Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision not to attend Ali Khamenei’s funeral marks the culmination of India’s growing distancing from Iran, a trend that has intensified in tandem with the parallel rapprochement between India and Israel. While New Delhi still claims to adhere to the principle of multilateralism championed by the Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, the Modi government has chosen its side – without saying so. What geopolitical and geoeconomic implications can we expect from such a choice?Encircling Pakistan?The Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh administrations had implemented a foreign policy aimed at isolating Pakistan, not only diplomatically but also geopolitically, by strengthening their relations with Iran and Afghanistan. It was in this spirit that India became involved in the development of Chabahar, a deep-water port intended as a counterweight to Gwadar, the Pakistani site where the Chinese have built a deep-water port.Gwadar’s strategic importance to China stems from its proximity to the sea lanes connecting West Asia to China, particularly for the oil trade. Furthermore, Gwadar provides China with a strategic vantage point and a key location for its navy. India, therefore, began investing in the Iranian port of Chabahar, located 72 km west of Gwadar, in 2002, just as China was beginning to develop Gwadar.Chabahar was also intended to provide India with access to Afghanistan via the Indian Ocean. India, Iran and Afghanistan have, in fact, signed an agreement to grant Indian goods bound for Central Asia and Afghanistan preferential treatment and tariff reductions via Chabahar. Construction and widening work on the Chabahar-Milak-Zaranj-Dilaram highway connecting Iran to Afghanistan has begun, with India responsible for the 213-km Zaranj-Dilaram section.Although all these projects were suspended due to the sanctions the United States decided to impose on Iran in the 2000s because of Tehran’s nuclear program, the Modi government revived them in 2015, taking advantage of the negotiations Iran was conducting with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany – negotiations that led to a compromise, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In August 2015, India removed Iran from the list of countries whose citizens had only limited access to certain visas. Aside from Chabahar, India said it was ready to invest $15 billion in Iran to import gas at a favorable price.In May 2016, Modi travelled to Tehran, where he was received with great fanfare by President Hassan Rouhani. He announced that India would invest $500 million in Chabahar and related projects. He was joined by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to further highlight the India-Iran-Afghanistan triangle. Modi also stated, “Once the Chabahar port is developed, goods from India will not only travel up to Afghanistan, but beyond”. On this occasion, Modi, Rouhani and Ghani signed a tripartite transit agreement involving Chabahar.Farewell to an Iranian friend?Relations between India and Iran first began to strain under Trump’s first term. In 2018, less than three years after India and Iran had revived their cooperation under the JCPOA, US President Donald Trump decided to re-impose sanctions on Iran. These sanctions were specifically aimed at preventing Iran from exporting its hydrocarbons. At the time, India sourced 10% of its oil from Iran, its fourth-largest supplier, which offered highly competitive prices.New Delhi requested a grace period from the United States, which was granted – but not renewed, forcing India to suspend its hydrocarbon imports from Iran. However, New Delhi obtained a waiver from Washington to continue developing the Iranian port of Chabahar. But this possibility gradually proved to be largely theoretical, as Indian companies were reluctant to commit to costly projects for fear of facing US sanctions themselves.This led Iran to exclude India from plans for rail links to Afghanistan – contrary to the agreement signed in 2016 – and to turn more towards China. In 2020, Iran and China concluded a Comprehensive Plan for Cooperation which provided for Beijing to invest $400 billion over 25 years in Iran, notably in the Chabahar port, where India nevertheless retained the Shahid Beheshti terminal – through which goods departing from Mumbai and bound for Russia transit under the agreement signed by New Delhi and Moscow.In the 2020s, however, this geoeconomic “Great Game” – which was part of India’s strategy to increase its regional influence – has not lived up to initial expectations. Admittedly, in 2024, India and Iran signed an agreement allowing India to manage the Shahid Beheshti terminal for ten years, prompting Narendra Modi to post a hyperbolic message on the occasion of the Iranian president’s visit to India, praising how the two men had “discussed ways to deepen ties in futuristic sectors.”But the following year, Trump imposed new sanctions on Iran under a new law, the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act, under which companies and governments doing business with Iran could face heavy fines. In response, New Delhi chose to abandon Chabahar, at least temporarily: in the budget passed in February 2026, the funding allocated to this site was reduced to zero.That India has scaled back its hopes for cooperation with Iran can be inferred from the silence its government maintained following Israel’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2025: Modi merely stated on X that Netanyahu himself had briefed him after the fact and that, in response, he had “emphasised the need for early restoration of peace and stability in the region” – but the Israeli strikes were not condemned.India sought to appear equally close to both countries. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs even stated in an official communiqué, “India enjoys close and friendly relations with both countries and stands ready to extend all possible support”, but New Delhi has de facto sided with Israel in this matter, just as it has in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza. India even distanced itself from the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation a few days later, regarding a resolution condemning these strikes.This stance stood in contrast to India’s decision to condemn Israel’s bombing of Qatar, given the growing importance of the Gulf states in both its diplomacy and its economy. New Delhi simply sought to mitigate the effects of these conflicting positions by voting against a UN Human Rights Council resolution condemning the – albeit massive – repression of the Iranian people by their government in January 2026.The war launched against Iran by Israel and the United States in February 2026 further strained Indo-Iranian relations. Not only did Tel Aviv launch the first strikes less than 24 hours after Modi’s visit to the Israeli capital, but once again, New Delhi refrained from condemning the operation, with India content – as usual – to call on the belligerents to negotiate. India also did not condemn the assassination of Ali Khamenei. The Secretary of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs merely signed a book of condolences at the Iranian Embassy in New Delhi.The country’s image was further tarnished when the United States sank, via underwater strikes – a first for the US Navy since 1945 – an Iranian frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka that had just participated in joint military exercises organised by New Delhi. India’s claim to be the “net security provider” of the Indian Ocean was all the more severely undermined by the fact that the operation resulted in 104 deaths among the Iranian sailors.By refraining, at every stage of the conflict, from expressing even the slightest condemnation, India found itself at odds with most countries of the Global South. As the 2026 chair of the BRICS – a grouping whose presidency rotates annually – it failed to reach a consensus at the meeting it hosted in Delhi in May 2026, where Iran and the United Arab Emirates presented opposing positions. Striving to maintain an equal distance from these two protagonists was not enough to secure a joint statement.India was also a collateral victim of the war against Iran due to the mediating role Pakistan played between Iran and the United States. Not only did Islamabad see its prestige enhanced, but Pakistan’s mediation brought the country significantly closer to Iran.Today, Narendra Modi has decided not to accept Tehran’s invitation to attend Ali Khamenei’s funeral – an affront that further complicates relations between India and Iran. Some Iranians are now going so far as to publicly burn the Indian flag alongside those of Israel and the United States. If India wanted to isolate Pakistan, it is India itself that risks no longer having a reliable partner in the region, with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.Christophe Jaffrelot is Senior Research Fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King’s College London, Non resident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Chair of the British Association for South Asian Studies.