Neighbourhood diplomacy and its West Asia challenge

With the sinking of the Iranian warship, IRIS Dena, in the Indian Ocean, by the United States on March 4, the war in West Asia came home to South Asia. With each passing day, the war that began on February 28 has reached South Asian homes in a number of ways — disrupting the availability of daily necessities, travel, trade, food and fuel for cooking and transport, fertilizers, and the safety of citizens in the West Asia region.

Approximately 25 million South Asians live and work in West Asia, including 10 million Indians, five million Pakistanis, between five to six million Bangladeshis, two million Nepalis, and significant numbers from Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives. Afghans — between five to eight million — are refugees in Iran. In addition, Indians make up about 15% of the population of seafarers, or crew aboard merchant ships worldwide, along with other South Asians, all of whom are at risk of harm, particularly those positioned around the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has weaponised access. As New Delhi formulates its next steps in the war, it is necessary to consider not only what it will mean for the whole region but also its own ties with each neighbour.

India’s stance could raise eyebrows

It is important to recognise that New Delhi’s posture at the start of the war — when U.S.-Israel strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and much of his immediate family — has been out of step with most of the region. Bangladesh and Pakistan issued statements condoling Khamenei’s death almost immediately, the Maldives condemned the U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran and Iran’s counter-attacks equally, and the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister offered his condolences. In contrast, it took South Block five days to send Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri to the Iranian Embassy.

It took another week for the Ministry of External Affairs to express “grief” over the killing of more than 150 students and teachers at a school for girls abutting a naval base in Minab. Even in the wider region, a statement by Foreign Ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) criticised U.S. and Israel for “initiating” attacks, and subsequent attacks by Iran.

This is less about optics and more about India’s — and South Asia’s — cultural values: the killing of Khamenei, an 86-year-old religious leader of a state, violated international norms, regardless of how his policies were viewed. That India’s statements in the following days condemned Iran’s retaliatory strikes without ever criticising U.S. or Israeli actions against Iran and Lebanon is an anomaly.

It is possible to explain the initial reactions in light of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel two days before the strikes, and his statement in the Knesset that India would stand with Israel “in the moment and beyond”. But as the horror of the escalating war mounts and the Iranian regime demonstrates its resilience, there is a need to calibrate a more balanced response. India’s traditional position, of building strong bilateral ties with every country in West Asia, without taking sides in regional fault lines has always kept it in a position of trust and goodwill; this was proven during Mr. Modi’s outreach to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian for the passage of Indian ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

In addition, the U.S.’s unabashed pride in bombing IRIS Dena near Sri Lanka without even attempting to help the surviving sailors has come as a shock to many in the region. It is admirable that the Indian Navy immediately assisted the Sri Lankan Navy in the rescue operations, and that both Delhi and Colombo offered safe harbour to other Iranian military ships in the area. Yet, the Indian Navy’s failure to express its condolences for the deaths of the sailors who had recently been its guests at India’s multinational naval exercise MILAN 2026 and the International Fleet Review in Visakhapatnam in February, is difficult to understand.

Economic, regional and maritime security

Going forward, India must reassure its neighbours — other than Pakistan, which it has no relationship with at present — that it remains cognisant of their concerns. As energy shortages deepened, New Delhi received requests for petrol and diesel from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives; landlocked Nepal and Bhutan may follow suit if the situation worsens. India must plan ahead to avoid a repeat of 2021, when it had to halt vaccine supplies to its neighbourhood for several critical weeks to deal with the crisis caused by the spread of the delta variant of SARS-CoV-2. Subsequently, India’s “Vaccine Maitri” programme did much to ease those memories, and enforced the need for an “all of region” approach to such situations.

Since 2020, South Asia has been has been buffeted by several crises: COVID-19, supply chain blockages from India-China tensions along the Line of Actual Control, sanctions affecting grain, oil, and urea amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, fluctuations in remittances due to constant flare-ups in West Asia, the impact of the Trump administration’s tariff policy on the region’s labour-intensive apparel and fashion industry, and seafood exports, and the growing shadow of Artificial Intelligence on jobs in a region with a restless young population.

It is not a coincidence that many of India’s neighbours have seen youth protests erupt, and new governments installed as a result — an example is Nepal’s election on March 5 which brought its first Gen-Z-led government to power. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s poll losses in the general election in 2024, which resulted in Mr. Modi’s first minority government within a coalition, are also attributed to the disaffection of unemployed and underemployed youth. The changes have impacted India’s diplomacy, as the Modi government has had to amend its more muscular neighbourhood policy to engage leaders elected on these mandates and who are less beholden to India.

India must also recognise that its position as “net security provider” in the region has been challenged by the U.S.’s sinking of the IRIS Dena, which cuts more deeply given their joint membership of the Quad (the strategic forum comprising the U.S., Japan, India, and Australia).

At their last meeting in July 2025, the Quad Foreign Ministers issued a statement reaffirming their commitment to “peace and stability” in the Indo-Pacific region and declaring that they “strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion”, a reference to China. With the U.S. behaving unilaterally, India must move to strengthen its own coalitions in the maritime region, including the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), the Colombo Security Conclave, and the Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) so that it is not caught unawares in the future. South Asia requires more regional trade, connectivity and energy sharing platforms, along with more conversations on regional security, as each country in the subcontinent is a stakeholder.

On the global stage, India’s position as Chair of the Quad requires it to host a summit this year — when U.S. President Donald Trump is to visit India. But India’s immediate priority should be to convene a Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting to ensure better communication and chart a more stable course for the maritime region in view of the West Asia war.

New Delhi must restore the balance

On the other side of the global North-South divide, India is also due to convene the BRICS Summit in 2026 — while bringing current rivals and BRICS members Iran and the United Arab Emirates to the table may be difficult given current tensions, New Delhi’s diplomatic skills must be exerted in forging consensus for a BRICS statement that also highlights South Asia’s economic and security concerns. Having momentarily abandoned its balancing act between the U.S.-Israel and Iran, it is time for India to restore the balance in its West Asia policy. New Delhi’s traditional position on the tightrope may be tense, but it gives a more beneficial vantage point from which to steer the future of its people and those across the wider neighbourhood.

suhasini.h@thehindu.co.in

Published – March 17, 2026 12:16 am IST