The Indians in the Middle
Published 4 October 2026
India did not choose a side in this war, which is a statement about diplomacy and not about exposure. Indian seafarers crew ships that go through the Gulf, Indian citizens live in Iran and across the region, and an Indian-operated port sits on Iran's southern coast. When the war came, India's position was the position of a country with a great deal to lose and little power to stop any of it.
The opening position
On 28 February, the day the strikes began, India urged restraint and no escalation, and asked for civilian safety, dialogue and diplomacy, and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. That is the line it held for seven months. When the ceasefire arrived on 8 April, The Hindu reported that India welcomed it and stressed dialogue and diplomacy.
The seafarers
The government's own snapshot on 27 March, in a press release from the Press Information Bureau, said 20 Indian-flagged vessels carrying about 540 Indian seafarers remained in the western Persian Gulf. The shipping directorate had helped repatriate more than 699 seafarers. Seven Indian nationals had died and one was missing in various regional incidents by then. The line "all Indian seafarers currently present are safe" described the live position that day and did not deny the earlier deaths.
Later deaths are covered in the casualty chapter: three Indian sailors on the Settebello on 10 June, corroborated by Reuters and the BBC, with the US and the operator disagreeing about the ship, and one Indian killed on the Cape Dao on 23 September, where nobody has claimed the attack. A newspaper report on 1 September cited at least 13 Indian seafarers dead and three missing by July. That figure has not been reconciled with a government statement, so it is not added to March's seven and is not attributed to Iran.
Getting people out of Iran
In a parliamentary reply on 30 July, reported by ANI and The Tribune, the government said 2,557 Indian nationals had been facilitated across Iran's land borders into Armenia and Azerbaijan for onward travel home since February, and that about 7,000 were still estimated to be in Iran. The original answer was not retrieved, and a single agency's account of official testimony is what this file has. These are border-facilitation numbers. They are not the total of all Indians who left the Gulf on commercial flights, and not an airlift.
The embassy's advisory of 19 July told Indians to postpone travel to Iran, those already there to consider leaving by available flights, and those staying to avoid areas of heavy military activity such as the southern coast. It is a dated advisory, and this file does not claim it is the latest.
Chabahar
India's ten-year contract to equip and operate the Shahid Beheshti terminal at Chabahar was signed on 13 May 2024. In a Rajya Sabha answer on 19 March, the government said it had met its $120 million equipment commitment and had no further financial obligation under the contract. The United States revoked the 2018 sanctions exception in September 2025, then issued conditional guidance running to 26 April 2026.
On 1 September, after the Modi-Pezeshkian meeting in Bishkek, Foreign Secretary Misri said India remained in contact with stakeholders about a "sustainable way forward", and Financial Express reported that the April waiver had expired without being renewed. No new licence and no later transcript was found. The accurate summary is that the money is spent, the waiver has lapsed, and the port's operating status is uncertain. It is not that the project was abandoned, nor that it runs unimpeded.
The speech
On 26 September, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar addressed the UN General Assembly. UN News's coverage records his concern about hostilities in the Gulf and attacks on ships and crews, his appeal for restraint, de-escalation and civilian protection, and his insistence on uninterrupted energy and commerce. He warned that countries far from the conflicts bear the costs and said that "everything is being weaponized". That is a summary of a speech from the UN's own news service, not a full transcript. A separate India-Liberia launch of a group of friends on seafarer safety took place on 25 September and should not be moved to the 26th.
What the pattern says
India's war was fought in tonnage, in visas and in paperwork. It could not shape the outcome, it was careful about whom it blamed, and it worked through each constraint as it arrived. It is a story of a country managing exposure, and the figures in this chapter are the exposure.
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