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New Delhi: As India continues to maintain silence on the killing of Iranian supreme leader, the Modi government’s uneasy history of buckling under US pressure on Iran is once again under scrutiny. In President Donald Trump’s first term, the Modi government quietly abandoned Iranian crude procurement despite longstanding strategic, economic and connectivity stakes tied to Tehran. Today, as Washington and its allies recalibrate their Iran policy after the assassination, prime minister Modi’s continued silence looks less like strategic autonomy and more like a part of an established pattern of succumbing to American pressure.

Published Trump 1.0-era memoirs point essentially to a substantive, first‑hand account of PM Modi’s response on importing cheap Iranian crude in 2018 and 2019, directly linking US pressure on Iran, Trump’s dismissive attitude towards Modi, and India’s eventual full compliance to American demands. Record shows........

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