With the Iran crisis, has India’s Middle East balancing act hit a roadblock?

Follow our live coverage here.

NEW DELHI – India’s success as one of the few countries to secure safe passage for its tankers through the Strait of Hormuz has shown that it cannot afford to ignore Iran, despite its purposeful tilt towards the US and Israel.

Two Indian-flagged tankers carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) passed through the strait after Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on March 12, within weeks after Iran had closed the chokepoint in response to the US-Israel bombing.

Two more tankers passed through the strait on March 23.

New Delhi has continued to seek safe passage from Tehran for additional tankers amid rising oil prices and an LPG shortage that has affected millions of people.

Still, the US and Israel strikes on Iran, coming soon after Mr Modi wrapped up his visit to Tel Aviv on Feb 26, have drawn renewed scrutiny to India’s claim of strategic autonomy in the Middle East.

The timing of Mr Modi’s visit to Israel – where, in a speech to the Knesset, he had said that the “friendship between India and Israel remains a source of strength” – has been widely viewed as a tilt in favour of Israel.

Yet the conflict has underlined how, in spite of growing proximity to the West and Israel, India is also constrained by its energy dependence on Gulf countries and on Iran for safe passage of its tankers carrying oil, gas and fertilisers through the region.

“This is a phase where the (Iran-India) relationship has turned transactional due to the pressure of war and energy security,” said Mr Zikrur Rahman, a former Indian diplomat who served most of his 35-year career in the Arab world, including as Indian ambassador to Palestine.

Up to 50 per cent of India’s crude oil and 90 per cent of LPG imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz, giving tremendous scope for disruption to the energy-deficient Indian economy.

Mr Modi, in a statement in Parliament on March 24, said: “India, through diplomacy, is making continuous efforts for the safe passage of Indian ships even amidst the war environment.”

Historic India-Iran relations

India and Iran share centuries-old connections through trade, literature, and language, as evidenced by the influence of Persian on many Indian languages. Iran is also a key pilgrimage site for India’s Shia Muslims.

The ties still hold, with some residents in Kashmir having reportedly raised money for Iranians affected by the attacks. The Iranian embassy in New Delhi said a local woman donated gold she had preserved in memory of her husband, who died 28 years ago – a sign of the depth of affection felt by some Indians for their neighbours.

But this longstanding relationship will be difficult to sustain.

Recent Iranian concessions in the Strait of Hormuz, analysts say, are currently driven largely by energy considerations rather than any deep economic and political engagement between Iran and India.

Part of the reason is the US sanctions, which have made it difficult for India to grow ties with Iran, even constricting its participation in the Chabahar Port project, a critical infrastructure project India hoped would grant it access to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

India’s balancing act

India’s restrained responses to developments in the Israeli-US attacks on Iran underscore this tension.

It did not immediately react to the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in US and Israeli strikes, with India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri signing a condolence book at the Iranian Embassy in New Delhi only days after his death.

Also, nearly two weeks passed before India expressed grief for an attack on a primary school in the southern Iranian city of Minab that killed at least 175. The statement came after a call between Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi.

And while it sheltered Iranian sailors and rushed to provide aid after an Iranian warship headed back from a multilateral exercise was sunk by a US strike in the Indian Ocean, India refrained from criticising the US for the sinking. 

“I’d imagine Iranian trust in India has diminished since this war began,” said Professor Srinath Raghavan, a historian and international affairs expert.

“They clearly do not want to make things worse. They have explicitly said that they have agreed to India’s requests on vessels stuck in the Straits of Hormuz owing to the long friendship between Iran and India.

“At the same time, they have asked India to raise the Israeli-US aggression in the BRICS,” he added.

India is the current chair of the BRICS grouping, of which Iran is a member and whose founding members, Russia and China, have condemned the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

US, Israeli ties

This is pressure that is unlikely to manifest in tangible ways, given the importance that New Delhi still accords to its relations with Washington, even with the Trump administration’s tough tariff rhetoric.

India has a broad and growing range of cooperation with the US, its largest export market, that spans critical technology, defence cooperation and trade.

Ties with Israel are similarly critical for India’s defence modernisation, which it has made a priority given border tensions with neighbouring Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, China.

Still, critics note that the pivot to the US and Israel has had its downsides, for instance, in how Washington has dictated New Delhi’s oil policy.

After pressuring India to stop buying Russian oil, the Americans are now allowing it for 30 days in response to the current supply crisis.

Rather than a reprieve, it has injected more uncertainty, given the lack of clarity about what happens after April 4. The Americans have also allowed the sale of stranded Iranian oil.

“The foundation of every single nation is its energy security,” said Mr Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition Congress party.

He argued that India’s energy sovereignty had been “bartered” by “allowing the US to decide who we buy oil from, who we buy gas from, and whether we can buy oil from Russia or not”.

Writing on the social media website X, former foreign secretary Nirupama Rao noted: “The present crisis shows how quickly disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz or the wider Indian Ocean can affect India’s economy.”

It is also the clearest symbol of India’s dilemma, she argued.

“First, India must retain the ability to engage all sides simultaneously, especially in regions like West Asia where our interests intersect with multiple actors. Second, India must place greater emphasis on maritime security and energy resilience.”

Critics note that Delhi’s foreign policy, reflecting India’s expanding global ambitions under the Modi administration, has overshadowed the country’s real needs.

Whether the ongoing Iran crisis goes on to fundamentally alter New Delhi’s strategic calculus remains to be seen. For Mr Rahman, the former diplomat, some realities cannot be changed.

“We don’t know how the situation will develop in the future, but this relationship with Iran is old and important. You can’t change your neighbours, whether distant or far off, and you cannot be indifferent to them,” said Mr Rahman.