Delimitation and Women's Reservation - Message for Mr Shashi Tharoor

I saw some of the statements made by Mr Shashi Tharoor regarding the latest delimitation and women's reservation bill which was tabled by GOI in the parliament.  He has made a very rational point about how increasing the number of seats in the Lok Sabha is counter productive to the functioning of the parliament and will make it unwieldy. I recall how Mr Tharoor was being repeatedly interrupted and were given only 7 minutes to make his statement in the parliament on the recently passed SHANTI Bill. A healthy and productive debate requires that members get sufficient time to debate in the parliament and such a large Lok Sabha will not only not allow for high quality debates, but given the tendency of several MPs to create ruckus during parliament proceedings more members will lead to more ruckus. The burden on taxpayers for additional MPs and their staff including security etc. will be an unnecessary burden. All citizens should support his stand on this issue. I would like to express my gratitude to Mr Tharror for raising this point.

Mr Tharoor has raised another question on how delimitation should not be linked with women's reservation. I have my reservations about the whole concept of reservations to start with and I can assure him many patriotic citizens want the politics of reservations to end in the country for its own better future. Just as socialism is a failed social engineering concept, so is quota system a failed system which tramples on individual rights and liberties under false pretext of social justice. No one can be given more rights than equal rights. Special rights are not equal rights and lead to distortion in the functioning of the state. Time has come to start reversing this failed system rather than entrenching it further. Why should the electorate be denied the choice of candidates? Just because of gender, why should someone who has worked in a constituency and can better represent it be denied the opportunity and the electorate denied the right to elect him. This nation has seen several long serving women Chief Ministers and a woman Prime Minister without the need for a special reservation for women. We do not need to distort the system to enable women's representation. If at all political parties are keen on more women MPs, let them field more women candidates and let the electorate decide if they are suitable. The constitution neither denied women their rights nor does it envisage such a reservation based system for their representation. By passing the Women's reservation bill in 2023 the parliament has created a distortion which was not needed to start with. I know I am making an argument for an already lost cause as there is near 100% political consensus on women's reservation in parliament but a start has to be made to free India from the reservation politics and work on building political consensus on ending reservations. Hence at the very least an amendment should be brought about in the women's reservation bill to do it without increasing seats and with a time limit for how long this reservation will last, say a 20 year period with no renewal thereafter. This is my humble suggestion for Mr Tharoor and other MPs to consider.

The argument made against delimitation based on census however baffles me. Mr Tharoor has worked at the UN and I am sure well aware of the long standing democratic principle around the world that in a one person one vote system each vote should have the same weight. From the very beginning India's constitution has recognized the need for equal weightage. If one considers the history of Article 81 and 82 and the various amendments made into it over the years, at no time was it not recognized that weightage should be equal. Equal weightage to each vote is in fact a fundamental principle of the constitution and altering it strikes at the very root of a representative democratic system. For 50 years delimitation has been postponed and many individual voters who do not even realize what rights they have been denied are being treated unequally because of regional interest in parts of the country. One must realize that in general elections the nation votes as one in direct elections, to the House of the People i.e. the Lok Sabha. The states don't miss out in the parliament and are represented in the Council of States i.e. the Rajya Sabha. The present generation of politicians are doing great disservice to the toils of the founders of India's constitution by distorting the very foundation of democracy and national interest by bringing petty regional interests in election to a body whose purpose is to serve the nation as a whole and make choices and decisions in larger national interest. An MP elected to the Lok Sabha represents the constituents and each vote of the MP counts equally. To say that cardinal directions, wealth and GDP, language etc. be factors limiting the principle of equality for the voters electing the MP is a dangerous trend and should not be legitimized further.

Kindly refer to the 1950 version of article 81 on Indian constitution. It says "⁠(b) For the purpose of sub-clause (a), the States shall be divided, grouped or formed into territorial constituencies" this particular clause was removed later on in 7th amendment when states were reorganized. But the original intent of the constitution makers is quite evident that they did not see a constituency for Lok Sabha elections to be somehow limited to the boundaries of a state. "State could be divided, it could be grouped or formed into territorial constituencies" means that it was always possible to have Lok Sabha constituencies spanning across multiple state borders for general elections. While it was never done so is another matter but perhaps had it been done for border districts of various states it would have created much needed spirit of integration in the nation. It further states "(c) The ratio between the number of members, allotted to each territorial constituency and the population of that constituency as ascertained at the last preceding census of which the relevant figures have been published shall, so far as practicable, be the same throughout the territory of India."  There is no doubt left about the message that has been sent to the future generation of Indians by constituent assembly. Entire territory of India has to be treated with the same yardstick. The ratio is important because it ensures equal weightage for each vote. 

