[Manoeuvring Indian warships]

Admiral Arun Prakash, is among the more thoughtful military Chiefs of Staff the country has had. The other day he addressed the problem created by Iran asserting its leverage and setting up what’s virtually a toll booth in the Hormuz Strait. He posed the issue correctly, in an op-ed (“The strait of high stakes, where law and leverage collide”, Indian Express, April 11, 2026), as involving a clash between maritime history, convention and law supporting freedom of navigation (and hence international trade and commerxce, etc.) and a coastal state’s imperative to close a strategic waterway in war and attendant crisis. Given the economic stakes for India — the potential pinching of its “jugular vein”, and its good relations with all the protagonists in this edition of the Gulf War — US, Israel, and Iran, he voiced his incomprehension at the Modi government avoiding a mediator role that Pakistan grabbed.

But, the good admiral shied away from tackling the harder issue about whether the Indian Navy would risk asserting the country’s maritime right to ply the Hormuz waters in defiance of Tehran’s closing it other than for a consideration ($2 million per vessel as transit fee) and, in the process, its ships possibly braving an Irani strike. Tactfully, he recommended “quiet diplomacy”, something right up S Jaishankar’s street!

Prakash’s view that India’s being in good standing with the three combatant powers somehow conferred on New Delhi the status of mediator is questionable. In the main because Bharat sarkar is yet to recover from the trauma of the US President Donald Trump gleefully and repeatedly rubbing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nose in the dirt (on Sindoor, as recently as three-four weeks ago) and otherwise displaying disdain for India (while Munir and Pakistan luxuriate in the praise that Trump and recently US Vice President JD Vance heaped on them for their peace efforts). And, more pertinently, because Pakistan’s diplomatic position as caretaker of Irani interests in America since 1979, to say nothing of the shared border, the Islam factor, and its close ties to China (which supplied Iran with arms and intelligence), had Islamabad in a better place anyway for mediation.

The Admiral’s op-ed appeared before Trump announced a US blockade of what is virtually an Iranian blockade! But the latter development compounds India’s problem. It is clear though that Delhi does not think the Indian Navy is capable of running the US blockade and safely escorting Indian oil/LNG carriers through the Hormuz Narrows, or of risking engagements with either or both the US and Irani forces, because of the uncertainty over Indian movements being deemed “hostile passage”, reacting accordingly. This is a conclusion reached because any inclination on the part of the government to order Indian warships to escort Indian flagged vessels through the Strait proper — not as is being done to-date of escorting ships once they reach the open sea, would have been reflected in Prakash’s piece.

Trump, according to many, has painted himself and the US into a corner by imposing a blockade with some 26-odd warships and ancillaries — not enough for a leak-proof barrier. What isn’t clear is how stiffly or loosely the blockade will be conducted. But what is certain, given its past record of diffidence, is that Delhi will curl up deeper in its shell, and do nothing even as the energy and urea flows from the Gulf states and Iran — the lifelines for the Indian economy and agriculture, stay severed. Sure, MEA will have its people go off hither and yon, instruct its embassies everywhere to scour the diverse markets for any excess oil and fertiliser and, of course, such forays will meet with some success as New Delhi waggles $ under everyone’s noses.

In the context of institutionalised Indian inaction, it is curious CNS, Admiral Dinesh Tripathi, called a three day “apex level” conference starting yesterday involving naval theatre commanders and such, but to discuss what, exactly? News stories trumpeting the conference were opaque on this issue, with an Indian Navy statement that talked of this and that and a whole bunch of issues relating to the Service. The only relevant mention in it referred to the significance of the Meet “in the light of swift naval deployments to safeguard India’s energy security, amidst the ongoing conflict in West Asia with convergence of multi-national forces (MNFs) in the Indian Ocean Region.” It would appear from this that the FOCINCs are NOT mulling independent IN actions to force the two blockades — the seaward one by the US, and the landbased one by Iran, but rather seeking to join in some kind of MNF effort.

