by Modi Government Caught Off-Guard by Iran Conflict Days After New Delhi-Jerusalem Bromance Photo Opportunity
Reported by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
NEW DELHI, India — India found itself without a clear policy response in late February when the United States and Israel launched military operations against Iran, just days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Netanyahu in Jerusalem for a two-day summit that produced warm photographs, effusive mutual praise, and apparently no discussion of the contingency planning that India would need if the deep friendship being documented resulted in a regional war that disrupted India’s energy supply. The energy supply was disrupted. The contingency planning, according to available evidence, had not been completed.
The Sequence of Events, Rendered Satirically
February 26: Prime Minister Modi visits Jerusalem. Netanyahu says “this is a bond of real friendship.” Modi laughs warmly. Hugs are exchanged with Modi’s characteristic enthusiasm, which comedian Pulkit Mani had recently mocked in a viral video before Indian censors removed it. The hugs are real. The friendship is real. The photographers capture both extensively.
Days later: The US and Israel launch military operations against Iran. Iran restricts the movement of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz is the chokepoint through which a significant portion of India’s oil imports pass. India imports approximately 85 percent of its crude oil. The connection between these two facts is mathematical rather than political, but the timing is such that the mathematical connection and the political optics are difficult to separate in the public conversation that follows.
India’s currency falls. Its stock market tumbles. Citizens in multiple cities report difficulty obtaining LPG cooking gas cylinders, which are the primary cooking fuel for hundreds of millions of Indian households. Members of Parliament ask questions about the government’s preparation for scenarios of this type. The answers are not fully satisfying.
The Energy Import Dependence, Which Predates This Government But Does Not Predate This Situation
India’s dependence on Middle East oil imports is not a policy failure of any single government — it is a structural reality of one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies that has not yet developed domestic energy production to match its consumption growth. The specific vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz — a narrow waterway through which approximately 20 percent of global oil supply passes — to disruption in the event of Iranian military conflict has been documented in Indian strategic planning documents for decades.
Whether those planning documents produced contingency arrangements that were activated when the conflict began is a question that the government has been managing carefully in its public communications. The cooking gas shortage, which affected millions of Indian households in the days following the Hormuz restriction, is the ground-level evidence that the contingency arrangements, whatever they were, did not fully prevent disruption at the consumer level. A woman in Lucknow who cannot get a cooking gas cylinder does not require strategic planning documents to know that something has not worked as intended.
The Diplomatic Position India Is Now Managing
India has maintained a foreign policy of “strategic autonomy” — relationships with multiple major powers, including the United States, Russia, and Israel, without exclusive alignment with any — that has historically allowed it to manage multiple simultaneous relationships without committing to any single bloc. The Iran war has tested this posture by producing a situation in which India’s deep public friendship with Israel and its existing economic relationship with Iran are simultaneously in conflict, and its energy dependence on the Gulf makes it a stakeholder in the conflict’s resolution regardless of its official neutrality.
India has not condemned the US-Israel operation. It has called for restraint and dialogue. It has expressed concern about oil supply disruptions. It has continued talking to all parties. This is the strategic autonomy posture under stress: maintaining relationships with all sides while avoiding the specific commitments that any side would prefer India make. According to India’s Ministry of External Affairs, the country is monitoring developments closely and working to ensure energy security through multiple channels. The LPG shortage is being addressed. The Hormuz situation is evolving. The hugs are in the photographs and will remain there regardless of how the conflict resolves.
The Public Response, Which Has Been Creative
Indian social media, which processes political situations with the specific combination of creativity, irreverence, and bottomless meme production that characterizes a country of 1.4 billion people with significant smartphone penetration and a deep tradition of political satire, produced an extraordinary volume of content about the India-Iran situation, Modi’s Jerusalem visit, the cooking gas shortage, and the relationship between all three. Much of this content was subsequently blocked. The blocking produced more content about the blocking, which was also blocked, which produced more content, which is the specific dynamic that internet censorship generates in a country where the satirists are numerous, creative, and have a very clear opinion about what is happening. The jokes are good. The fuel is expensive. Both things are simultaneously true and the second one does not prevent the first.
The Strategic Autonomy Test
India’s foreign policy doctrine of “strategic autonomy” was designed precisely for situations like the Iran war: maintaining relationships with all major powers without exclusive alliance with any, preserving the freedom to navigate crises without being locked into a single bloc’s position. The doctrine has served India well in multiple previous crises. The Iran war has tested it more acutely than most, because the combination of India’s public friendship with Israel, its energy dependence on Gulf supply routes, its existing trade relationship with Iran, and the specific optics of the Jerusalem visit have made the “strategic autonomy” position harder to maintain without it looking like strategic confusion. The government is managing the messaging. The rupee is where it is. The LPG is arriving. The doctrine continues to be applicable. Its application has been more complicated than the doctrine’s architects had in mind when they designed it for a world in which Israel and Iran were not in active military conflict in the week after an Indian prime minister visited Jerusalem and hugged its PM. The world did not consult the doctrine’s architects before proceeding. The doctrine continues anyway, because it is still the best available framework for a country that needs relationships with everyone and cannot afford to lose any of them.
For more on diplomatic friendships and their downstream consequences, visit The Daily Mash.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
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