There is an entire article 82 which states "readjustment after each census". This is a fundamental constitutional principle that has been kept at abeyance because of petty regional political interests. While no one in the state objects to redrawing the territorial boundaries of constituencies based on census within the state, somehow an impression has been made in the polity of states that states are sacrosanct as sub nationalities and can demand special treatment when it comes to Lok Sabha elections. Whereas it is well understood that states are only administrative divisions and federalism in Indian context in no way means that national interest should be subservient to petty regional interests and power politics. This is a dangerous trend that has gone on for too long and one only hopes that after the 2026 census this distortion is finally corrected. 

Delimitation and Women's Reservation

There is uproar in southern states over the delimitation and women's reservation bill 2026. The argument being that southern states have done better family planning and hence the population growth rate in southern states is lower than northern states and these states will lose out on parliamentary seats if delimitation is done based on current population. This argument has kept the Lok Sabha constituencies fixed since 1973 delimitation which was done based on 1971 census. It has been more than 50 years or about 2/3 the life of the Republic since when the political parties in southern states have opposed delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies based on the argument that fertility rates in southern states is less than the fertility rates in northern states and hence the southern states will lose out on parliamentary seats. It is not as if the fertility rate in northern states has not come down. There is uneven development in the country and when it comes to providing more support to the lagging states there is opposition form the southern states. This creates a chicken and egg situation because reduction is fertility rate depends on overall development and education of a region.

The argument of opposing census based delimitation is based on a flawed view of the parliamentary system under Indian constitution. It should be understood by everyone that Lok Sabha does not represent states. Lok Sabha is peoples council that is represented by constituencies. As far as representation of states in the parliament is concerned it is provided by the council of states which is the Rajya Sabha. States do not have a special status for election of member of parliaments to Lok Sabha. States are merely administrative divisions and do not represent any kind of sub nationality. New states have continuously been created for administrative and other reasons. But if they start giving rise to sub nationalism then that is not in interest of the republic. The idea of southern Indian states being at odds with northern Indian states is a constructed identity based politics of regional parties with is detrimental to national integration and fraternity between citizens of the country. 

In a one man one vote system each vote should have equal weightage in the Parliament. If we have certain constituencies which have electorate running into thousands of voters and other electorates with lakhs of voters then we have an imbalanced representation in the parliament. Nobody ever objects to delimitation based on census within state boundaries but somehow when the same logic is being applied to Lok Sabha constituencies suddenly the argument about states losing out on parliamentary seats is being raised thanks to regional politics. As if an MP elected for a parliamentary constituency in northern India is suddenly an enemy of the citizens in a constituency in Southern India and will not act in national interest. What ever regional or state interest exists are dealt with by the state governments which have sufficient powers. Member of parliaments elected from any part of the country should make decisions on national interest and as mentioned earlier the states are already represented in the Rajya Sabha which has an indirect election. 

Having made and argument in the favor of delimitation based on census which is mandated in the constitution anyways I would like to make a separate argument against this bill. The number of seats in Lok Sabha since the first delimitation based on 1951 census have increased by approximately 50 members. We already have a large parliament. In various debates over laws in the parliament the MPs hardly get anytime to make their statements. An MP hardly gets 5-10 minutes of uninterrupted time to make his or her arguments. If the number of seats is increased from 543 to 816 that is a 50% increase in the strength of the Lok Sabha. This will certainly damage the quality of debate in the parliament. The financial burden on the tax payers of country for these additional VIP members and their entourage which lives on the exchequer will also increase. The idea of women's reservation of 33% and the sub reservation amongst women for SC/ST communities is also an unfortunate continuation of the one medicine of every ailment principle which has afflicted Indian political class. We need to now move away from reservation politics to save the republic. There are no structural nor legal barriers to women entering politics in the country. If in any constituency and electorate can benefit from a more suitable male candidate to represent them then why should they be limited for the choice of only female candidates. It is not as if there is any bar on women from contesting in any unreserved seats against male candidates. If political parties want to increase women's representation they should do so at party level by giving more tickets to women. We don't need to reserve seats in the parliament for this.

