On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched surprise airstrikes across Iran, assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several other Iranian officials. The strikes came at a moment of extraordinary diplomatic cynicism: just before the strikes began, Omani foreign minister Badr Al-Busaidi said a “breakthrough” had been reached and Iran had said it would never stockpile enriched uranium and agreed to full verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – peace was “within reach.”Washington and Tel Aviv attacked anyway. The world reacted with condemnation – from the UN Secretary-General to China, France and Russia – but the architecture of American power rendered diplomatic protest largely symbolic. What was neither symbolic nor excusable was the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While Modi eventually addressed Parliament and made phone calls to Gulf leaders, he conspicuously refused to condemn the US-Israeli strikes on Iran – the act that started the war. This silence was the more striking given that just two days before the strikes began, Modi had stood beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, declared that “India stands with Israel,” and accepted a specially created Knesset medal in a ceremony of ostentatious personal warmth. Whether or not Netanyahu indicated what was coming – and the question will not go away – the timing placed India, in the eyes of the world, in the Israeli camp before the first missile was fired. Foreknowledge or not, it does not ultimately matter: India’s historical moral standing, its decades of championing international law and the sovereignty of nations, its civilizational bonds with Iran stretching across centuries of shared culture, commerce and statecraft – all of it demanded an unequivocal condemnation of an unprovoked attack launched in the middle of active peace negotiations. Modi delivered none. The silence was not neutrality. It was a verdict.Unlike earlier strikes, the current conflict has spread across at least a dozen countries, effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz – the world’s major oil artery – and killed more than 3,400 people across the region. The heaviest toll has fallen on Iran itself: as of day 36, at least 2,076 Iranians have been killed and 26,500 wounded since the strikes began on February 28, with the remainder of regional deaths distributed across Israel, Lebanon, and Gulf states caught in the crossfire. Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reported that more than 600 schools and education centres have been hit.For India, a country that imports 85% of its crude oil and hosts nine million citizens in the Gulf, this is not a distant war. It is an economic emergency dressed in the clothes of geopolitical abstraction — and the Modi government is doing everything in its power to keep that emergency invisible until the West Bengal assembly elections on April 23 and 29 are safely past. The energy crisisThe numbers are brutal and unambiguous. India is among the economies most exposed to the West Asia crisis, importing about 90% of its crude oil and nearly half of its liquefied petroleum gas, with about half its crude and over three-fourths of LPG imports passing through the Strait of Hormuz, pushing oil prices above $100 a barrel.With Iran’s effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz since March 1 – selectively enforced, with passage granted to Indian, Pakistani and Chinese vessels while denied to US allies and their commercial partners – India’s energy calculus became extraordinarily complex. Brent crude is hovering near $110–$120 per barrel. India’s sharpest crisis is now in its kitchens. With over 90% of its LPG imports and around 60% of domestic consumption dependent on the Strait of Hormuz, the disruption has triggered delivery delays, long queues, black-market price spikes and severe cuts in commercial supply. Restaurants are shutting or reverting to firewood and coal, states such as Maharashtra have deployed police escorts for cylinder transport and migrant workers are beginning to leave cities as cooking fuel becomes scarce and unaffordable. This is no ordinary supply disruption; it is a social emergency being managed with conspicuous political silence.LNG presents an equally acute problem: Qatar supplies 50% of India’s LNG. With supply halted, fertiliser plants and power grids are operating on “Tier 2” priority, capped at 70% of their requirement.The government’s response has been to absorb these costs rather than pass them to consumers – an electorally driven decision with economically catastrophic implications. The Indian government’s tax revenues have taken a “huge hit” after New Delhi slashed central excise duties on fuel for domestic consumption by 10 rupees per litre each. International crude prices have “gone through the roof” in the last month, from roughly $70 a barrel to around $122.The projected annual revenue loss from excise cuts alone amounts to approximately 1.55 trillion rupees, or roughly $16.4 billion. ICRA warned that sustained high energy prices could push the fiscal deficit past the government’s 4.5% of GDP target for FY2027.This is a fiscal haemorrhage that cannot be sustained. The scale of demand in India limits how long it can cap prices to shield consumers. The situation could worsen within weeks if government subsidies lapse. The bill is being deferred, not cancelled. It will arrive after the elections.Foreign remittanceBeyond energy, India faces a second shock that has received insufficient attention in domestic media: the remittance crisis.The nine-million-strong Indian diaspora in the Gulf countries contributes nearly 38% of India’s total remittance inflows. Based on inflows of $135.4 billion in financial year 2024–25, the Gulf’s share amounts to $51.4 billion – more than India’s total trade surplus with the United States.Indian workers in the Gulf are mostly employed in oil services, construction, hospitality and retail – industries particularly vulnerable to the disruption caused by Iranian attacks. As Gulf economies contract under the pressure of Iranian missile strikes, energy export disruption and investor flight, these jobs are disappearing.As of March 2026, over 2,20,000 Indian nationals have been repatriated from the Gulf Cooperation Council region and Iran due to the escalating conflict. These are not merely statistics — they are families whose monthly remittances sustain households across Kerala, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. When the remittances stop, rural household economies collapse. The political consequences of that collapse will be felt long after the West Bengal polls.The currency and market collapseThe rupee