Madhav Sethi
Geopolitics · 14 min read

Autonomy or Drift? India's Diplomacy from the Post-COVID 'Vishwaguru' to the 2026 Iran War

A balanced assessment of India's conduct, posture, and effectiveness across Trump's second term — and what its foreign-policy makers should do next.

By

The short version

  • On the evidence, India’s conduct across Trump’s second term was disciplined risk-management that hardened into strategic drift: the same silence-and-hedge template that worked over Russia-Ukraine failed in the 2026 Iran War, where India absorbed severe energy, currency and reputational costs while Pakistan — not India — emerged as the war’s pivotal mediator.
  • The “pragmatic autonomy” defence is real but incomplete: New Delhi protected its US, Israel and Gulf relationships, ran a competent naval evacuation (Operation Urja Suraksha), and avoided entanglement — but it could neither shape the war nor shield itself from it, exposing the gap between “Vishwaguru” rhetoric and actual bargaining power.
  • The verdict for policymakers: strategic autonomy is now a slogan in search of capabilities. The fix is structural — energy diversification away from Hormuz, a preserved Iran/Chabahar option, restored mediation credibility, and protection of the ~9.5 million-strong Gulf diaspora — not better messaging.

What stands out

  1. A consistent doctrine, three escalating tests. India’s “multi-alignment” / strategic-autonomy doctrine — Jaishankar’s “engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia” — passed its post-COVID and Russia-Ukraine tests but broke down in the Iran War because, for the first time, India’s core interests (energy, diaspora, regional standing) were directly and simultaneously hit.

  2. The Russia template. Over Ukraine, India abstained at the UN, bought discounted Russian crude (rising from ~2% of imports in FY2019-20 to ~35% by FY2024-25, per Carnegie and corroborating trade data), and Modi told Putin at Samarkand on 16 Sept 2022 that “today’s era is not an era of war.” Crucially, India named the gravity of that conflict and engaged both sides. This was widely read as defensible hedging.

  3. The Iran rupture. When the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 Feb 2026 — killing Supreme Leader Khamenei — India did not name or condemn the aggressor, issuing only “deep concern” and “dialogue and diplomacy” language. Modi had addressed the Knesset 48 hours earlier. The asymmetry — condemning Iranian strikes on Gulf states but not the US-Israel assault on Iran — made neutrality hard to credit.

  4. India paid a heavy price for a war it did not fight. Brent surged past $100/bbl; the rupee hit record lows; foreign investors pulled billions from Indian equities; LPG shortages and the first fuel-price hikes in four years bit into daily life; Indian sailors were killed in Hormuz; and the invited Iranian frigate IRIS Dena was sunk by a US submarine days after India hosted it.

  5. The strategic humiliation: Pakistan as mediator. The war ended via the Islamabad Memorandum (formalised by Trump and Pezeshkian on 17 June 2026), brokered by Pakistan with Qatar, Türkiye, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. India — BRICS chair in 2026, claimant to Global South leadership, “net security provider” — was nowhere near the table.

The fuller picture

Phase 1 — The post-COVID baseline: “Vishwaguru” and the leading-power narrative

Coming out of the pandemic, India positioned itself as a rising “leading power.” It ran “Vaccine Maitri” diplomacy, leaned into “China+1” supply-chain realignment, deepened Quad engagement, and managed the post-Galwan LAC standoff with China while keeping the relationship functional. The high-water mark was the 2023 G-20 presidency, where Modi branded India the “voice of the Global South” — convening the first Voice of Global South Summit (12-13 Jan 2023), which per India’s MEA saw 125 countries participate (including 47 from Africa and 29 from Latin America and the Caribbean), and securing African Union membership of the G-20. The doctrine underpinning this was “multi-alignment”: strategic autonomy recast as an all-vector hedging strategy. Critics noted even then that the “Vishwaguru” narrative outran India’s material capacity — a small diplomatic corps, modest development-finance scale next to China, and influence that was more convening power than coercive weight.

Phase 2 — Russia-Ukraine: the template for strategic silence

After Russia’s February 2022 invasion, India abstained on UN resolutions condemning Moscow, declined to join Western sanctions, and dramatically increased discounted Russian oil purchases — Russian crude rose from a negligible share before the war to roughly a third of India’s imports, and India became the largest importer of Russian crude by 2024 (UN COMTRADE data put India’s crude imports from Russia at ~$52.7bn in 2024). Modi’s “this is not an era of war” line to Putin became the rhetorical signature of a posture the West found frustrating but largely tolerated, and that much of the Global South read as principled non-alignment. Importantly, India acknowledged the war’s gravity, engaged Zelenskyy as well as Putin, and provided humanitarian aid — distinctions that gave its neutrality moral cover. This is the precedent New Delhi appears to have assumed it could replay over Iran.

