Sifting Sands Of India-Iran Relations – OpEd
Omani Foreign Minister – Badr al Busaidi – who was part of the Geneva talks between the US and Iran in January this year, reported significant progress, including a potential deal involving Iran’s commitment to “zero stockpiling” of enriched uranium and increased access for IAEA inspectors to the country’s nuclear facilities. Tehran also agreed to receive a technical team from the IAEA. He added that, this was a big breakthrough in the nuclear talks with Iran which was not achieved even under Obama. Despite the early 2026 progress, the agreement failed to take a concrete shape due to the US naval build-up in the Persian Gulf, with bellicose rhetoric from both sides. After ‘Operation Midnight Hammer’ last June, Trump announced that Tehran’s nuclear capabilities were totally obliterated. So, what was so urgent and threatening to the US and Israel that he launched ‘Operation Epic Fury?’
Israeli concerns, I believe, over Iran’s nuclear capabilities were overblown, but Netanyahu feared Iran’s missile and drone programs. Iran’s ballistic missiles and long range drones could strike Israeli airbases and nuclear sites. Last year, Iran nearly hit Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant in the Negev desert, while the Iran-backed Houthi rebels struck Sdot Micha – a highly secretive base in central Israel. Tel Aviv drew an important lesson from the 12-day war last year; to bomb Iran until its military industrial infrastructure is degraded to a point where Iran ceases to be a threat to Israel. That is why Donald Trump had said that he intends to destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles and drone capabilities, and also stop the country from obtaining nuclear weapons, which was reaffirmed by Marco Rubio.
The crisis is testing India’s diplomacy and ingenuity in navigating the choppy waters of the Persian Gulf. India is engaging with Iran to protect its fuel and fertilizer security, while trying to preserve its multi-faceted relationship with the US – one of India’s closest strategic and economic partners. The US remains India’s top export market, and the two countries are trying to conclude a trade deal. Nonetheless, Iran is a BRICS member which India chairs this year, and counts Iran as one of India’s most important strategic partners with a shared civilizational history. During the Shah’s rule, in the Cold War era, Iran sided with Pakistan in its wars against India – in 1965 and 1971 – by providing oil and arms to its eastern neighbor. However, after the Shah’s rule ended, Iran’s foreign policy orientation shifted to favor India.
IRAN’S TACIT SUPPORT
In 1994, India’s then Foreign Minister, Dinesh Singh (1993-95), was flown from his hospital bed in a special military aircraft to deliver an urgent message from the then Indian PM PV Narasimha Rao to the Iranian leadership, urging Iran to scuttle a Pakistan-sponsored OIC resolution on Kashmir that could have invited sweeping sanctions on India at a time when the country was friendless after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Iranian leadership obliged, and the resolution failed to pass muster. Furthermore, Iran continued supplying oil to India in the face of Western sanctions after New Delhi conducted the nuclear tests – codenamed ‘Operation Shakti’ – in 1998. In 2013, Iran agreed to take all oil payments from India in rupees. Iran kept the accumulated oil payments to the tune of $4 billion, interest free, in the UCO bank to purchase permissible goods and services from India. An obscure Kolkata-based state lender with a branch in Tehran – the UCO bank – became an unlikely beneficiary of Western sanctions on Iran.
For years, Iran provided New Delhi with a base in Zahedan to conduct covert operations to counter Pakistan. Even India would not have offered Iran access to such a strategic area to counter its rivals. The Zahedan base helped New Delhi to keep track of Indian militants attending terror camps along the Af-Pak border. Iran facilitated Indian Shias to melt away in Pakistan’s Islamic society and work covertly. Iran also helped India in balancing Azerbaijan. Neither the US nor Israel can or will offer India such facilities.
ISRAEL’S COVERT ASSISTANCE
On the flip side, Israel has sided with India in every major conflict that India was embroiled in since Independence. Despite lacking formal diplomatic ties, Israeli PM David Ben-Gurion responded to a personal appeal from Nehru by sending covert military aid consisting of light arms, ammunition, and machine guns during the 1962 Sino-Indian war. This marked the beginning of a decades-long covert military relationship between India and Israel. Again in 1965, Israel supplied India with M-58 160-mm mortars during the war with Pakistan. As tensions flared between India and Pakistan from 1970 onwards, DN Chatterjee – India’s then ambassador to France – wrote to the Ministry of External Affairs advocating for New Delhi to seek assistance from Israel. The then PM Indira Gandhi accepted the proposal. In mid-1971, Indira Gandhi quietly appealed to Israeli PM Golda Meir for small arms for the Mukti Bahini, routing the request via a Liechtenstein-based defense supplier, which diverted weapons meant for Iran to India. Golda Meir wrote to Indira Gandhi seeking diplomatic recognition for Israel in return, but India demurred. When the Cold War ended, and a unipolar world emerged, the Narasimha Rao government recalibrated several of its diplomatic positions. In 1992, PM Rao reached out to Israel and turned the decades-long covert security relationship into a formal diplomatic relationship.
