India's Foreign Policy Falters When It Abandons Its Own Goalposts

From Non-Alignment to Selective Silence - India's 'wishy-washy' stance is neither a 'careful restraint' nor a 'responsible silence' in the US - Israel intervention in Iran.

A strategy adopted by a nation-state on any international issue must have a practical aspect, one that seeks to maximize benefits, while sustaining the gains of long-standing trade relationships and international agreements. These very strategies form a precedential pattern when it comes to assessing a sovereign State, in terms of its credibility and its potential contribution to international peace. While international law, particularly the prohibition on the use of force under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, remains formally constant, its interpretation and application are continually informed by the evolving practices and choices of independent states. India's foreign policy has historically been anchored in the principles of non-alignment, reflecting India's strategic autonomy, principled neutrality, rather than selective neutrality, and consistency in upholding the basic tenets of International Law.

The strategies adopted by a State may indeed vary from time to time, and they may be perceived as moral, immoral, legal, or restrained expressions of self-interest. However, none of these strategies suggests that the foreign policy of a state like India should be myopic and narrow enough to ignore the basic legality (not morality) of International Law and the future burden of owning it as part of India's baggage.

In this context, India's present approach to the US-Israel intervention in Iran reflects a discernible shift. The characterization of the Indian government's uneasy silence as 'responsible' restraint appears uneasy with India's normative commitment to the prohibition on the use of force and principled state conduct that informed its earlier positions on comparable situations.

During the Bucha massacre 2022, it was Dr. Shashi Tharoor who, unlike today, characterised India's silence as 'wishy-washy' and urged for a 'little more outspoken stance at the United Nations', unequivocally condemning civilian killings - even at the risk of foregoing the then-Russian discounted oil and fertilizers. He warned that India must not become a state whose silence is taken for granted, emphasizing that failure to uphold the cardinal principles of international law reflects a weak and untenable stance, particularly when India is clamouring for a permanent membership at the United Nations Security Council.

Against this backdrop, the present reticence appears difficult to justify. If silence was untenable then, on what principled basis can it be defended today in the face of reports of over 160 school-going girls killed in Iran, especially when Iran, unlike Ukraine, is also a longstanding cultural and strategic partner of India?

Foreign policy is, undeniably, driven by self-interest rather than sentiment or historical affinities. However, adherence to the prohibition on the use of force enshrined in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter is not merely a moral preference; it is a foundational legal principle that defines the conduct expected of responsible and credible states. For a country that aspires to permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, this entails making principled choices even when they complicate the pursuit of immediate strategic or economic gains during an ongoing international conflict.

This is not simply a question of 'morality', but of long-term strategic coherence. It is far easier for India to justify its position in future engagements with the United States by demonstrating consistency in upholding international law than to defend a posture of silence in the face of reported killings of school children in Iran. After all, India's geopolitical and economic interests are not exclusively tied to the United States; they are equally intertwined with Iran. Such selective application of principles and inconsistency in foreign policy risk undermining both India's credibility and its strategic autonomy.

As Thomas M. Franck, a distinguished legal scholar of International Law, insightfully observed, 'The other world that could arise from the ruins of Article 2(4) is the one in which the redefined national interest is no longer calculated in integers amenable to military manipulation and in which, consequently, the national interest is perceived to be congruent with the renunciation of the use of military force in inter-state relations.'

Foreign policy is often likened to a game of chess, where a State must not only safeguard its long-term interests but also remain acutely aware of how its international stance is perceived by the wider international community. Equally concerning is India's foreign policy getting highly centralised and largely directed from the Prime Minister's office, with limited parliamentary scrutiny and no engagement with the opposition. The Prime Minister's reference to Israel as the 'fatherland' for a civilisation like India, with its own centuries-old history and identity, is not merely a rhetorical flourish, but it signals a broader strategic alignment reflecting India's growing proximity to Israel, and by extension to the United States. This, in turn, raises questions about whether India has maintained genuine neutrality from the outset of the ongoing conflict. In matters of such global consequences, having both political and economic implications, democratic legitimacy demands broader political consensus, rather than a unilateral executive positioning.

Furthermore, India's position at the United Nations Security Council, particularly its decision to vote against Iran, rather than abstain, in Resolution 2817, suggests something far from strategic neutrality, but a departure from a carefully calibrated strategic posture. The timing of India's eventual condemnation of the killings of school girls in Iran and the assassination of the Supreme Leader of Iran appears to have followed tangible material consequences, notably disruptions linked to the Strait of Hormuz that led to surging crude prices and energy insecurity. Such sequencing lends the impression that India's response was driven less by principle or foresight and more by immediate economic compulsion.

Taken together, this pattern of conduct reflects not a coherent strategy but a reactive foreign policy, one that falls short of both a principled stance and the 'responsible silence' it is sometimes portrayed to embody. Thus, the Indian government's silence, better described as both-sides-ism, can scarcely be regarded as a strategy at all.

In forfeiting its distinct voice, India risks eroding its own bargaining power on the global stage. The accumulation of influence cannot rest on the dilution of India's agency; rather, it depends on the consistent articulation of our principled positions. By appearing to justify and/or enable blatant violations of international law by the United States and Israel in the pursuit of narrow self-interests, India risks aligning itself with a broader drift away from a rules-based order towards a more cynical and unstable international system; a trajectory that actually replaces the global village with the law of the jungle, where the might is right and suspicion reigns amid widespread fear.

Author is an Advocate practicing at Delhi High Court. Views are personal.