'Silence is Not Neutral': Sonia Gandhi Asks Why India Has Not Condemned Khamenei's Assassination

New Delhi: Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi has questioned India’s silence over the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and for not issuing a condemnation of the act or the violation of Iranian sovereignty.  In an article written in Indian Express, Gandhi has said that the absence of a condemnation from New Delhi raises serious doubts about the direction and credibility of India’s foreign policy.

“The Government of India has refrained from condemning the assassination or the violation of Iranian sovereignty. Initially, ignoring the massive US-Israeli onslaught, the Prime Minister confined himself to condemning Iran’s retaliatory strike on the UAE, without addressing the sequence of events that preceded it. Later, he uttered platitudes about his “deep concern” and talked of “dialogue and diplomacy” – which is precisely what was underway before the massive unprovoked attacks launched by Israel and the US,” Gandhi has said in the article.

“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” she added.

Gandhi has said that at this juncture, silence is not neutral, given the fact that the assassination was carried out without a formal declaration of war and during an ongoing diplomatic process.

“Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. A targeted killing of a serving head of state strikes at the heart of these principles. If such acts pass without principled objection from the world’s largest democracy, the erosion of international norms becomes easier to normalise,” Gandhi has said in her article for Indian Express.

The former Congress president has also questioned the timing of prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel barely 48 hours before the assassination of Khamenei. Gandhi underlined the fact in the article that Modi reiterated unequivocal support for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu even as the Gaza conflict continues to draw global outrage over the scale of civilian casualties, many of them women and children.

“At a time when much of the Global South, along with major powers – and India’s partners in BRICS such as Russia and China – have kept their distance, India’s high-profile political endorsement without moral clarity marks a visible and troubling departure. The consequences of this event extend beyond geopolitics. The ripples of this tragedy are visible across continents. And India’s stance is signalling tacit endorsement of this tragedy,” said Gandhi.

She also highlighted India’s long ties – both civilisational and strategic – with Iran and how, back in 1994, when sections within the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation sought to advance a resolution against India at the UN Commission on Human Rights over Kashmir, Tehran played a consequential role in blocking that effort.

“That intervention helped prevent the internationalisation of the Kashmir issue at a delicate moment in India’s economic trajectory. Iran has also enabled India’s diplomatic presence in Zahedan near the Pakistan border – a strategic counter-balance to the development of Gwadar port and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor,” writes Gandhi in the article.

Gandhi has said while India’s post-Independence foreign policy was shaped by non-alignment, not as passive neutrality, but as a conscious assertion of strategic autonomy.

“It was a refusal to become subsumed into the rivalries of great powers. The present moment raises uncomfortable questions about whether that posture is being diluted. An uncritical silence in the face of unilateral military action by powerful states looks like retreat from that principle. And in effect, an abandonment of our legacy,” Gandhi has said.

“India has long aspired to be more than a regional power; it has sought to serve as the conscience-keeper of the world. That stature was built on a willingness to speak for sovereignty, peace, non-violence and justice even when doing so was inconvenient. At this moment, there is an urgent need for us to rediscover that moral strength and articulate it with clarity and commitment,” Gandhi has said in the article.

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