slumped to a record low of 94.7875 per dollar as the upheaval in West Asia disrupted remittances and energy imports. India’s stock market fell for the fifth consecutive week as oil and gas prices continued to rise.In the past month, global investors have pulled over $3 billion from Indian equities, seeking safe haven in the US dollar. The Reserve Bank of India has reportedly deployed nearly $12–$15 billion from its forex reserves to prevent a run on the rupee, intervening in spot, forward, and offshore markets to keep the currency from sliding toward the 95-mark.Goldman Sachs has warned that India faces a combination of slower growth, higher inflation, and a weaker currency. If oil prices sustain at $100 per barrel, India’s GDP growth in FY27 could slow to 6.6%; if prices average $130 per barrel, growth could fall to 6%. And these are on the basis of government’s claimed figures that have been disputed by the experts.The aviation sector has taken an immediate additional hit. The weekly impact on Indian and international airlines flying to and from India stands at an extremely conservative estimate of RS 875 crore. A total of 350 flights operated by Indian domestic carriers were cancelled in the first days of the conflict.The diplomatic catastrophe Modi won’t discussThe economic damage is grave. The diplomatic damage may be more lasting.In late February, when Modi stood alongside Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, they signed agreements upgrading ties to a “special strategic partnership” spanning defence, technology, agriculture and innovation. Less than two days after the visit, Israel and the United States launched the military offensive against Iran. It has verily signalled to the world that India is no longer a neutral player in the conflict but has tilted toward Tel Aviv and Washington without expressly saying so.For days, New Delhi remained publicly silent – an unusual pause for a country that has long projected itself as a balancing power in the region. It took several days for New Delhi to make limited outreach to Iran, including a condolence visit by a senior official.India chose to ignore the killing of 168 schoolgirls in Minab in a US missile strike on February 28 – a surprising move considering Modi’s prolific use of social media and India’s close links with Tehran.The silence has cost India its most valued diplomatic asset: credibility as a non-aligned mediator. Meanwhile, arch rival Pakistan has emerged as a critical back-channel intermediary in the conflict – a role that highlights India’s absence from diplomatic channels it has long sought to shape. Pakistan, not India, is being consulted. This is a geopolitical humiliation that no amount of Vishwaguru rhetoric can disguise.As Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi observed: “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. Silence, in this instance, is not neutral.”The cover-up before the pollsFour Indian states, including West Bengal, go to polls in April 2026. The political arithmetic of the crisis management is therefore transparent: defer the pain, suppress the data, manage the optics.The excise duty cuts on fuel are precisely calibrated to prevent pump price increases before polling day. The repatriation of 220,000 Gulf workers is being managed quietly, without the government acknowledging the scale of the crisis it represents. The rupee’s record lows are attributed to “global factors.” The stock market’s five consecutive weeks of decline is presented as a temporary disturbance.Addressing the Lok Sabha on March 23, Modi acknowledged that “India has extensive trade relations with countries at war and affected by the conflict” and that the Strait of Hormuz situation had made movement of ships “very challenging.” He assured the Parliament that “our government has made efforts to ensure that the supply of petrol, diesel and gas is not severely impacted.”The language was carefully chosen: not reassuring but managing expectations downward. The subtext was unmistakeable — the government knows that what is currently being managed will soon become unmanageable.India has a long history of large, sometimes violent strikes and protests over fuel prices, and nationwide protests about fuel are starting up again. The fertiliser shock adds another dimension: Urea prices have increased by about 30% over the past month, with the disruption to West Asia gas shipments impacting production. Northern Hemisphere spring planting is beginning, meaning farmers from across India are making purchasing decisions against a backdrop of price spikes and uncertainty. A bad kharif season, layered onto an energy crisis, layered onto a remittance collapse, layered onto a depreciating rupee – the compounding is relentless.Is the crisis manageable?The honest answer is: for now, barely. After the elections, almost certainly not without politically painful choices.The government faces a trilemma from which no clean exit exists. Raising fuel prices to reduce the fiscal haemorrhage will stoke inflation and public anger. Maintaining subsidies will blow the fiscal deficit, constrain RBI’s monetary options, and eventually force a harder correction. Borrowing to bridge the gap will push up interest rates and crowd out private investment precisely when growth momentum is already faltering.The diplomatic dimension offers no relief. India’s self-proclaimed identity as a leader of the Global South would seem shaky. In recent years, the Indian political elite has been vocal about the country’s need to maintain its strategic autonomy – that now seems to be put under severe test.Having embraced Netanyahu two days before the war and maintained studied silence on Iranian civilian casualties, India has limited credibility as a mediator. Having aligned itself with the US-Israel axis through the Quad and the “special strategic partnership,” India finds itself unable to leverage its traditional non-aligned position to extract diplomatic value from either side.The Iran war is taking a toll on India – undercutting its energy security, remittances, and geopolitical influence – and making Delhi one of the biggest losers in a war it isn’t even fighting.That phrase deserves to be framed and displayed in the offices of those who spent the last decade dismantling India’s strategic autonomy in exchange for selfies with Netanyahu and plaudits from Washington. India is paying the price of a war it had no vote in starting, no role in conducting and no influence in ending – because it surrendered the independence that might have given it leverage.The elections will pass. The bill will not.Anand Teltumbde is former CEO of PIL and professor at IIT Kharagpur and GIM, Goa. He is also a writer and civil rights activist.