The collectivist approach as cover, I suspect, is the Modi government’s way of avoiding taking America or Iran head-on, and is based on the hope that China, perhaps, will take the lead, do the heavy lifting. Because unlike Delhi, Beijing has formally rejected the US blockade, asserting its right to trade independent of US restrictions with any country in the Gulf it pleases, including Iran. In effect, Xi Jinping is daring Trump to stop Chinese-flagged oilers mid-sea, have American sailors board the vessels, and sequester the vessels. As a former commander of the naval element in the US Central Command, Admiral John Miller, wondered if the US “would want to force that blockade against Indian and Chinese-flagged vessels, for example” especially if “they bring a warship as an escort [for protection and then]”, he warned, that that would amount to a casus belli (cause for war) and America would be “into a different scenario”. The Indian government’s standard risk-averse attitude, however, has ruled out the Indian Navy’s running the blockade solo, even though, as Miller indicated, it would have created a dilemma for the US. It cannot be that Modi and Jaishankar were unaware that India could have got away running the US blockade because of what was at stake for Washington — the four foundational accords — GSOMIA, LEMOA, COMCASA and BECA the two countries that will permit US forces to use Indian military bases and other resources, like provisioning and repair services.

But the specific problem for India is this: Trump is politically damaged — always the butt of incessant public ridicule at home and abroad, he is now subjected to scorn and derision as well not least because Iran, despite a sustained US-Israeli aerial bombardment campaign that resulted in enormous destruction, remained unbowed and because, as a commentator said about the peace parleys in Islamabad, without winning the war, America cannot set the terms of peace. And Tehran’s standing up to him, moreover, has put him in a bind and thrashing around for some face saving way out. Trump’s mood cannot be any darker also because the man he modeled himself and his MAGA politics on, the autocratic Viktor Orban, lost his shirt in the general elections in Hungary.

It is precisely why a frustrated Trump could hit out, and the blockade is his gambit to show the world he can seriously unsettle the world. On the other side, the Pasdaran-dominated Iran is just as determined to make the Hormuz energy traffic profitable. In this situation, Modi is relying on Jaishankar’s dormouse policy of giving as little offence to anyone and attempting diplomatically to ease past the two blockades by negotiating free passage from both sides for its energy carriers. So far, India ships have been allowed transit by Iran on a case-by-case basis and without having to pay the toll. But the log jam of ships on either side of the narrows is such, it will be a long time before the situation returns to normal. Whether or not Delhi succeeds in easing the passage of Indian ships, the country is staring at oil and urea shortages and cascading ill-effects in train on its economy.

If the status quo continues and the blockades hold for any length of time, Modi may be compelled to choose between making enemies of Tehran and alienating Washington. Upsetting the Trump Administration appears the better choice because America, in realising its strategy strategically to contain China, cannot do without India, and Delhi can use the enormous leverage it has of threatening to trash the foundational accords to get what it wants, while Iran can, strictly speaking, do without India as it is not existentially necessary for Tehran to have Delhi on its side.

Except Trump has time and again proved that an always cowering Modi and India can be humiliated without cost to the US, and that the BJP regime with a foreign policy prizing the America connection, will not exercise the leverage that it has. Because Trump feels free to take India and the Modi regime for granted, and his ambassador, Sergio Gor, to shout from the rooftops that all the US really cares about is not trade, even less US technology transfer that Messers Modi and Jaishankar daydream about, but rather to use India’s location and military assets and resources in the Indo-Pacific against China. Not exercising this leverage against Trump also means that Delhi is prepared to sacrifice its Russia links and the North-South connectivity project enabling Indian trade to access Afghanistan and Central Asia and Europe through the Irani port of Chabahar, conceived to rival China’s BRI and maritime Silk Route.

The irony is that Trump, as is his wont, will likely cut a separate deal with the Chinese President Xi whenever they meet, and Tehran will try and win Chinese goodwill as well by allowing China safe passage for its oiler fleet, leaving a “sad sack” India, as usual, flumoxed and flailing simply because it does not have the will effectively to prosecute its strategy of “strategic autonomy” it swears by.