India should move on from such social engineering projects and instead of doing down the road of further reservations its time to do away with reservations starting with OBC reservations for a more merit based equal treatment under the law.

Iran War - A Fragile Ceasefire

After much bluster and genocidal threats, US President Trump has announced a 14 day cease fire with Iran. This Pakistan mediated ceasefire in which Pakistan has been characterized as more of a go between rather than a credible neutral mediator is already quite fragile. The hostilities between Iran and Arab states of UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain have not yet come to an end with report of continued targeting of infrastructure in these Arab states by Iran and UAE's retaliation on Iran's Lavan Islands as of Monday morning. Israel has also refused to include Lebanon in a any ceasefire. It operations in southern Lebanon continue as usual. 

Any ceasefire does take some time to come into effect while the communication to stop hostilities trickle down to local units. In the case of Iran, due to its decentralized regional command, there is the added issue of all commanders agreeing to the temporary ceasefire. So we will have to wait for a couple of days to see if this cease fire settles in and holds. Israel however is unlikely to give up on its objectives in Lebanon so easily, hence we still need to wait and see how this pans out. There are already some voices in Israel's security establishment criticizing Trump for his decision. Israeli President Netanyahu is also facing criticism from opposition politicians for failing to achieve his objectives. As analyzed earlier, Israel's achievable objective was primarily "Mowing the grass", which, one can argue has been achieved to a great extent. The collapse of Iran's government could not be realistically expected to happen by arial bombardments and decapitation of its leadership has so far not been able to bring about internal fracture. 

One cannot rule out an eventual weakening of the governance structures in Iran over a period of time. But for now it seems the Islamic State has won the war by not losing it. The control of Hormuz strait which it has de facto achieved and will hope to convert into a de jure agreement with USA may be problematic for the Arab states, Asian states and pretty much most of the world. Iran hopes to recover its war damages from the revenue from transit fees. This means the bystander Asian nations who had no role in this war and whose interests were set aside by US and Israel while initiating this war will have to foot the bill for this war in perpetuity. Iran may also seek to use access to Hormuz as a leverage to force Asian nations to resume normal economic relations with it.

The biggest economic loser in this War other than Iran and gulf states is indeed the large energy hungry Asian economies. India for now appears to have made a mistake by not being able to maintain its neutrality in this war. Its dependency on the Gulf monarchies for economic needs and on Israel for defense needs put it in a difficult situation. Its traditional warm relations with Iran were already under stress under the weight of US economic sanctions on Iran. Its current situation is in making for a long time ever since the 2010 Obama era sanctions on Iran. Complying with those and later sanctions on Iran and Russia has lead to weakening of its energy sovereignty over the years. Hence India's position as a supplicant of USA in international relations has been solidified thanks to US sanctions regime and unwillingness of India leadership to develop any kind sanctions evasion mechanisms like China has done. India's relations with Iran in particular and increasingly its relations with Russia have become subject to US Veto.

We will have to see how this cease fire holds and whether a lasting settlement is achieved during the negotiations between Iran and USA over the course of next weeks. The differing perceptions between Iran and USA on what has been agreed to as the draft 10 point proposal from Iran does not bear much confidence in this era of social media diplomacy, where the state leaders seem to make all kinds of often contradictory statements in social media, for one to make any coherent sense of their intentions. But even this temporary fragile cease fire has come as a respite to everyone and a hope of seeing and end to this latest West Asian conflict exists. Asian nations need to get involved in this peace process at least now and not just leave it to the principal actors because much is at stake for them. The prospect of another war in West Asia over unresolved differences exists and their economic interests and immigrant population in the Gulf are both at risk if this happens.

 

     

India's new nuclear liability law - SHANTI Act, 2025

On 17-18 Dec, 2025 the Indian parliament passed the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancements of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act. There was little debate in main stream media on this bill before it was tabled. In prime minister's independence day speech in August he had mentioned about reforming India's nuclear power generation sector. Ever since the Indo US nuclear deal which was signed in 2008, it was hoped by US nuclear energy suppliers that they will be able to participate in growing Indian nuclear energy sector. After all new nuclear power plant construction had almost ground to halt in US ever since the 3 mile disaster in 1979. New reactor projects started only after 2013. India was seen as a new untapped market for US companies. 

The Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, however, put the nuclear power industry world wide under greater public scrutiny. Ever since the start of nuclear power generation in the mid of 20th century this industry has thrived on socializing the liability of nuclear power accident which is significant in case of a disaster and largely seen as uninsurable without public funds. The industry in most of the countries has followed a capped operator liability regime with channeling of all liability to the operator and no liability on the suppliers. Countries where public opinion has been sensitive to nuclear disasters like Japan, Russia, Germany and Finland follow a strict, no fault,  unlimited operator liability regime. Strict and no-fault means that the claimants need not prove that the operator is at fault of the nuclear accident to be able to claim damages. Unlimited liability means that there is not cap or limit on the liability of the operator. It should be noted that even in countries where a capped liability regime exists, a steady movement towards increasing the cap amount and shifting more liability to the industry from the society is in progress. 

The estimated total cost of the Fukushima nuclear disaster is in the range of $ 190-200 billion. The Japanese Law for compensation for nuclear damages has unlimited, strict no-fault operator liability, the operator needs to provide a security deposit of 120 billion Yen to the government and separately also have a liability insurance. Any person suffering from nuclear damage has priority over other creditors in respect of compensation from the amount provided by the liability insurance contract. There is right to recourse to a third party, where the employees of a nuclear operator have suffered nuclear damage and such damage was caused intentionally by a third party, the nuclear operator who has paid compensation for work accidents to the employees or families of the deceased shall retain a right of recourse against such third party.

The Price-Anderson Act of USA provides for $13.6 billion no fault liability without cost to the public or government Interestingly under the US Energy Independence and Security Act 2007, if an accident occurred outside the USA, nuclear suppliers would be required to reimburse the federal government for the amount allocated to the USA under the CSC’s formula for second-tier coverage.

As noted earlier the world over in the course of time the liability regime has changed in the way that International liability laws have moved the onus of insurance from the society to the industry. Also the amount of liability has been increasing. In such an environment, India's SHANTI Act stands out for not only reducing the liability amount compared to previous regime but also shifting the onus from industry to the state. For instance in 2004, contracting parties to the OECD Paris (and Brussels) Conventions signed Amending Protocols which removed the required for states to set a cap on liabilities. Thus allowing states to have unlimited liability just as Japan. Though these amendments are yet to be ratified in absence of Industry's agreement, we can see that the governments around the world are recognizing the need to expand the scope of liability of nuclear accident where as India has moved in the opposite direction.

We have to analyze this new law in this background. Let us note the major changes that have taken place in the SHANTI act:-

1) The strict no-fault liability clause which was part of the CLND act 2010 has been removed from the SHANTI Act. Earlier law had this clause in the Liability of Operator section "(4) The liability of the operator of the nuclear installation shall be strict and shall be based on the principle of no-fault liability.". This clause has been totally removed from the SHANTI ACT

2) The Operator liability for small and medium power plants has been reduced by introducing a graded system in which plants less than 150 MW the operator liability has been reduced to merely Rs 100 Crore from a Rs 1500 Crores in the earlier act of 2010. The maximum lability for plants more than 3600 MW has been increased to Rs 3000 Crores. One would expect that with inflation and in light of global trend the liability amount should increase not decrease.

3) The operator right to recourse to a supplier liability has been removed. CLND had the clause " (b) the nuclear incident has resulted as a consequence of an act of supplier or his employee, which includes supply of equipment or material with patent or latent defects or sub-standard services; ". This has been removed.

4) Patent regime in the nuclear sector has been changed. Since 1962 any invention in the field of nuclear energy was not patentable. As per patents act 1970 "No patent shall be granted in respect of an invention relating to atomic energy falling within sub-section (1) of section 20 of the Atomic Energy Act, 1962." As per clause 38 of the new law inventions in nuclear energy are now patentable. "38. (1) The Central Government may grant patents for inventions which in its opinion are for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and radiation:"

Patent restriction ensured that all innovation and development of technologies in nuclear science remained strictly in public interest. It did monopolize the nuclear energy sector, limited private investment and but it also enabled India to freely develop technologies in public interest which, may have been patented outside of India and hence denied to it in practical terms. The removal of the patent restrictions will benefit companies to be able to market their patented technologies like fuel in India. Reduction of operator liability to almost a pittance for small reactors will transfer the liability for Small Modular Reactors, which is seen as a new growth sector, from the industry to the society. Removal of supplier liability clause will remove the operator's right to recourse against the technology supplier for any disaster, opening the door for foreign suppliers to freely enter the nuclear energy market with lesser financial risk. 

