The Indian Ocean has always been India’s ocean, at least in the strategic imagination of New Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a name for this vision. He calls it MAHASAGAR, a framework that positions India as the central pillar of stability across these waters. It is an ambitious idea. But ambition looks different when a US submarine fires a torpedo in your maritime backyard and you say almost nothing in response.
That is precisely what happened. The Iranian frigate Iris Dena sailed into Indian waters just weeks ago as a guest of the Indian Navy’s International Fleet Review. Forty nations participated. Warships from across the world docked and sailed together in a display of naval camaraderie. Among them stood the Iris Dena, representing Iran. Then it left. Then America sank it.
The submarine strike happened near Sri Lanka’s waters, well within the broader maritime neighbourhood where India claims strategic influence. The stern of the vessel exploded. Eighty sailors died. Dozens more vanished. Survivors were hospitalised in Sri Lanka. It was the first time since the Second World War that a US submarine had sunk an enemy vessel using a torpedo. Washington called it a historic military moment. Iran called it an atrocity at sea.
India called it almost nothing.
The silence from New Delhi is striking, particularly when placed beside the noise coming from elsewhere. Russia condemned the US and Israeli strikes on Iran as unprovoked aggression. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for an immediate halt to military operations and positioned Beijing as a potential peacemaker. Moscow and Beijing stepped loudly into the diplomatic arena. India stepped quietly to the side.
This is not entirely surprising. India has long practised what analysts call strategic autonomy, the art of maintaining meaningful relationships with rival powers simultaneously. The United States is now one of India’s most important strategic partners. Iran is a country with which India shares deep historical and economic ties. For years India imported large volumes of Iranian oil. Iranian warships have sailed in Indian naval exercises. The relationship carries real weight.
Choosing a side therefore risks damaging one of two important partnerships. Silence, in that reading, is not weakness. It is calculation.
But critics are asking a harder question. When war physically arrives in your maritime neighbourhood, when a guest warship is destroyed in waters you claim to watch over, is silence still a viable strategy? Or does it simply look like abdication?
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made the optics even sharper. He reminded the world that the Iris Dena had attended an Indian naval event. He said the United States had struck India’s naval guest in international waters. That framing was deliberate. It was designed to pressure New Delhi into a response.
One small signal eventually emerged. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar quietly reached out to his Iranian counterpart by telephone as the crisis deepened. The call was acknowledged briefly on social media. There were no dramatic statements. No condemnation. No expressions of outrage. Just a quiet acknowledgement that contact had been made.
That may well be India’s style. Quiet diplomacy behind public silence. But the episode raises uncomfortable questions that will not disappear. Did Washington inform India before the strike? No clear answer has emerged. If it did not, that is a serious lapse. If it did, the implications are different but equally significant.
Meanwhile the war is not standing still. The United States and Israel have struck missile arsenals and nuclear facilities across Iran. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been assassinated. Iran has retaliated with missiles and drones aimed at American and Israeli bases across the region. The conflict is expanding rapidly and the Indian Ocean is no longer just a theatre of commerce. It is a battlefield.
India stands in the middle of this storm with a reputation for balance and a record of restraint. Whether that restraint serves the country’s interests or undermines them is a question that New Delhi will have to answer sooner than it would like.
The torpedo that sank the Iris Dena did more than destroy a ship. It forced a question India has spent decades carefully avoiding. Whose side are you on?