Phase 3 — The 2026 Iran War: when the template broke

The diplomatic posture. India’s MEA issued a “deeply concerned… dialogue and diplomacy” statement at the outbreak (28 Feb 2026), but never named the United States or Israel as aggressors, and declined to condemn Khamenei’s killing. India reportedly cabled missions to hold off signing Iranian condolence books; only on 5 March did Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri visit the Iranian embassy to sign the book, after four days of silence, opposition criticism, and the IRIS Dena sinking. India also publicly rebutted US-media claims that Indian ports were used to strike Iran, calling them “fake and false.”

The Modi-Israel optics. Modi’s 25 Feb 2026 Knesset address — the first ever by an Indian PM — declared India “stands with Israel firmly.” With strikes beginning roughly 36-48 hours after he left, the timing fuelled speculation (denied by Israel’s FM Gidon Saar) that India had foreknowledge. The Congress opposition called the visit “shameful.”

The energy and economic fallout. India imports ~85-90% of its crude and routes nearly half through Hormuz; roughly 90% of its LPG transits the strait (EIA country profile). Iran’s closure of Hormuz produced one of the largest oil-supply disruptions in modern history. Consequences for India: Brent past $100; a record-low rupee; the first petrol/diesel price hikes in four years, LPG queues across several states, and restaurants reverting to firewood. On 11 May Modi urged citizens to avoid buying gold for a year, reduce fuel consumption, work from home, and limit foreign travel to conserve foreign exchange. The Navy’s Operation Urja Suraksha (from ~25 March) escorted Indian-flagged tankers, and India secured a place on Iran’s list of “friendly” nations allowed transit — a genuine operational success amid the wreckage.

The human and security blows. Indian sailors were killed in Hormuz-area strikes (first deaths reported 1 March; further deaths in June as the US tightened its blockade, prompting India to summon a US diplomat). The IRIS Dena, an Iranian frigate that had just been India’s guest at MILAN/IFR 2026 in Visakhapatnam, was torpedoed and sunk by a US submarine off Sri Lanka on 4 March — the first US submarine torpedo kill of a surface ship since WWII. India’s Navy statement made no mention of the attack, and India offered no condemnation — a moment analysts called a direct challenge to its “net security provider” claim. India did send medical aid to Iran and took in Iranian sailors — humanitarian gestures consistent with the “lean toward US/Israel but not cheer Iran’s destruction” reading.

Chabahar. India’s decade-long Iran connectivity bet visibly unravelled under US pressure: Washington revoked the sanctions waiver (29 Sept 2025), granting a conditional wind-down waiver to 26 April 2026; India allocated nothing for Chabahar in the 2026-27 budget (first such omission in roughly a decade). ORF’s Harsh Pant framed it as “calibrated adjustment” preserving re-entry optionality, not abandonment — the crux of the autonomy-vs-drift dispute in miniature.

The broader Trump-era US-India relationship

The personal Modi-Trump “bromance” of the first term cooled markedly. Frictions included: Trump’s 50% tariffs (a 25% “reciprocal” plus 25% Russia-oil penalty) imposed August 2025; a $100,000 H-1B visa fee (≈70% of H-1B holders are Indian); Trump’s repeated claim to have brokered the May 2025 India-Pakistan ceasefire (which India rejects); and his courting of Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir. A February 2026 climbdown saw Trump cut tariffs to 18% after Modi reportedly agreed to wind down Russian oil purchases. At the Raisina Dialogue 2026, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau warned that the US “will not make the same mistake with India that we made with China 20 years ago.” Defence cooperation nonetheless deepened, underscoring continuity of alignment.

The adjudication

Steelman #1 — Coherent pragmatic autonomy, fairly defended. On this reading (advanced by The Diplomat’s “Why India Is Right to Support the US and Israel”), India followed a realist strategy maximising national interest: it had already decoupled from Iran (near-zero energy imports since 2019; only a few thousand Indians left in Iran), so it had “little to lose” in Tehran and far more to gain from the US, Israel and the Gulf (the UAE is India’s third-largest trading partner; Gulf-based Indians remain a large source of remittances). Silence is a legitimate tool when bargaining power is low. India avoided entanglement, evacuated its citizens and ships efficiently, kept Chabahar re-entry open, and preserved the US trade/defence track. ISAS (NUS) notes India had “few avenues to intervene save to seek exceptions for itself” — which it largely obtained.

Steelman #2 — Strategic drift dressed up as autonomy. On this reading (Komireddi in UnHerd; The Wire; the ISAS critique), neutrality has hollowed into alignment. Komireddi’s verdict: India “may be on its way to becoming the largest single non-hostile casualty of the war.” The evidence: alone among BRICS founders (Russia, China, Brazil all condemned the war) India stayed silent; the IRIS Dena sinking and muted response gutted the “net security provider” claim; Chabahar was abandoned at the first hint of pressure; and the crowning blow was Pakistan’s emergence as mediator — “a challenge to its own ambitions as the South Asian regional hegemon.” Domestic critics (Rahul Gandhi called the foreign policy a “joke”) frame it as ideological alignment overriding interest.

