“Not to have anything to say when the Head of State of a country you recognise is assassinated in your neighbourhood … is inexcusable.”
Shivshankar Menon, Outlook, 20 March 2026
[Principled Critc]
“Government’s silence on killing of Iran leader is not neutral, it is abdication….The ripples of this tragedy are visible across continents. And India’s stance is signalling tacit endorsement of this tragedy.”
Sonia Gandhi, The Indian Express, 3 March 2026
[Moral Condemnation]
“It is not enough to be neutral; it is also necessary to be seen to be impartial… Geopolitical realities and geostrategic interests cannot be sacrificed at the altar of emotions and euphoria”
Ram Madhav, The Indian Express, 7 March 2026
[Strategic Realism]
“Our diplomacy should have been focused on preventing war and avoiding the inevitable disruptions it would cause, posing a real risk to India’s growth story.”
Shyam Saran, Rediff, 17 March 2026
[Pragmatic Realist]
“India’s ties with Israel, its partnerships with the United States, its long-standing engagement with Iran and its deep economic links with the Gulf all form part of a complex diplomatic architecture. Reducing that architecture to ideological alignment would weaken rather than strengthen India’s position.”
Nirupama Menon Rao, The Wire, 16 March 2026
[Strategic Balance]
“The real obscenity of this moment is not simply the war itself; it is the normalisation of a world in which war has become performance. But if the great powers have chosen nihilism, the rest of the world still has a choice.”
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, The Indian Express, 7 March 2026
[Principled Critic]
“India’s silence on West Asia war is not a moral surrender. It is responsible statecraft…We were reluctant to condemn the Soviet Union’s flagrant violations of international law in Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Afghanistan (1979). Why? Because we rightly judged that we had too much at stake in our relationship with Moscow to antagonise it.”
Sashi Tharoor, The Indian Express, 20 March 2026
[Pragmatic Realist]
“India has limited capacity to influence the outcome of the conflict, but it will have to prepare for the cascading effects of the confrontation between the US–Israel alliance and Iran…An Iran at peace with the world, would also be a great partner for India”
C Raja Mohan, The Indian Express, 2 March 2026
[Pragmatic Realist]
“Iran itself, for all the talk, is not particularly important for India either. Yes, India’s bilateral ties with Iran are useful, but not any more so than its ties with Arab states in the region, especially in the Gulf. And Israel matters to India in much more practical ways. Despite Trump, the US matters even more to India in dealing with the very real threat that it faces from China.”
Rajesh Rajagopalan, The Print, 4 March 2026
[Hard Realism]
“As the West Asia War comes to South Asia, New Delhi may be challenged to respond more and more to the threats, and stand up and be counted for its leadership. Standing soundlessly at the back of the global commons will harm both India’s image and its interests.”
Suhasini Haidar, The Hindu, 6 March 2026
[Assertive Internationalism]
“A sense of pragmatism has always tempered New Delhi’s normative voice, speaking loudly when it costs little and staying quiet when it costs much.”
Happymon Jacob, Hindustan Times, 15 March 2026
[Pragmatic Realism]
“New Delhi has demonstrated a surprising disregard for the ‘rules of the game’…this is not about international law or abstract moralising, but rather the basis for sober realism and effective action.”
Srinath Raghavan, Scroll, 10 March 2026
[Order-Based Realism]