Editorial
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose to skip the funeral of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and instead sent Minister of State for External Affairs Pabitra Margherita and Bihar Governor Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Syed Ata Hasnain. Tehran reportedly extended a high-level invitation to Prime Minister Modi, but India effectively declined it by sending a relatively low-level delegation.
Prime Minister Modi avoided aligning too closely with Iran while the country was navigating a tense period following the US-Israeli airstrikes. Furthermore, this deliberate absence allowed India to signal to Israel that New Delhi stands firmly with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government supported the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and genocide in Gaza. The line has now been clearly drawn, and Iran must have received a loud and clear message from New Delhi that the Chabahar Port is no longer as important as India’s strategic relationship with Israel. Now it is time for Tehran to decide what level of relationship it wishes to maintain with India.
Recently, while attending the BRICS meeting in India, the Iranian Foreign Minister stated that Indo-Iranian relations are “excellent” and “time-tested.” However, the realities on the ground appear quite different.
Iranian naval personnel were reportedly killed in the Israeli-US strikes while returning from a naval event in India. Iran did not react sharply and continued its cordial relations with India. Likewise, Indian nationals and Afghan residents living in Iran were reportedly detained by Iranian security agencies on allegations of working for the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Iran deported them through Afghanistan but did not officially or publicly raise the issue with India, apparently hoping that New Delhi would act more reasonably in the future.
During the Iran-US conflict, India openly maintained close relations with the Israel. Prime Minister Modi’s engagement with Israel remained unaffected, yet Iran refrained from making any hostile public statements against India.
The absence of Prime Minister Modi from the funeral can therefore be understood in the context of India’s increasingly close relationship with Israel. This trend has been visible for several years. Modi became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel in 2017 without combining the trip with a visit to Palestine or Iran, symbolising a new phase in bilateral relations. Defence cooperation between India and Israel has expanded significantly, with Israel becoming one of India’s leading suppliers of advanced military equipment. During periods of heightened tensions between Israel and Iran, New Delhi adopted carefully worded statements that avoid direct criticism of Israel while simultaneously protecting its strategic interests.
In an article titled “The Geometry of Modi’s Absence at Khamenei’s Funeral” published in The Times of Israel, the writer observed:
India’s decision to send Minister of State for External Affairs Pabitra Margherita and Bihar Governor Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Syed Ata Hasnain to the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while Prime Minister Modi stays away, is, in that geometry, a precisely drawn angle: neither a right angle nor an obtuse one. Deliberately acute.
The broader context is extraordinary in ways that mainstream media commentaries do not fully appreciate.
Absence of Indian Prime Minister Modi is reinforcing the perception that India continues to downgrade the importance of its relationship with Iran. In 2024, following the deaths of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in a helicopter crash, then Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar represented India in Tehran. By comparison, sending only a Governor on this occasion suggests that India now accords a lower diplomatic priority to Iran than it did in 2024.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and several other international leaders attended the funeral. This contrast is worth noting. Pakistan, another nuclear power that shares borders with both Iran and India, chose a higher level of representation. For India, however, this is not an embarrassing contrast but a deliberate one. New Delhi has consistently sought to distinguish its strategic posture as it deepens its partnership with Israel. Tehran may now conclude that India benefits from its relationship with Iran without ever clearly standing beside it and is unwilling to lower down its ties with Israel or with certain Gulf states that also chose not to attend the funeral.
Is it not time for Tehran to reassess its relationship with New Delhi and accept that it does not enjoy the level of importance in the Modi government’s foreign policy that is accorded to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?
