Flashpoints | Security | South Asia

Is India Torpedoing Its Claims to Being a Net Security Provider in the IOR?

The U.S. sank an Iranian warship, which was returning home from an India-hosted exercise, off the Sri Lankan coast yesterday. India’s silence in response is deafening.

Sailors aboard the IRIS Dena during the welcome ceremony for the Iranian warship on its arrival at Visakhapatnam, India, to participate in an International Fleet Review and MILAN multilateral naval exercise, February 17, 2026.

The escalating war in West Asia entered India’s neighborhood this week, when an American submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship in international waters off the Sri Lankan coast in the early hours of March 4. The attack came five days after the U.S. and Israel initiated their war on Iran.

The war’s spread to India’s southern doorstep — the Iranian vessel was torpedoed just 40 nautical miles from Sri Lanka’s coast — has evoked concern in India’s security establishment.

Former Indian Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash said in an interview that the sinking of the Iranian ship by a torpedo “means that a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine or SSN has been lurking” in waters close to India for “many days.”

The United States “has brought maritime warfare to our doorstep, without informing us or taking us into confidence,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, a second Iranian warship is said to be near the Sri Lankan coast, inside Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone but outside its maritime boundary. Will it meet a similar fate?

The situation is concerning. “Should the Americans strike another Iranian ship in the region, the situation could escalate dangerously,” a former Indian Naval official told The Diplomat. Iran has also warned the U.S. of retaliation.

IRIS Dena, a Moudge-class frigate belonging to the Southern Fleet of the Iranian Navy, was sailing home from India, after participating in an International Fleet Review and MILAN multilateral naval exercise in Visakhapatnam on India’s eastern coast just a few days earlier.

The Iranian ship “thought it was safe in international waters,” but “instead, it was sunk by a torpedo,” U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said at a Pentagon briefing. It was the “first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since the Second World War,” he said, and went on to claim that “America is winning, decisively, devastatingly and without mercy.”

In a statement on X posted a day after the incident, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said: “The U.S. has perpetrated an atrocity at sea, 2,000 miles away from Iran’s shores. Frigate Dena, a guest of India’s Navy carrying almost 130 sailors, was struck in international waters without warning. Mark my words: The U.S. will come to bitterly regret the precedent it has set.”

IRIS Dena was carrying around 180 crew members on board and issued a distress call at around 5.08 a.m. local time on March 4, while sailing about 40 nautical miles south of Galle, just outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters.

“We responded to the distress call under our international obligations as this falls within Sri Lanka’s Search and Rescue Area in the Indian Ocean,” Sri Lankan Navy spokesperson Buddhika Sampath said. Two naval ships and a surveillance aircraft were dispatched to the stricken vessel. Thirty-two critically wounded sailors were rescued and 83 bodies have been recovered so far.

India has not responded to the U.S. torpedoing of the Iranian ship yet. Indeed, it has only issued a “balanced” statement, one that is rather anodyne, since the start of the war. India’s Ministry of External Affairs said it was “deeply concerned at the recent developments in Iran and the Gulf region,” and called on “all sides to exercise restraint, avoid escalation.”

So far, there has been no condemnation of the Israeli-U.S. attacks on Iran or of the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, nor even the massacre of children in an elementary school in southern Iran.

India and Iran have had strong historical and civilizational bonds that go back centuries. That the Narendra Modi government has remained silent on the attacks on Iran is a damning indication of how deeply into the Israel-U.S. camp it has inserted itself in recent years.

Following the U.S. sinking of the Iranian warship near Indian waters, calls are growing for India to call out Washington for its actions. “We need to convey our concern and displeasure” to the Americans, Admiral Prakash said, adding that India must “take a stand that hostilities must be terminated as soon as possible.” The United States should be told to “keep the conflict away from our waters.”

The Iranian warship may not have been in Indian waters when it was torpedoed. But that the Dena was “a guest of the Indian government and had been hosted in Visakhapatnam before it headed home should count for something. India’s silence is unacceptable,” the former Indian Navy official stressed. He added that, while India may “not be required or legally obligated to speak up for the Iranian warship, it is morally obligated to do so.”

India has been projecting itself as a guarantor of security in the Indian Ocean Region. In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region), which was upgraded to MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions) in 2025. India sought to enhance the maritime domain awareness capacity of Indian Ocean littorals to counter threats and challenges in the IOR by providing them patrol boats, coastal radars, and other equipment.