In 1999, Israel helped India during the Kargil war when Indian troops struggled to flush out Pakistani intruders who had occupied strategic positions on the Indian side of the de-facto border between India and Pakistan. Israel helped India by supplying laser-guided bomb kits, missiles, ‘Searcher’ UAVs, and ‘Green Pine’ radars which were useful in boosting missile defenses, locating enemy bunkers and neutralizing them. In April-May 2024, Israel acquired from Indian firms – such as Premier Explosives – rocket propellants, explosive materials and mines. The consignments were sent from Chennai to Ashdod and Haifa. These were used to wage war on Hamas, but the casualties were mostly civilians, including children. India acquired weapons from Israel to defend the country against external aggression. However, Israel procured defense supplies from India which were used on a defenseless population.
INDIA’S VOLTE-FACE
In moments of great strategic churn, you don’t pick a side; you keep your options open. As the Iran war hysteria was building up, the Indian Coast Guard seized three US-sanctioned Iranian vessels off the coast of Mumbai on February 06. This happened at a time when the India-US trade deal had been announced, New Delhi was preparing to end trade with Iran and Chabahar port development owing to US sanctions on Iran, and was also cutting down on Russian oil imports to buy more from the US and the Gulf. The seizure led to an outcry in New Delhi’s strategic circles over India’s belligerent action against a friendly nation under American pressure. The optics made for a bad spectacle. India which was known to be adept at walking the diplomatic tightrope was now found to be wavering. Earlier, in 2018, India ceased buying Iranian oil when the US threatened India and China with sanctions if they continued buying. India budged under US pressure, but China continued buying. India caving in to American pressure had taken the sheen off the image of a supposedly muscular government. Next, PM Modi embarked on an ill-timed visit to Israel, on the eve of the US-Israeli war on Iran. PM Modi drew flak from even pro-establishment voices who questioned the timing of his visit. This was akin to former Pakistani PM Imran Khan’s visit to Moscow on the eve of Russia’s ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine. From then on, it was all downhill for Imran Khan. India also failed to condemn the unprovoked aggression against Iran and the killing of its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. India was once a poor nation with a loud voice; now it is affluent, but effete.
The sinking of an Iranian frigate – the IRIS Dena – by an American submarine – USS Charlotte – on March 04 off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka, in India’s maritime backyard, was more than a battlefield event; it was a strategic embarrassment for New Delhi. The warship had participated in the flagship MILAN 2026 naval exercise and was unarmed, where, along with 18 other foreign warships; it sailed as a guest of the Indian Navy. The warship would not have been where it was if India had not invited it. By sinking a vessel returning from an India-hosted multilateral event, Washington effectively turned India’s vicinity into a war zone, raising troubling questions over India’s maritime dominance in its strategic waters, while New Delhi has openly objected to Chinese vessels docking at Colombo and Male ports because of our security concerns. Why was there such silence when an American submarine was operating close to the Sri Lankan coast?
BACK TO THE ‘BALANCING ACT’
If India aspires to be a major power and a civilizational voice, it cannot speak loudly about sovereignty in some crisis and fall silent in others. Strategic partnerships are important, but strategic autonomy also means retaining the courage to speak when war threatens to consume an entire region. As chair of BRICS, India must steer the bloc toward a firmer stand on the Iran conflict. India must also renew its engagement with Iran and put bilateral relations back on track. First, India must send humanitarian aid to Iran – medical aid, essential items of daily use, and food supplies. Next, India needs to buy more Iranian oil, now that Tehran has approved a new route around the Larak Island for vessels from five friendly nations, including India, to ensure the country’s energy security and also help the Iranians to tide over their economic crisis. Third, PM Modi must use his influence over the Israeli PM Netanyahu and nudge him to de-escalate. Finally, New Delhi must use all the leverage it has with the Trump administration to re-start the Geneva talks for a peaceful settlement. India must help ease tensions in the Persian Gulf, and help restore maritime traffic.
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