Asif Mahmood
When the winds of time shifted ever so slightly, the many colors of the Sangh Parivar’s proclaimed friendship with Ira faded at once. What remained was not a garland of solidarity but a trident dipped in Muslim blood. For years, we were told that India stood as a steadfast friend of Iran. Yet the moment Iran faced adversity, that friend quietly repositioned itself in the embrace of Israel. The illusion dissolved overnight. What had been marketed as strategic friendship now appeared, to many, as calculated duplicity.
The sense of betrayal was not confined to Tehran. Voices within India itself began to question the wisdom and morality of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s conduct. Senior opposition leaders such as Sonia Gandhi and Jairam Ramesh publicly criticized the government’s posture. Their objections were not merely partisan. They reflected a deeper discomfort over the perception that India had compromised its long cultivated ties with Iran in order to please Tel Aviv and align more closely with Zionist interests.
According to the American retired military officer Douglas Macgregor, Israel continues to utilize Indian ports, and Indian maritime space has reportedly been linked to operations connected with attacks on Iran. Whether these claims withstand full scrutiny or not, their circulation alone underscores the extent to which India’s neutrality is being questioned. Critics argue that New Delhi may have subordinated broader national interests to narrower strategic or commercial calculations. Yet the internal dynamics of Hindutva driven economic nationalism are not our immediate concern. The central question is more fundamental. How did a state that publicly embraced Iran as a partner come to be perceived as complicit in actions that undermined it?
Iran, more than anyone, understands the difference between rhetoric and reality. In moments of crisis, alliances are tested not through speeches but through conduct. Social media warriors and armchair strategists may reduce foreign policy to trending hashtags and emotional outbursts, but statesmanship cannot be conducted as if it were a running commentary in a sports match. Diplomacy requires restraint, timing, and an awareness of consequences that transcend applause.
This is where Pakistan’s posture acquires significance. When the first attack on Iran occurred, chants of gratitude for Pakistan reportedly echoed within the Iranian parliament. After subsequent escalations, Iran’s representative at the United Nations publicly thanked three countries, among them Pakistan. Such acknowledgments do not arise in a vacuum. They reflect quiet diplomacy and calibrated positioning. The country under fire expressed appreciation. That, in itself, is testimony.
Foreign policy is not validated by social media acclaim but by the confidence of partners in moments of peril. When Pakistan states that Iran knows where Islamabad stands, it is not an empty slogan. It is a signal rooted in conduct that has been observed and measured by Tehran itself.
By contrast, the optics surrounding Modi’s visit to Israel were striking. It is difficult to dismiss as coincidence that shortly after high level engagements between New Delhi and Tel Aviv, devastating Israeli strikes against Iran followed. Modi did not condemn the initial attacks on Iran. Nor did he condemn subsequent ones. His criticism was directed only at Iran’s retaliatory measures. The rapidity of this recalibration suggested not balance but alignment.
Today, India displays warmth toward the United Arab Emirates. Yesterday, similar warmth was shown toward Iran. Such fluidity might be defended as pragmatic diplomacy. Yet for many observers in the Muslim world, it reinforces a troubling pattern. Hindutva and Zionism, despite their distinct historical trajectories, converge in a shared suspicion of Muslim political assertion. When these two ideological currents draw closer, their partnership is viewed not merely as strategic but civilizational.
The attack on Iran may represent only an early manifestation of this convergence. Those who today consider India an unshakeable friend would do well to study recent events carefully. History teaches that true alliances are revealed in adversity. In this test, India’s transformation from proclaimed partner to perceived bystander, if not enabler, has altered regional perceptions profoundly.
In difficult times, nations discover who stood beside them and who stood elsewhere. That discovery, once made, is seldom forgotten.