India’s Iran War Fault Line Widens as Sonia, Rahul and Left Slam Selective Silence While Modi Activates Gulf Outreach
India’s political divide over the US–Israel–Iran war has sharpened as the Congress and Left parties have accused the Modi government of “silence” and “moral cowardice” over the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while the government has simultaneously expanded high-level outreach to Gulf leaders, activated trade and energy contingency mechanisms, and reiterated that dialogue and diplomacy are the only viable path to restore regional stability.
Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, in an opinion piece in a mainstream daily, argued that New Delhi’s lack of a clear response to the assassination of Khamenei amounted to an “abdication” rather than neutrality and risked normalising targeted killings as instruments of statecraft.
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| File Photo; Via: LoP Raga |
Rahul Gandhi, LoP in Lok Sabha, also amplified the line in a statement on X, saying attacks that violate sovereignty “will only worsen the crisis” and that both the unilateral strikes on Iran and Iran’s attacks on other Middle Eastern nations should be condemned, urging India to be “morally clear” and consistent in defending international law.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra similarly condemned what she called the targeted assassination of the leadership of a sovereign nation and the killing of civilians. She argued that such acts deserved strong condemnation irrespective of the stated justification and urged that Indian citizens in affected countries be brought back safely.
Left parties also moved to occupy the moral and legal argument. The CPM’s general secretary M.A. Baby described the assassination of Iran’s leadership and reported attacks on civilian sites as an atrocious unilateral assault, and accused the government of remaining silent.
Other opposition voices questioned whether India’s public messaging had narrowed into the language of national interest and evacuation logistics at the cost of principled objection to sovereignty violations.
The BJP has rejected the charge. Party figures argued that “responsible diplomacy” should not be conflated with silence and said India has consistently called for restraint, respect for sovereignty and de-escalation. The government’s public line has indeed centred on restraint and citizen safety. In its March 3 statement, the Ministry of External Affairs said the conflict that began on February 28 has deteriorated significantly and spread to other nations, and warned that India has critical stakes in the region’s stability. It highlighted that nearly one crore Indian citizens live and work in the Gulf and that India’s trade and energy supply chains traverse the region, adding that some Indian nationals have died or are missing in recent days due to attacks on merchant shipping.
On the same day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke separately with the leaders of Oman, Kuwait and Qatar, and condemned violations of their sovereignty and territorial integrity and stressed sustained diplomatic engagement. In parallel, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said an inter-ministerial mechanism on supply chain resilience was being set up to monitor disruptions and reassure exporters, while the Petroleum Ministry said India was comfortably stocked for short-term disruptions and had diversified supply options not routed through the Strait of Hormuz. Together, these moves signalled a government response that was focused on de-escalation language publicly, operational preparedness at home, and political signalling of solidarity with Gulf partners now under direct missile and drone pressure.
But the domestic dispute is about strategic alignment and continuity. IndianRepublic.in’s earlier reporting during the 2025 Iran crisis captured how New Delhi framed its position then: after U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, India publicly emphasised “dialogue and diplomacy” as the only way forward, and Modi spoke directly with Iran’s president to urge de-escalation. However, in the current war, we see that India’s diplomatic vocabulary has remained similar while its willingness to name or condemn the initial sovereignty breach inside Iran has receded and created what the Opposition describes as a credibility gap in India’s professed commitment to a rules-based order.
A pressure test of India’s long-standing balancing act in West Asia under conditions far more violent and economically destabilising than previous episodes is thus unfolding . The immediate reality that the government is prioritising is to protect a massive diaspora, keep energy flows stable, and avoid entanglement in a multi-front war now spanning Iran, Israel, Lebanon and Gulf states. Bt we shold also not be oblivious to the political argument that India’s global standing has historically drawn strength from consistent application of sovereignty and international law, and that selective condemnation weakens India’s ability to defend those principles when it needs them most.
If the war continues to expand horizontally across countries and critical economic nodes, India’s current posture of restraint-plus-preparedness may face escalating demands for clearer positions, both from domestic parties and from partner states whose security and energy corridors are now directly exposed.
(Saket Suman is Editor at IndianRepublic.in, and the author of The Psychology of a Patriot.)