Too Little, Too Late: The All-Party Meet That Can’t Hide India’s Iran Policy Failure

The Modi government’s decision to convene an all-party meeting on the Iran crisis comes at a moment of visible domestic distress—but also of accumulated strategic failure. By the time the political class was called in for consultations, the crisis had already arrived at India’s doorstep: LPG shortages, disrupted supply chains, and mounting anxiety among households dependent on cooking gas. The question, therefore, is not whether consultation was necessary, but whether it has come far too late to matter.

More importantly, the crisis has exposed the consequences of a gradual but visible shift in India’s West Asia policy. Over the past decade, New Delhi has deepened its strategic alignment with Israel—politically, militarily, and diplomatically. While this has yielded certain gains, it has also come at a cost: the erosion of a historically balanced relationship with Iran, a country that is not only a key energy partner but also a critical gatekeeper of the Strait of Hormuz.

That is why the all-party meeting appears less like a proactive exercise in democratic consultation and more like a reactive political gesture—an attempt to signal control after the system has already come under strain.

What the BJP government did not want to accept is that the LPG crisis was a making of its own. Had the government not effectively destroyed India’s historic relationship with Iran, we would not have been in this mess to begin with. The government wanted to pretend that everything is fine by organising the charade of the all-party meeting.

But the government failed to answer the most important question which mattered, and which the Opposition parties raised in the meeting. “We asked what was the need to visit Israel two days prior, many asked when we had a friendly relations with Iran, what was the need to make the relation acerbic, the government knew that 70 pc of the energy needs are fulfilled by supplies from Strait of Hormuz, then what was the need to become a party, they answered,” Aam Aadmi Party Member of Parliament Sanjay Singh said while mentioning the Opposition’s questions.

In this light, the all-party meeting begins to look like a political afterthought. It neither addresses the structural causes of the crisis nor outlines a credible path forward. There is little indication of a reassessment of India’s West Asia policy, no clear articulation of how energy dependencies will be managed, and no acknowledgement of how diplomatic choices have shaped current vulnerabilities.

That is why Congress Member of Parliament Tariq Anwar, who was part of the all-party meeting, according to media reports, mentioned during the meeting that Pakistan is performing the mediator's role in the US-Iran war, while India still continues to be a mute spectator.

“The meeting was unsatisfactory and opposition’s primary demand is for debate in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on West Asia situation," Anwar said. Samajwadi Party MP Dharmendra Yadav agreed with Anwar and called the meeting unsatisfactory.

“In the meeting, opposition parties have raised questions. No specific, satisfactory answers to the Opposition's questions have been given by the government,” Yadav said.

The implications go beyond the present crisis. If India’s engagement with key regional actors becomes transactional—activated only in moments of urgency rather than sustained through consistent diplomacy—it risks weakening its ability to influence outcomes in its immediate neighbourhood. Energy security, in this context, is inseparable from diplomatic credibility and geopolitical balance.

In the end, the Iran crisis has exposed a deeper contradiction in India’s approach: a desire to act as a major power while remaining insulated from the consequences of geopolitical alignment. The events of the past weeks suggest that such insulation is no longer possible. Energy flows, strategic relationships, and domestic stability are now tightly interlinked