The ongoing conflict between the US-Israel alliance and Iran has escalated, particularly after the sinking of the Iranian destroyer Iris Dena off Sri Lanka’s coast, resulting in the death of at least 80 sailors.
Oil slicks. Bodies floating. Over 80 sailors pulled from the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka’s coast, many still missing. The Iris Dena — an Iranian destroyer with 180 men aboard — is now on the ocean floor. The US-Israel war on Iran, launched just days ago, has not stayed in the Gulf. It has arrived in India’s waters, India’s neighbourhood, India’s strategic backyard. And New Delhi, with nearly one crore citizens in the Gulf and energy lifelines running through the Strait of Hormuz, can no longer afford the luxury of studied silence.
Before we take this analysis ahead, let’s check on the latest from Iran vs Israel-US war:
- US-Israeli war with Iran spreads on fifth day.
- More than 1,000 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, according to US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
- NATO downs Iranian missile headed into Turkish airspace
- US sinks Iranian warship off Sri Lanka coast in Indian Ocean, killing more than 80; many missing
- Hegseth says “we are investigating” strike on girls’ school in Iran
- Iran rejected Israeli media reports claiming that Mojtaba Khamenei is country’s new Supreme Leader
Coming back to the question we started with – the alleged “silence” from India.
The Trap We Didn’t See Coming
India signed LEMOA — the logistics agreement with Washington — for interoperability. Now the United States, with its Navy being pushed back by Iranian missiles, may want something far more uncomfortable: Indian waters as a fallback haven.
Strategic analyst Zorawar Daulet Singh has already flagged this issue. “There might be pressure on Delhi to activate the US-India maritime logistics agreement to allow US naval assets to fall back on Indian territorial waters,” he posted on X (formerly Twitter). His warning is unambiguous — the moment India allows that, it stops being a bystander. It becomes a party.
Iran won’t wait for a press briefing from South Block. As analyst AQaiyyum put it with brutal clarity in her X post: “Iran won’t ask for proof. Iran will just ask — whose side are you on? And India’s silence will be read as: America’s.”
Echoing similar sentiments on the sinking of Iris Dena, Congress leader Pawan Khera hit out at the Narendra Modi government. “Today, an Iranian naval vessel – returning from the Milan 2026 International Fleet Review, where it had been invited by India – was sunk by a U.S. submarine at the edge of Indian waters near Sri Lanka. Does India have no influence left in its own neighbourhood? Or has that space also been quietly ceded to Washington and Tel Aviv?” he posted on X.
Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, writing in The Indian Express, called New Delhi’s silence “disturbing” and invoked Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam — the world as one family. “At a time when much of the Global South, along with major powers and India’s partners in BRICS such as Russia and China, have kept their distance, India’s high-profile political endorsement without moral clarity marks a visible and troubling departure,” she said, recalling former BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee advocated for India’s strong civilisational and modern-day ties with Iran.
“At moments when the rules-based order is under visible strain, silence is abdication,” she said.
She is right that silence is not a foreign policy. But India’s silence is not neutrality. That is drift. And drift, in a live conflict, is a choice — just not one India consciously made, possibly for now.
But Then There’s The Other Side Too
Those demanding India loudly condemn Washington must also do honest accounting.
Iran’s proxies have menaced Indian shipping for years. Houthi forces, armed from Tehran, targeted vessels in the very waters where Indian trade moves. The moral picture heading into this conflict was never clean. And India’s relationship with the United States — technology, defence, the Quad, semiconductors — is the architecture of India’s next fifty years. Torching it for optics is not principle. It is performance.
Critics are right that “silence” is not a foreign policy. But the answer to silence is not a megaphone pointed only at Washington.
What’s At Stake For India?
Let us be clear about what is on the line.
One crore Indians live and work across the Gulf. They are not a foreign policy footnote — they are families, remittances, livelihoods. Some have already lost their lives in merchant shipping attacks in the last few days. Others are missing. India’s energy imports, its trade corridors, its economic momentum — all of it runs through a geography now actively at war.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs has called for “dialogue and diplomacy.” It has expressed grief. It has urged restraint.
“In recent days, we have not only witnessed an intensification of the conflict but also its spread to other nations. The destruction and deaths have mounted, even as normal life and economic activities come to a halt. As a proximate neighbour with critical stakes in the security and stability of the region, these developments evoke great anxiety,” MEA said in its statement on March 3, 2026.
“There are almost one crore Indian citizens who live and work in the Gulf region. Their safety and well-being is of utmost priority. We cannot be impervious to any development that negatively affects them. Our trade and energy supply chains also traverse this geography. Any major disruption has serious consequences for the Indian economy. As a country whose nationals are prominent in the global workforce, India is also firmly opposed to attacks on merchant shipping. Already, some Indian nationals have lost their lives or are missing as a result of such attacks in the last few days,” the statement read.
What India Must Actually Do… And Maybe More…
India’s war calculation is not about picking a side. It is about leading the effort to end the war before the costs become irreversible.
New Delhi has the access, the credibility, and the motivation that no other power currently possesses. It has lines open to Tehran and Washington both. It sits at the table with BRICS partners Russia and China who have kept their distance from the conflict. It has moral authority in the Global South that neither the US nor Israel can claim right now. That is not a small hand to play. That is leverage — if India chooses to use it.