New Delhi’s shifting stance on the US-Israel assault on Iran raises questions over its global positioning, BRICS leadership, and energy security
When the Israel-US nexus will draw in arms and bring its unprovoked joint military assault on Iran to a close—or, for that matter, when Iran’s retaliatory capacities will collapse, if they do, and the fighting ceases—is anyone’s guess. But the devastating hostilities have entered their fourth week and Iran’s resilience and determination have surprised West Asia and the world.
This appears to be leading to recalibrating of positions by many, including the US. India too is in that category. It will, however, have to bear the cross of being unfavourably compared with tiny Sri Lanka.
Tiny Sri Lanka proclaimed its ‘neutrality’
On March 4 and 8, Colombo, loudly proclaiming its “neutrality”, denied American requests to permit the use of its Mattala air base to land US fighter jets for the Iran theatre. India, on the other hand, gave every impression of being on the side of the aggressor against a friendly country with which it has a measure of crucial strategic convergence, to say nothing of ancient civilisational and cultural ties.
In light of this, New Delhi is likely to be placed in a false position in the BRICS grouping of which Iran is a member. India assumed chairmanship of BRICS in January this year, taking over from Brazil, and is supposed to be preparing for the 18th BRICS summit scheduled to be held in India later this year.
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In a phone conversation last week, Iran president Masoud Pezeshkian requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to raise solidarity for his nation on behalf of the BRICS forum. Modi has not done so, though he did not hesitate to request the Iranian side to let India-bound oil and gas flow through the Strait of Hormuz, which has virtually been blockaded by Iran on account of the fighting.
Pezeshkian gave his country’s stock reply that Iran would let all vessels through except those of the US and its allies. It is evident that the strategic outlook of Iran and India respectively are on different trajectories. Will the BRICS summit now go through, and if it does, what kind of summit will it be? This is an open question, considering that Russia, China, and South Africa, all founding members of BRICS, have criticised the US action against Iran while India has not.
India’s attempted balancing act
Nevertheless, feeling the building heat on India’s economy owing to a possible energy crisis on account of the ongoing hostilities, and the strong likelihood of inflationary pressures and rapidly depreciating value of the rupee, India appears to be seeking to somewhat modulate its earlier posture of strongly backing the coordinated military assault by the US and Israel.
Of course, the attempted balancing act is entirely within the four walls of India’s satellite relationship with the United States, entered of late, as we shall see below.
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In his second conversation with Pezeshkian since the war began, Modi flagged growing concerns over attacks on “critical infrastructure” in the region following a major strike by Israel on Iran’s South Pars gas fields and Iran’s retaliatory action against the abutting Qatar gas deposits, which are among the world’s most precious.
Here, the reference to the region, without pointing fingers at Iran alone, and the implied advice to Israel also to desist—and not just Iran—is the new element. Earlier, India had chosen to be one-sided. Overlooking the fact that in the first place it is Israel and the US that had started the fighting, which is wholly illegal in international law, it had openly criticised Iran for carrying out retaliatory strikes—against military and civilian targets—in the Gulf countries that host American military bases.
Modi’s moral support to Israel
Moreover, on February 25, just three days before the attacks on Iran commenced, Modi went to Tel Aviv to address the Israeli Knesset (parliament) when war clouds had already built up, and internationally the outbreak of fighting was deemed imminent. Addressing the Knesset, he said, “India stands with Israel firmly with full conviction in this moment and beyond...” This appeared to be an act of extending moral support in the war to come.
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When the attack on Iran started on February 28 and Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei was killed on the first day, India declined to extend condolences to Iran, a friendly power, as many other leading international players did. Many days later, the condolence book was signed in the Iranian embassy in New Delhi at a bureaucratic level. This could be seen as an act of empty formality in light of strong criticism within the country.
Turnaround in India’s foreign policy
The slight to Tehran hardly went unnoticed, but there was a reason for the stance Modi has adopted towards a friendly country which offers it important facilities at its Chabahar port and is a window to its strategic infrastructure link to Russia via Central Asia.
On February 6, in the context of America’s proposed interim trade agreement with India, President Donald Trump signed his Executive Orders which unambiguously noted, “I have determined that India has taken significant steps to address the national emergency described in Executive Order 14066 and to align sufficiently with the United States on national sovereignty, foreign policy, and economic matters...” (emphasis added).
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This signals a complete turnaround in India’s foreign policy, in particular its ties with the US in the Modi era. The reversal of its foreign policy direction of maintaining strategic autonomy in world affairs, adopted since independence from colonial rule, is markedly conspicuous.
Loss of strategic autonomy
It has not gone unnoticed that in light of the ongoing war and the tightening energy security situation for India, Washington publicly gave New Delhi “permission” to buy oil from Russia, strictly on a temporary basis. India had earlier been debarred by the US from doing so. India has now also been granted short-term US “permission” to buy oil even from Iran to tide over the present crisis. Oil imports from Iran had been ended by India in 2018 following US sanctions.
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As for India’s implied urging of Israel not to attack “critical infrastructure” after Israel hit Iran’s crucial gas fields, it carries no cost. India need not fear PM Netanyahu’s displeasure. Trump had already directed his friend Netanyahu to stop bombarding Iran oil and gas infrastructure and the Israeli leader had agreed. After all, the destabilisation of the energy market worldwide on account of supply disruptions caused by the Netanyahu-Trump war is acting as a major pressure point for Trump and affecting his political prospects at home.
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