The West Asia Conflict: Bitter Pill for India

New Delhi: Into the second month of hostilities in West Asia, the world is watching how those who fuelled the aggression appear to be caught in an impasse from which there is no easy way out and which their egos, more than their strategic imperatives, refuse to let go. US President Donald Trump’s telecast statement on Wednesday, his first to the American nation since he launched the war against Iran on February 28, did not give any clear indication of what lies ahead.

Concerns are mounting across India and the world as prolonged hostilities are hammering the global economy, which had barely begun to overcome the Covid crisis, with no happy ending in sight. Trump’s address further raised energy prices and hit stock markets, while fuel shortages are peaking. The war is now hitting the common man everywhere, from Colombo, Chennai, Comilla to Mumbai, Manila and distant Minnesota.

Even more grim, precious lives are being lost, mostly of innocents caught in the deadly cross-fire in countries which are not even parties to the war. While the number of casualties has not been quantified, the Ministry of External Affairs has confirmed that “some Indian nationals have lost their lives or are missing.”

Scarcities of cooking fuel are pushing people, particularly across South Asia, toward hunger. Livelihoods are being lost among the unorganised labour force while thousands of self-employed street vendors, smaller restaurants and
eateries are being forced to close shop, facing a scary, insecure future. For middle class households across India, everyday snacks like the ‘samosa’ or ‘dosa’ have become scarce, causing an unintended push toward a healthy
population!

For those worst hit, it is difficult to comprehend that this phase of having to contend with hunger and deprivation is because some old men in distant lands decided they did not like the nature of a particular country’s leadership.

It is apparent that President Trump did not expect the war against Iran, which he launched along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to last this long. His idea was to launch a blitzkrieg against Iran’s defence and nuclear
facilities and, having removed the top leadership there the first night, expect the Iranian people to rise in support of the US saviour. That did not happen.

While ordinary Iranians face death and devastation, the remains of the country’s leadership have retaliated against the aggressor in an unprecedented and targeted exercise to optimise their advantages. The collateral damage has set the global economy on fire and sent fuel prices sky-rocketing and wreaked severe damage across West Asia and beyond. Additionally, the uncertainty of when, or indeed if, hostilities will cease is straining international relations.

For India, at every level, the situation has been fraught. From the foreign policy perspective, images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi hugging his Israeli counterpart in Israel the morning before the attacks happened against Iran indicated that New Delhi stood with the aggressor. That India did not immediately condemn the targeted assassination of a head of state inside his sovereign country indicated a level of indecision which does not behove a
country seeking a permanent place in the UN Security Council.

It is a different matter that this conflict in West Asia has shown up the United Nations for exactly what it has become; a paper tiger. India’s initial reactions to the war also appeared to dispel any semblance of bipartisanship in global
conflicts. New Delhi may have begun urging for a cessation of hostilities, but the loss to its credibility as a neutral umpire is undoubtful. Iran is a close neighbour with which it has civilizational ties and shared strategic interests,
most recently in Chabahar port, yet India chose to remain silent against the aggression even when Tehran urged New Delhi, as chair of the BRICS group, to condemn the aggression and targeting of its leadership.

New Delhi similarly chose not to condemn the Russian aggression in Ukraine, but it did issue strong statements on the need for nations to maintain territorial integrity, and the PM did tell Russian President Vladimir Putin this was “not an era of war.” Other than generic statements seeking a cease fire and resumption of negotiations, PM Modi has not publicly told his friends in Tel Aviv and Washington to end the war, although Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has been urged to cease and desist from targeting other countries. To New Delhi’s
credit, Tehran’s current leadership has chosen to stand by the people of India and allow the passage of Indian vessels through the blockaded Strait of Hormuz, thereby easing the government’s fuel procurement worries.

However, India, now a bystander in the conflict, is not out of the woods. West Asia and the Persian Gulf, where the conflict is raging, is of critical importance to India. Nearly 10 million Indians live in the region, separated from the
homeland only by the Arabian Sea, and send home close to USD 50 billion annually, or over 35% of India’s inward remittances. In 2025, the total remittances from Indian diaspora totalled USD 135 billion, around 4% of
India’s GDP. These contributions exceeded foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, and amounted to over 40% of India’s trade deficit. According to the ‘Economist,’ around 38% of the amount sent by Indian citizens overseas comes
from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, six countries that make up the Gulf Co-operation Council. The region is vital for India’s trade, energy security and strategic interests.

New Delhi can do little but work the phones with leaders and officials and keep urging a cessation of hostilities, but the erosion and diminution of its global authority has been exposed in a region where it has worked very hard in recent decades to gain trust and goodwill and shore up critical strategic interests.

Other than the huge financial and strategic stress, and considerable loss of face, even more galling for India is the fact that the US has opted for Pakistan to play a mediatory role in the crisis. A flurry of diplomats has been descending on
Islamabad and senior Pakistani officials are visiting key capitals, including Beijing and even Ankara, to try and find acceptable grounds for the involved parties to resume direct discussions on how to end the war and control its
spiralling global impact. A successful outcome from Islamabad’s efforts, if it happens, could make the cessation of hostilities a very bitter pill for New Delhi to swallow.

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