It is India's responsibility as a major maritime nation to provide leadership with confidence, capability and a clear vision, defence minister Rajnath Singh said on Friday, two days after a US submarine sunk off the coast of Sri Lanka an Iranian warship that had been part of a naval exercise in India.
"What is happening in West Asia is highly unusual,” Singh said at an event in Kolkata that was titled “Sagar Sankalp – Reclaiming India’s Maritime Glory.”
He said the situation has once again reflected the importance of oceans. "At such a time, as a major maritime nation, it is India's responsibility to provide leadership with confidence, capability, and a clear vision," he said.
He made no mention of the Iranian frigate.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Thursday that the IRIS Dena was a “guest of the Indian Navy” and was struck “without warning” while in a non-combat posture.
At least 87 Iranian sailors were killed in the attack, which marked a major escalation in the conflict between the US and Iran outside of the Persian Gulf and in India’s backyard.
Last year, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated Diwali with navy personnel aboard INS Vikrant, he had said: “The Indian Navy is the guardian of the Indian Ocean.”
That image of a guardian has been dented after the US attack, a number of geopolitical commentators and foreign media headlines seemed to suggest.
“The Iranian ship will not be where it was if we had not invited it to take part in our Milan exercise. We were the hosts,” former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal wrote on X (formerly Twitter), interjecting in a debate between a lieutenant general and a defence correspondent of a prominent news channel.
“I am told that as per protocol for this exercise ships cannot carry any ammunition. It was defenceless. The Iranian naval personnel had paraded before our President. The attack by the US submarine was premeditated as the US was aware of the Iranian ship’s presence in the exercise to which the US navy was invited but withdrew from participation at the last minute, presumably with this operation in mind. The US has ignored India’s sensitivities as the ship was in these waters because of India’s invitation,” Sibal wrote.
The former diplomat also said India’s responsibility lies at a “moral and human plane”.
“A word of condolence by the Indian Navy (after political clearance) at the loss of lives of those who were our invitees and saluted our president would be in order,” Sibal wrote on Thursday.
The Indian Navy, in a statement late on Thursday evening, said it had launched search and rescue operations after a distress call was received from the Iranian warship IRIS Dena in waters off Sri Lanka.
Strategic analyst Brahma Chellaney asked if India shared intelligence with the US that led to the sinking of the IRIS Dena. It prompted a denial from the government.
“Did Shared Intelligence Sink the Iranian Frigate? Under the military pacts COMCASA and LEMOA, India and the US share sensitive maritime data. If a US attack submarine used shared data to locate and sink an Iranian frigate that had just departed an Indian port after participating in a multilateral naval exercise, it would represent a foundational breach of the defence partnership,” wrote Chellaney.
Top government sources on Friday called these claims "baseless and preposterous," according to a PTI report.
International media also linked the Indian Ocean attack to New Delhi's global posturing. ‘US Sinking of Iranian Warship Piles Pressure on India's Modi,’ said a Bloomberg headline. Another one, in Al Jazeera, said: ‘How US sinking of Iranian warship blew hole in Modi’s ‘guardian’ claims'.
The Opposition has severely criticised the Modi government over IRIS Dena and accused it of abandoning ties with Iran to please Washington.
Prime Minister Modi has remained silent on the incident. On Friday, he said: “Be it Ukraine or West Asia, we will continue to support the swift end of conflicts and every effort towards peace.”