By remaining a silent spectator of the sinking of a guest warship so close to its own waters, India is torpedoing its credibility as a guarantor of security in the IOR. Its dreams of providing leadership to the IOR could be sinking.

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The escalating war in West Asia entered India’s neighborhood this week, when an American submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship in international waters off the Sri Lankan coast in the early hours of March 4. The attack came five days after the U.S. and Israel initiated their war on Iran.

The war’s spread to India’s southern doorstep — the Iranian vessel was torpedoed just 40 nautical miles from Sri Lanka’s coast — has evoked concern in India’s security establishment.

Former Indian Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash said in an interview that the sinking of the Iranian ship by a torpedo “means that a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine or SSN has been lurking” in waters close to India for “many days.”

The United States “has brought maritime warfare to our doorstep, without informing us or taking us into confidence,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, a second Iranian warship is said to be near the Sri Lankan coast, inside Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone but outside its maritime boundary. Will it meet a similar fate?

The situation is concerning. “Should the Americans strike another Iranian ship in the region, the situation could escalate dangerously,” a former Indian Naval official told The Diplomat. Iran has also warned the U.S. of retaliation.

IRIS Dena, a Moudge-class frigate belonging to the Southern Fleet of the Iranian Navy, was sailing home from India, after participating in an International Fleet Review and MILAN multilateral naval exercise in Visakhapatnam on India’s eastern coast just a few days earlier.

The Iranian ship “thought it was safe in international waters,” but “instead, it was sunk by a torpedo,” U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said at a Pentagon briefing. It was the “first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since the Second World War,” he said, and went on to claim that “America is winning, decisively, devastatingly and without mercy.”

In a statement on X posted a day after the incident, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said: “The U.S. has perpetrated an atrocity at sea, 2,000 miles away from Iran’s shores. Frigate Dena, a guest of India’s Navy carrying almost 130 sailors, was struck in international waters without warning. Mark my words: The U.S. will come to bitterly regret the precedent it has set.”

IRIS Dena was carrying around 180 crew members on board and issued a distress call at around 5.08 a.m. local time on March 4, while sailing about 40 nautical miles south of Galle, just outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters.

“We responded to the distress call under our international obligations as this falls within Sri Lanka’s Search and Rescue Area in the Indian Ocean,” Sri Lankan Navy spokesperson Buddhika Sampath said. Two naval ships and a surveillance aircraft were dispatched to the stricken vessel. Thirty-two critically wounded sailors were rescued and 83 bodies have been recovered so far.

India has not responded to the U.S. torpedoing of the Iranian ship yet. Indeed, it has only issued a “balanced” statement, one that is rather anodyne, since the start of the war. India’s Ministry of External Affairs said it was “deeply concerned at the recent developments in Iran and the Gulf region,” and called on “all sides to exercise restraint, avoid escalation.”

So far, there has been no condemnation of the Israeli-U.S. attacks on Iran or of the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, nor even the massacre of children in an elementary school in southern Iran.

India and Iran have had strong historical and civilizational bonds that go back centuries. That the Narendra Modi government has remained silent on the attacks on Iran is a damning indication of how deeply into the Israel-U.S. camp it has inserted itself in recent years.

Following the U.S. sinking of the Iranian warship near Indian waters, calls are growing for India to call out Washington for its actions. “We need to convey our concern and displeasure” to the Americans, Admiral Prakash said, adding that India must “take a stand that hostilities must be terminated as soon as possible.” The United States should be told to “keep the conflict away from our waters.”

The Iranian warship may not have been in Indian waters when it was torpedoed. But that the Dena was “a guest of the Indian government and had been hosted in Visakhapatnam before it headed home should count for something. India’s silence is unacceptable,” the former Indian Navy official stressed. He added that, while India may “not be required or legally obligated to speak up for the Iranian warship, it is morally obligated to do so.”

India has been projecting itself as a guarantor of security in the Indian Ocean Region. In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region), which was upgraded to MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions) in 2025. India sought to enhance the maritime domain awareness capacity of Indian Ocean littorals to counter threats and challenges in the IOR by providing them patrol boats, coastal radars, and other equipment.

By remaining a silent spectator of the sinking of a guest warship so close to its own waters, India is torpedoing its credibility as a guarantor of security in the IOR. Its dreams of providing leadership to the IOR could be sinking.

Sudha Ramachandran is South Asia editor at The Diplomat.

US sinking of Iranian ship

US-Israel War on Iran

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