Blasts India’s ‘disturbing silence’ over Khamenei’s killing as abdication of principle
Sonia Gandhi, leader of India’s main opposition Congress party, shows her ink-marked finger after casting her vote at a polling station during the sixth phase of general election in New Delhi, India, May 12, 2019.PHOTO: REUTERS
Senior Indian Congress leader and former party president Sonia Gandhi has lambasted the Narendra Modi-led Indian government for what she described as a complete surrender of India’s foreign policy, prioritising subservience to Israel while betraying long-standing strategic ties with Iran.
In an opinion piece published in an Indian daily, Gandhi condemned New Delhi’s “disturbing silence” and “muted responses” following the recent targeted assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in joint US-Israeli strikes.
She termed this reticence not as neutrality but as “abdication” and a “grave betrayal” of India’s traditional balanced approach in West Asia, signalling a cowardly retreat from principled diplomacy.
Gandhi highlighted that India’s historical foreign policy had carefully maintained parity between Israel and Iran, rooted in civilisational links and mutual strategic interests with Tehran.
She pointed out that Iran facilitated India in key projects such as the Chabahar Port and Zahedan connectivity, which had bolstered regional access.
“By making high-profile visits to Israel without a balancing engagement with Iran, and now remaining conspicuously silent on the assassination of a sitting head of state, the Modi government has shredded decades of cautious parity,” Gandhi wrote.
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She argued that this one-sided alignment exposed India as prioritising political optics, defence deals with Israel and alignment with pro-Western powers over national interest and moral clarity.
The Congress leader further noted that New Delhi’s initial response focused solely on condemning Iran’s retaliatory actions while ignoring the preceding unprovoked attacks, raising serious questions about India’s credibility on the global stage.
“When the targeted killing of a foreign leader draws no clear defence of sovereignty or international law from our country and impartiality is abandoned, it raises serious doubts about the direction and credibility of our foreign policy,” Gandhi said in her article.
“The killing of a sitting head of state in the midst of ongoing negotiations marks a grave rupture in contemporary international relations. Yet, beyond the shock of the event, what stands out equally starkly is New Delhi’s silence.”
Here is a hard-hitting column by CPP… pic.twitter.com/5nC8upO8Lb
— Congress (@INCIndia) March 3, 2026
She described the current posture as “moral cowardice”, leaving India isolated among Global South nations and BRICS partners Russia and China, who had adopted more measured stances emphasising sovereignty and de-escalation.
Gandhi further asked as to why should countries in the Global South trust India to defend their territorial integrity tomorrow if it appeared hesitant to defend that principle today.
The former Congress president also demanded that when parliament reconvened for the second part of the budget session, the government’s “disturbing silence” over the breakdown of international order must be debated openly and without evasion.