However what stands out most egregiously is the removal of the strict, no-fault, liability clause from the nuclear liability law. If following the international standards of liability was the justification of removing the supplier liability clause then the strict and no-fault liability clause is a long standing feature of nuclear liability laws world over. Its removal is quite inexplicable. So is reduction of liability cap where as the world over the movement is towards increasing the cap and moving more and more liability towards the Industry. Unlimited operator liability is also long standing international practice followed in major Nuclear energy states like Japan, Russia and Germany. One could justify its introduction on the account of the very high estimated cost of the latest large nuclear disaster which was in Fukushima nuclear plant. In fact the central government in the Financial Memorandum section of SHANTI Act it self states "Clause 14 of the Bill provides for the liability of the Central Government in the event of a nuclear incident. However, as the actual liability in the event of nuclear incident would depend on the magnitude of the incident, it is difficult to estimate the cost of liability at this stage. The Central Government has established a Nuclear Liability Fund for the purpose of meeting its liability under the Bill. "  

Finally I would remind the reader to what I had explored in my previous article. In last few years one person from India's nuclear energy establishment who stands out in promoting nuclear power industry is Dr Anil Kakodkar. He has been most active in his public writings about building small modular reactor and thorium based fuel. It should to be noted that Dr Kakodkar has been associated with a US company "Clean Core Thorium Energy Inc" as an advisor for development of a thorium based fuel which has been named ANEEL after him. He has been seen promoting private investment in the nuclear power generation sector in India, both before and after the SHANTI act has been passed by the parliament. Clear Core Thorium Energy had a partnership with India's L&T and NTPC is also expected to acquire a minority stake it in. This company is seen as the first beneficiary of the new SHANTI Act. For More about ANEEL fuel read here.

PS: Readers would be interested in the parliament debate on SHANTI Bill. The speech by Mr Shashi Tharoor stands out in articulating many relevant points. 

Mowing the Grass in Iran

The US-Israeli air raids in Iran raised questions about the reason and objectives of this latest war in West Asia. Various justifications and objectives were shared primarily by the US government which really appeared as an after thought rather than a well articulated justification. Ever changing objectives makes it difficult to predict how far this war will go and for how long. However it should not be difficult for any observer of the Israeli actions in its neighborhood that this is nothing but a "Mowing The Grass" war. The objective of Israel is to reduce the military apparatus of Iran as much as possible while Iran is at its weakest. 

The second Trump administration has more or less followed the recommendation of the 100 days plan prepared by the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran(UANI). Which involved recommendations like Psyops, anti regime protests, using Starlink for information dissemination inside Iran, declared policy of use of force by US, transfer of refuelers and bunker busters to Israel. weaponizing Arab states, targeted assassinations, encourage defection in military, target IRGC via cyber and kinetic means. US defense secretary Pete Hegseth has long been associated with UANI hence his presence in the second Trump administration would have been a decisive factor in US finally being persuaded to engage in military action against Iran first in the June 2025 12 day war and now a repeat war with objectives beyond merely the destruction of Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

Since there are no clear end goals of this second Iran war it is expected that when both sides are exhausted enough, US and Israel will declare the objectives met and a much weaker Iranian government will survive and will be left licking it's wounds. Iran has indicated that such an outcome is not in its interest as it does not want to be faced with another war a few months or years down the line and hence would like to impose an unacceptable cost on US and Israel before it stops its hostilities. 

While the war has been initiated by Israel and USA it did not take long for other western powers to indirectly or directly endorse this US-Israeli action. Amongst western nations only Spain has has openly opposed this war calling it an illegal war. Opposition from Russia and China was expected who are believed to have joined in to provide direct assistance to Iran's war effort in terms of ISR.

Gulf monarchy's have borne the bulk of Iran's retaliation in this war. Iran had earlier warned that any war imposed on it will result in a regional war and that is precisely what it has hoped to do with its war strategy. Knowing fully well that Israel is better prepared for this war and perhaps calling out the duplicity of the Gulf states which wanted all the benefit of having a weakened Iran in West Asia without necessarily engaging in direct confrontation with it, Iran decided to attack US defense infrastructure in the Gulf states. It has a large number of missiles and drones to effect this strategy which involves using up its old missile and drone arsenal first while dying up the air defenses of its adversaries before moving on the newer age weapons. 

