If every word has consequences, as French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre said, so does every silence. What it means is both speech and silence are active choices with lasting impact. To put it another way, we are responsible for the impact of our words and equally responsible for the consequences that come from staying silent. In diplomacy and foreign policy, calculated silence in a crisis often exposes delicate strategic dilemmas.

On the US-Israel war on Iran, India has chosen not to condemn the attack, maintaining instead a calibrated silence. India’s carefully worded diplomatic statements have been justified by the government’s supporters as a practical position aimed at protecting over 10 million Indians working in the Gulf countries and to safeguard India’s energy imports. But in critics’ view, this seems less like strategic restraint and more like a retreat from India’s own long-held principles.

Departure from traditional foreign policy

For decades, India’s diplomatic success in West Asia rested on its ability to maintain good relations with all sides, prioritising neutrality and strategic autonomy. But the shift to strategic silence in the theatre of geopolitics around the ongoing war, said to be a “thoughtful decision” aimed at long-term partnership with Israel and the US, seems an unambiguous departure from India’s traditional foreign policy—a professed commitment to international law and respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries. India’s silence or “cautiously neutral” stance on joint US-Israel strikes on Iran, therefore, has been seen by the government’s critics as a diplomatic failure.

Criticism over diplomatic stance

While the Indian government called for........

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