The US military has carried out strikes on three commercial vessels in the Gulf of Oman in the past week, resulting in the deaths of three Indian seafarers. The attacks targeted the Palau-flagged MT Settebello, among others, and represent the only documented instance in independent India’s history where US armed forces have directly killed Indian citizens.The MEA summoned the US Chargé d’Affaires twice. In its formal communication, the ministry told the US side that the attacks “have already resulted in the tragic and avoidable loss of three Indian lives.” It conveyed “its deep concern over the use of lethal and deadly force against civilian shipping. Such actions are unacceptable and undermine the safety, security and stability of international maritime commerce in a sensitive region at a difficult time.” These diplomatic requests have produced no visible effect from the US.External affairs minister S. Jaishankar spoke with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on June 12. In his post on X, Jaishankar stated: “Spoke to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio this evening. I reiterated India’s strong protest at the attacks by the US Navy in the Gulf that killed three Indian mariners. Such lethal actions against commercial shipping are not justified.”The US State Department readout acknowledged the conversation. Rubio defended the strikes, stating that US forces “will continue to take all necessary measures to enforce maritime security and counter hostile threats in the region.” He emphasised that “American interests and the safety of international shipping demand decisive action against those who endanger stability,” offering no apology for killing Indians, no regret for the deaths, no commitment to adjust rules of engagement and no assurance against future incidents.As PM Narendra Modi prepares to meet US President Donald Trump in France on June 17, these deaths and the subsequent response from New Delhi and Washington DC raise many important questions.Trump administration’s disdain for the Modi governmentThe Rubio-Jaishankar exchange revealed the limits of India’s leverage in dealing with the US. Rubio’s tougher tone prioritised US operational imperatives over New Delhi’s concerns about civilian casualties, leaving the Modi government’s diplomatic efforts without tangible concessions. The contrast between Jaishankar’s mild protest and Rubio’s unyielding defence of continued lethal force underscored Washington’s dismissive approach. India registered its objections at a high level yet secured neither accountability for the deaths of its citizens nor any operational restraint from the US military. In this image posted on May 26, 2026, Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the signing of the framework on securing supplies of mining and processing of critical minerals on the sidelines of the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting, in New Delhi. Photo: @SecRubio/X via PTI.The episode fits the broader pattern of the Modi government’s response to the strikes: procedural diplomacy without political weight. It demonstrates that mild protests and selective public statements carry little influence with the Trump administration. New Delhi’s strategic partnership rhetoric has once again clashed with the reality of missing leverage, exposing the Modi government’s reluctance to escalate the matter publicly or extract costs from a partner that has directly killed Indian nationals.It exposes the structural asymmetry within the Indo-US “strategic partnership.” For years, New Delhi has championed its relationship with Washington as a union of equals built on mutual respect and shared maritime security goals. But when US dictates a maritime blockade, the lives of Indian citizens do not matter, and India’s response is reduced to mild protests and toothless summons.PM Modi’s failure to protect Indian livesThe most severe domestic issue is the explicit failure of the Modi government to uphold its fundamental constitutional duty of safeguarding the lives of its citizens. Modi has frequently used mega-evacuation operations, such as Operation Ganga or Operation Kaveri, to craft a political narrative of a powerful leader capable of rescuing any Indian anywhere in the world. (It is another matter that predecessor governments executed major evacuations without making such a noise about it and seeking partisan support for it).Over 500 Indian seafarers are currently active on vessels operating directly inside the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. By refusing to name or openly condemn the United States for the lethal kinetic strikes on the MT Settebello – which killed Chief Engineer Patnala Suresh, Engine Fitter Shivanand Chaurasiya, and Deck Cadet Aditya Sharma – the Modi government has fundamentally fractured this promise. It creates a highly politicised hierarchy of protection, revealing that the state’s willingness to defend or avenge Indian lives depends entirely on the geopolitical status of the perpetrator.Hindutva regime’s timidity in dealing with big powersTrue sovereignty demands the independence to call out hostile actions against one’s citizens, regardless of the perpetrator’s geopolitical stature. The absolute silence from Modi exposes how deeply constrained Indian foreign policy has become by its strategic embrace of Washington. When smaller nations cross diplomatic lines, the Hindutva regime routinely deploys a rhetoric of aggressive nationalism, hyper-sovereignty, and swift retaliatory measures. But when a Western superpower directly kills Indian nationals, the domestic political machinery pivots to carefully managed bureaucratic semantics, relegating the incident to standard “statements of concern” by ministry spokespersons. Ram Madhav also made this view of the regime being subservient to the US explicit at a public event in Washington in April. This selective docility demolishes the domestic image of a strong, unyielding leadership that Modi has tried to cultivate domestically for over a decade. This reticence is not limited to the US. Even after China killed 20 Indian soldiers in Galwan, the government did not summon the Chinese diplomat or issue a demarche. In fact, Modi claimed only four days later that no Chinese soldier had intruded into Indian territory. In recent months, the Modi government has stopped Bollywood from making films depicting the clash at Galwan, passing strict instructions that in no case can China be named as an adversary. Evasion of political accountability by supplying American talking pointsBy continually emphasising that the MT Marivex, MT Settebello, and MT Jalveer were foreign-flagged vessels (flying flags of Palau or Guinea-Bissau) and not Indian-owned, the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways are using international legal technicalities to evade domestic accountability. India is the second largest supplier of seafaring labour to the global merchant navy. The silence from the government has triggered intense fury among domestic maritime unions, such as the Forward Seamen’s Union of India. This bureaucratic shielding sets a dangerous precedent for millions of Indian blue-collar contract workers abroad. It signals to international shipping corporations and hostile militaries alike that New Delhi will offer zero political or legal pushback if Indian nationals are exploited, put in harm’s way, or killed on non-Indian vessels. The families of the victims are left to navigate complex international maritime courts entirely alone, stripped of the sovereign backing of the Indian state.Family members of one of the three Indian seafarers, who died onboard the Palau-flagged MT Settebello after the US military strike on the commercial vessel off the Oman coast, shows his photograph on a mobile phone at his house, in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, Thursday, June 11, 2026. Photo: PTI.Collapse of rule of law and freedom of navigation argumentsBy enforcing a unilateral naval blockade through lethal force against commercial vessels, the US has effectively weaponised international transit routes. For a country like India that relies heavily on open sea lanes for energy security and trade, the precedent is dangerous, because a superpower can unilaterally decide which commercial ships are legitimate targets in international waters, shifting the global maritime rules-based order into an era of raw, unregulated gunboat diplomacy.For years, the US, India and their Quad partners (Japan and Australia) have justified their heavy naval footprints in the Indo-Pacific under the banner of protecting the “freedom of navigation”. The US strikes near Oman completely upend this rhetoric. By launching preemptive missile attacks on moving merchant ships in international choke points like the Gulf of Oman, the US is committing the exact violations of maritime transit freedom it routinely accuses its adversaries like China of committing elsewhere.So, beyond the immediate collapse of diplomatic deterrence and political capitulation, the military strikes by the US military on the MT Marivex, MT Settebello and MT Jalveer expand into a matrix of broader, systemic issues. These consecutive actions and New Delhi’s response ripple far past bilateral ties, raising deep structural crises within India’s governance under PM Modi.