were mobilising armadas and equipment for war against Iran, in view of the whole world. This simpering and humiliating behaviour not only embarrassed the country but also made India appear complicit in the US-Israel alliance’s aggression against Iran.
Within two days of the visit, Iran was attacked. No one can say that India did not realise an attack on Iran was forthcoming when it was evident to the rest of the world.This is a continuation of India turning its back on the people of Gaza in the international arena—always careful not to condemn Israel for its ongoing genocide of Palestinians, all the while expressing support for Israel against alleged “terrorism.”
Under Modi, India has come a long way, from being one of the first countries to recognise Palestine to the shameful abandonment of the Palestinian cause, increasingly sliding into the embrace of a genocidal regime, with India’s top industrialists taking part in the production of Israeli drones that are used against Palestinians and Iran, under the Indian government’s benevolent gaze.
India-Iran
Iran, as has been claimed by the current Indian government multiple times over the years, has long been a strong friend and civilizational neighbour to India. Since the late 2000s, however, India has been downgrading its economic relations with Iran under pressure from the United States, in a bid to get closer to Washington. India signed the nuclear deal with the US, which so far has yielded little benefit in the field of nuclear energy and, in return, abandoned Iran's gas pipelines, a project that would have been vital for India’s energy security.
Since 2019, under US sanctions, Iran, which used to be India’s second-largest supplier of oil, has seen its exports to India nearly drop to zero. The Indian government has not had the initiative to seek ways to import heavily discounted Iranian oil, as China has done.
Nonetheless, Iran has long been a time-tested friend of India. With long run hostilities involving Pakistan, India’s only viable route to Central Asia, has been through the Chabahar port, which Iran has allowed India to develop, enabling continued trade with Afghanistan and the wider central Asian region. Even so, India has often dragged its feet on the port’s development under pressure of US sanctions.
The strategic importance of Chabahar for India cannot be overstated. Yet, the US recently ended the waiver that had allowed India to fund and construct the port, without a word of protest from the Indian government. Chabahar was reportedly a bomb target on the first day of the US-Israel campaign, in complete disregard for India’s interests.
Iran is a central node in the proposed International North–South Transport Corridor, a 7,200-kilometre trade route linking India to Russia and Europe. The corridor—conceived jointly by India, Iran, and Russia—aims to connect ports such as Mumbai to cities like Moscow through a network of sea, rail, and road routes, dramatically reducing transport time and costs while deepening Eurasian trade connectivity.
For India, the project carries strategic significance. It offers a route into Eurasia that bypasses Western-dominated maritime chokepoints and traditional trade corridors, potentially giving India greater economic and geopolitical autonomy in its access to Central Asia, Russia, and Europe.Yet despite the importance of Iran to this project, and the implications for India’s own long-term strategic and economic interests, New Delhi has chosen to remain silent in the face of the attack on Iran.
Even with occasional statements critical of India’s stance on Kashmir, Iran has often supported Indian interests in various international forums, including by helping to block resolutions pushed by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation that could have led to sanctions against India. Under Ayatollah Khamenei, whose views have guided Iran’s foreign policy, Iran has been a trusted friend. Yet, the Indian government did not have the spine to condemn his killing by the United States.
Shallow and Opportunistic Calculations
India’s complete abandonment of non-alignment, autonomy, and political spine in the face of US hegemony under Trump—under the Modi government—stems from shallow, opportunistic calculations of India’s economic interests. More precisely, these are the economic interests of India’s large corporate houses, which Narendra Modi has championed throughout his political career, and whose priorities have been the cornerstone of both domestic and foreign policy since he took office.
India’s top domestic monopoly houses have been keenly pursuing partnerships with both Israeli and US corporations. With little concern for investing in the development of sovereign national capabilities in technology, research, and innovation, these Indian corporations have recently been entering subordinate technological partnerships with US firms as a strategy for their next phase of growth. In doing so, they are seeking access to the US market while leaving India’s domestic economy and technological base underdeveloped and impoverished.
The Indian government’s foreign policy and domestic economic strategy have been structured around these corporate interests. The government has been assiduously pursuing a subordinated partnership with the United States solely to this end. There can be no other justification. This relationship of subordination that India has cultivated with the US is certainly not aligned with the interests of its own people.
A Flawed Strategy
US hostile actions of its guests in India’s backyard, only underscore that the subordinate partnership is unlikely to yield any benefits for India’s economy or its people.
Recently, US Deputy Secretary of State Landau, speaking in India, did not mince his words when he said that the US has no intention of letting India develop the way China did, leveraging US markets.
Trump’s imposition of 50 percent tariffs, later reduced only to 18 percent, and the push for India to adopt zero tariffs, forcing it to stop purchase of discounted Russian oil beneficial to the Indian economy, further illustrates this point. While the US is determined to make India complicit in its international misadventures, it is equally resolved that India should never grow into its own technological and industrial power.
The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a major portion of India’s oil supplies passes, due to US actions, leaving India with only about 25 days of reserves, represents a serious blow to the Indian economy.
At the same time, India, until now, had been restricted from purchasing discounted Russian oil under terms tied to US trade deals, which offer dubious benefits. On 06 March, US Treasurer Besset generously suggested that India could purchase Russian oil already on its way within a month; after that, India would have to buy US oil at much higher prices. This is nothing but economic extortion—to which the Modi government appears blindly acquiescent.
This is where the intellectual hollowness of Modi’s economic and political strategy for India becomes apparent. The path India is pursuing internationally, pandering to US misadventures, is not only morally and ethically wrong, but it is also against the material interests of India and its people. One can only hope that India discovers its spine and stands up for the rest of the Global South in the current scenario, though this seems unlikely under Modi.
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This article was produced by Globetrotter. Bodapati Srujana works in the area of agrarian relations in India, having participated in several studies around the country. She often writes on issues in the Indian Economy
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