Adjudication. The evidence tilts toward a qualified version of Steelman #2 — drift, but drift produced by genuine constraint rather than mere cowardice. Three points decide it. First, outcomes: a posture should be judged partly by results, and India’s silence purchased neither influence over the war nor immunity from it; it got exceptions, not agency. Second, comparative: the Russia template worked because India named the war’s gravity and engaged both sides; over Iran it did neither, converting “non-alignment” into something indistinguishable from alignment, which is why the costs to credibility were higher. Third, the Pakistan datapoint is dispositive on the leadership question — a self-styled Global South leader and BRICS chair that cannot get into the room while its smaller rival brokers the peace has a capabilities problem, not a messaging problem. But the “craven” framing overreaches: India’s near-total prior decoupling from Iran was itself the product of years of US sanctions pressure, so by 2026 New Delhi genuinely had little leverage left to spend. The honest verdict is that India practised competent damage control inside a strategic position it had already let erode — autonomy in name, dependence in effect.

What India should do next

Concrete moves for the MEA, the PMO, and the wider strategic community:

  1. Treat energy security as the binding constraint on autonomy. Build strategic LPG reserves; accelerate Hormuz-bypass sourcing (US, Atlantic Basin, West Africa, non-Hormuz Russian routes); invest in green hydrogen and domestic refining flex. Benchmark to change posture: if Hormuz-routed crude can be cut below ~30% of imports and 60+ days of LPG cover secured, India’s freedom to take principled positions rises materially.

  2. Preserve, don’t abandon, the Iran/Chabahar option — but stop pretending it is thriving. Hold contractual re-entry rights and keep minimal budgetary allocation; a multi-year zero signals “institutional abandonment” and invites Chinese substitution near Gwadar. Chabahar is the only non-Pakistan land route to Central Asia; treating it as a reversible pause is defensible only if India actually returns.

  3. Rebuild mediation relevance before the next crisis, not during it. The Pakistan-as-mediator humiliation is the clearest actionable lesson. Invest in standing back-channels with Tehran and Washington, position India as a credible interlocutor on at least one live regional file, and resist reflexive silence — issuing early, even-handed statements that name facts (as India did over Ukraine) to keep moral and diplomatic standing.

  4. Protect the diaspora and remittances as a first-order national-security interest. With roughly 9.5 million Indians in the GCC and remittances at a record $118.7bn in FY2023-24 (RBI’s Sixth Remittances Survey; the GCC share has fallen to ~38% as advanced economies now lead), codify rapid mass-evacuation capacity (Urja Suraksha showed the Navy can deliver), pre-negotiate “friendly nation” transit understandings, and stress-test the balance-of-payments against a prolonged Gulf shock.

  5. Decide deliberately what “strategic autonomy” now means — and resource it. The Landau warning and the 50% tariffs show Washington increasingly fuses trade, tech and security leverage. India should (a) diversify defence procurement while insisting on technology/source-code transfer; (b) avoid betting the relationship on personal chemistry that has demonstrably cooled; and (c) align rhetoric with capability — quietly drop maximalist “Vishwaguru” framing until material weight can back it.

Caveats

  • Recent, still-settling story. Many facts are contested or evolving. Attribution for specific ship attacks is disputed — the US blamed Iran for some Hormuz strikes, while CENTCOM acknowledged US strikes on others; casualty figures for the IRIS Dena vary across accounts. Treat these as provisional.
  • Document availability. The Islamabad Memorandum’s terms were described by officials and media but the full text’s nuances (Hormuz reopening sequencing, sanctions relief, uranium handling) remain disputed between Washington and Tehran, with the final deal deferred to a 60-day window. India-specific primary documents (full MEA transcripts; any India-Iran or India-US understandings reached during the war) are not all public.
  • Two figures revised on verification. The Gulf diaspora figure is stated here as ~9.5 million (94.9 lakh), per the latest MEA data, rather than a higher round number; and the Russian-oil import shares are given as ranges (~2% → ~35%) consistent with Carnegie and UN COMTRADE rather than precise single-year decimals.
  • Source bias. This analysis deliberately triangulates establishment-centrist Indian outlets, government-critical outlets (The Wire), Western papers of record, and think-tanks. The sharpest “drift” verdicts (Komireddi/UnHerd) are polemical; the sharpest “autonomy” defences (The Diplomat op-ed) are contestable.
  • Unverified attributions removed. Earlier drafts attributed a “largest supply disruption” characterisation to the IEA and a “potential US-Russia bridge” framing to RAND; neither was pinned to a primary document in sourcing and both have been generalised. Verify before relying on either.
  • Counterfactual humility. Whether louder Indian diplomacy could have changed anything is unknowable; the “too inconsequential to influence the warmakers” critique cuts both ways — it is simultaneously the strongest indictment of India’s posture and the strongest excuse for it.

Sources

Citation convention: hyperlinked inline throughout the body, with the full bibliography below organised by source priority (primary → wires/record → Indian outlets across the spectrum → specialist analysis → data). All URLs accessed 21 June 2026.

Primary sources (official)

Wire services and papers of record

Indian outlets (across the political spectrum)

Specialist analysis and think-tanks

Additional context / opinion (use with attribution to lean)

Reference maps only (not cited as authority)