Neutral, Neighbourly and Nowhere: India’s Quiet War 

On paper, India was the natural peacemaker. It may be the only country on good terms with all three belligerents (Iran, Israel and the United States), and Narendra Modi has been a state visitor in each. And yet, when the diplomacy of this war is written up, the names on the door will be Doha, Islamabad, Ankara and Riyadh. New Delhi will turn up as a spectator with an enormous stake. Why it ended up there is a better question than the one usually asked, which is whether it was simply afraid.

The war reached India early, and without much noise. On 1 March a crew member died when an oil tanker was struck near Hormuz; he was the first Indian casualty. By 28 October, India’s foreign ministry had confirmed 22 Indian dead, 14 of them seafarers. Some 984,000 Indians flew home between late February and mid-April. Then came the kitchens. India imports roughly 60 per cent of its LPG, and about 90 per cent of that comes through Hormuz, so restaurants trimmed their menus and a few closed for good. I begin with these people because they are my argument, not decoration for it.

Here it is, stated plainly. India did not stay out of mediation for want of ambition, nor because it was dozing. It stayed out because the exposure that makes peace so urgent for Delhi has also taken away the leverage and credibility that a mediator needs.

Consider the exposure first. Between 2.5 and 2.7 million barrels a day reach India through the Strait, about half its crude imports, along with roughly 60 per cent of its LNG. When the Strait shut, the Indian crude basket climbed from about $70 to above $120 a barrel in four weeks. Nine million Indians live in the Gulf; last year India took in $135.4 billion in remittances, 38 per cent of it from Gulf workers. A country with that much riding on the outcome cannot afford to be seen failing, and mediators fail all the time. One Asia Times analysis points out that a visible role invites diplomatic embarrassment if talks collapse, particularly for a country that is not a net security provider in the region.

Dependence, though, cannot be the whole story, and we Pakistanis ought to admit it. Pakistan draws about 90 per cent of its oil from the Gulf and took the same price shock. Islamabad still has a seat. What separates the two capitals is access, and what each has at stake. Field Marshal Asim Munir carried a proposal to Tehran that, a Pakistani official says, had Donald Trump’s blessing, with Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar as potential guarantors. Both Washington and Tehran take his calls. India has little purchase in Tehran. Its energy imports from Iran have been close to zero since 2019, it walked away from the Chabahar port deal, and only about 4,000 Indians live in Iran. The relationship that once let Delhi sit on both sides of the Gulf was left to wither under sanctions.

Then there is trust.

Modi spoke in Israel’s Knesset on 25 February, the first Indian leader to do so, and stressed India’s lasting support for Israel. The American and Israeli strikes came on 28 February, the day after he left. Delhi then took five days to send condolences over Ayatollah Khamenei’s death, and neither the prime minister nor the foreign minister said anything in public. I am not suggesting Modi knew what was coming. But Tehran read the optics for itself, and so did the Indian opposition, which accused the government of a “disturbing silence.” In Delhi’s defence, its public line has been evenhanded almost to the point of austerity. In July, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar told his Iranian counterpart:

“India condemns any such attack by any party.”
— S. Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister, on attacks against commercial shipping

A principled sentence, certainly. It concerns ships, though, and not the cause of the war, and a mediator is expected to hold a view on the cause.

What turns India’s absence from an accident into a choice is that the invitation was there. Speaking in New Delhi in May, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran would welcome any “constructive role” India chose to play in restoring stability. Delhi was gracious about it, and stayed where it was. My suspicion is that the deeper reason is a matter of doctrine. India has insisted for decades that outsiders have no business in Kashmir. Last year, after Trump claimed credit for the India-Pakistan ceasefire, the Indian foreign secretary reported that Modi had told the American president India “does not and will never accept mediation.” A government whose foreign policy rests on refusing mediation will find it awkward to offer any, and the same analysis recalls Sri Lanka, where India’s own involvement in the civil war began as a stabilising mission and ended as a costly political intervention.

The Indian side of this deserves a hearing. One Indian writer argues that India has never been a leading peace broker between major powers, and that even the Pakistan-hosted talks between Washington and Tehran produced no agreement. Fair enough. Delhi’s actual strategy has been protection rather than brokerage. Modi told parliament that India now buys energy from 41 countries; the Navy began Operation Urja Suraksha in late March to escort Indian-flagged tankers; Delhi has also negotiated passage for its own ships with Tehran. It is a coherent policy, if an unglamorous one, and it carries a price. Rahul Gandhi called Modi’s foreign policy a “joke” once Pakistan’s mediating role became obvious, and the charge that India wants a bigger global part without its burdens has stuck.

To Islamabad I would offer humility before gloating. Mediation is a burden dressed up as a prize. Should the guarantor arrangement now on the table be accepted, Pakistan will carry obligations that could drag it toward a war it has so far kept at arm’s length. Nor does India’s absence make it irrelevant: its 1.4 billion consumers, its workers in the Gulf and its navy will all live with whatever gets agreed, and none of them was consulted.

The lesson is an old one. You cannot broker a deal between parties who doubt your neutrality when you stand to lose more than either of them if it fails; any bazaar merchant could tell you that. India grasped this earlier than its critics allowed. It has paid for understanding with some of its prestige.