Although India has officially declared neutrality in the current Middle East conflict, its actions indicate tacit support for the United States and Israel. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Tel Aviv just two days before the war. New Delhi refrained from publicly commenting on the U.S. Navy sinking an Iranian warship returning from an Indian multilateral exercise. It ignored Tehran’s request to coordinate a BRICS intervention as the current chair of the group. Most significantly, India has repeatedly condemned Iranian attacks on the Arab states but not the Israeli-U.S. attacks on Iran. 

On the surface, New Delhi’s decision may appear unsurprising. After all, it refused to denounce Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2022. Not only did New Delhi continue its close relationship with Moscow, it also handsomely profited by circumventing Western sanctions to purchase Russian oil at discount. 

Similarly, in the current conflict, New Delhi’s immediate interests tilt it away from Iran. On the one hand, it has a strategic partnership with the United States, defense ties with Israel and extensive economic interests in the Arab states. On the other hand, India’s energy imports from Iran are near zero and it has neither major investments nor significant emigrant population in the country. 

However, from the perspective of Indian grand strategy, the two cases are contradictory. In 2022, India’s lean toward Russia aligned with its avowed goal to promote a multipolar world. By refusing to join the U.S.-led economic sanctions, New Delhi sought to ensure that Russia was not isolated or forced to become even more dependent on China. India calculated that Russia’s continuance as an independent actor would ensure greater diffusion of power in the international system, which would be more conducive for India’s ultimate goal: preservation of its strategic autonomy.

India’s silence in the current war is a clear inversion of this principle. If the United States succeeds in effecting regime change in Tehran, or at least in degrading its capabilities significantly, the direct consequence would be greater concentration of power in U.S. hands. This would militate against the promotion of multipolarity.    

Historically, New Delhi has always been more vocal in criticizing unchecked assertions of American power compared to that of other major actors. India loudly denounced the U.S. war in Vietnam (1960s), its support for the remnants of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia following Vietnam’s invasion (1980s), and its invasion of Iraq (2003). By contrast, New Delhi was hesitant in calling out the Soviet Union for its invasions of Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Afghanistan (1979). Even in recent years, India expressed muted disapproval of the U.S.-led intervention in Libya (2011), while countenancing Russian annexation of Crimea (2014) and acceding to China’s suppression of Hong Kong protests (2020). 

India’s wariness of American power is not merely a legacy of anti-colonial idealism. It is rooted in a grand strategic vision. As the most powerful actor in the world, the United States poses a singular risk to India’s strategic autonomy. Accordingly, India prefers some constraints to U.S. hegemony. In the last two decades, even as New Delhi has forged a strategic partnership with Washington to meet the common threat of China, it has continued to promote multipolarity and resisted becoming too dependent on the United States.

So, what has caused India’s turnabout in the current war? Three explanations suggest themselves. 

First, the Indian policy establishment may have simply been overwhelmed by the pace of events. There is some evidence that the Indian government was taken by surprise by the fallout of the war. The conflict also arrived on the heels of New Delhi’s year-long struggle to find ways to manage its relationship with the United States under the mercurial presidency of Donald Trump. In the last 12 months, India and the U.S. have butted heads over immigration, bickered over Trump’s role in mediating an India-Pakistan ceasefire, and engaged in a months-long tariff standoff. Geopolitical volatility combined with the precarious state of India-U.S. relations may have resulted in a confused policy response by an Indian government caught on the backfoot.

Second, bruised by the diplomatic setbacks of last year, New Delhi may have decided to turn inward for the moment. In the last decade, the Modi government has leveraged the narrative of India’s rise to earn domestic and international political mileage. However, recent rows with Trump created some awkward situations for the government at home and abroad, serving as a reminder that political consequences of foreign affairs cut both ways. It is possible that New Delhi has decided to put its great power ambitions on hold and assume a low-key role in world politics for the time being.

Finally, it may be that the Iran war is an early indicator of a major shift in India’s grand strategy. New Delhi may have decided to lend greater support to U.S. hegemony, while stepping away from its pursuit of a multipolar world. Its reasoning could be transactional – its support could be exchanged for more security and economic concessions from Washington.

Or perhaps India is beginning to believe that the United States is in irreversible decline. Such assessment flips the basic tenets of Indian grand strategy on their heads. China then is the most significant threat to Indian strategic autonomy because it is on its way to become the predominant power in Asia. It follows that Indian interests are best served by propping up U.S. power. 

During the Cold War, unease with American preponderance drove India closer to the Soviet Union, the weaker superpower. A similar calculation in the face of a rising China may have led India to conclude that the best means of maintaining balance is to embrace a diminishing United States more tightly.

Only time will tell what factors are driving India’s decision-making, but major shifts may be afoot. Indian foreign policy bears close watching.