UAE and Bahrain have so far suffered the bulk of Iranian attacks. UAE perhaps because of its recognition of Israel and Bahrain because of hosting the head quarters of US 5th Fleet. Civil infrastructure in these states has not been spared either with Iranian attacks being reported in residential building, hotels, airports, oil storage facilities and even water desalination plant in Bahrain. Oil tankers and commercial ships in the Straits of Hormuz have been attacked by both sides and Natural Gas production in Qatar has been stopped. Russia's energy sector has benefited temporarily from this war since it has emerged as one of the primary remaining viable sources of energy for the energy hungry economies of Asia.  

Ever since the October 7 2023 Hamas atrocities, Israel, with US help has systematically dealt with its neighboring adversaries who were primarily financed and endorsed by Iran in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon. Then last year it went after the nuclear infrastructure of Iran to destroy its capability of developing nuclear weapons. One cannot reliably say whether Iran did not have stockpile of nuclear weapons already when Israel attacked its nuclear infrastructure in June 2025 in the so called "Twelve Day War". However one can reliably say that if it did have a bomb, the numbers were perhaps not substantial yet. Leaving only a small window of opportunity for Israel and USA to destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure before it could enrich sufficient quantities of fissile material for creating a bigger weapon stock pile. 

One should also not overlook that this action took place not so long after India's operation Sindoor which demonstrated not only that there is room for limited war even between two nuclear weapons states but it also showed the limit of how far such a conventional war could proceed between established nuclear powers. The deterrence ability of nuclear weapons are never in question. Hence for Israel it would have further raised the now or never question for dealing with the nuclear ambitions of its adversary.

It is possible that Iran really does not have any nuclear weapon and has not enriched any fissile material to weapons grade and was merely using its fissile stockpile as a bargaining chip to lift western sanctions. At the same time and a more likely scenario is that perhaps Iran wanted to eat its cake and have it too. It wanted to be an ambiguous nuclear weapons power like Israel while being fully integrated in the world economy rather than be an overt nuclear pariah state like North Korea. The prospect of Saudi Arabia, Israel and perhaps even Turkey becoming overt nuclear weapons state as a response to Iranian nuclear weapons testing and strong opposition by the partners of Iran namely Russia and China to such a scenario in West Asia  perhaps made the choice of overt nuclear testing a difficult one for Iran.

The 2003 Fatwa placed against nuclear weapons by Ayatollah Khamenei which was issued soon after the US invasion of Iraq made it impossible for Iran to openly test a nuclear device, however the west continued to suspect that a clandestine Iranian nuclear weapons program was well in progress. This lead to the enhanced US economic sanctions on Iran the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (CISADA), signed by President Obama on July 1, 2010. These Obama era sanctions and India's nuclear deal with USA made it difficult even for India to continue its purchase of Iranian oil and India progressively stopped oil imports from Iran. This was perhaps the first such occasion in recent memory when US was so brazenly able to inject itself into India's foreign policy through its domestic laws and enforce compliance by India in its sanctions regime against Iran which until then was its second largest oil export destination.

The economic sanctions on Iran had its effect and it resulted in US lead nuclear deal between the P5+1 and Iran called JCPOA in 2015. Iran agreed to reduce uranium enrichment to approx. 3% and to IAEA monitoring of its nuclear sites. Thus allowing Iran to regain access to international markets and financial system. However the Trump administration in 2018 unilaterally withdrew from the deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran. India also once again left Iran in lurch by complying with the US  unilateral sanction on Iran and stopped purchase of Iranian oil in 2019. As a side effect to this Iran-US tussle, it was revealed for everyone to see, that India's foreign and trade policy was now increasingly being determined by the US domestic law and US interests, and not by India's national interests. Its much touted strategic autonomy was progressively under stress.

With this latest war imposed on Iran by Israel and USA, India's position in West Asia and Indian ocean region has been much weakened. Not only are its millions of nationals in the gulf states in the firing line as civilian casualties of its war, its energy security and fertilizer imports are at risk due to the Gulf region being the primary source of these commodities. Already LPG supplies in India are under stress. The sinking of Iranian Naval ship which had been participating in naval exercises in India and had participated in the International Fleet review in February, so close to Indian waters just off the coast of Sri Lanka has caused embarrassment to India. GOI has tried to play down this incident but this brazen action by US Navy has dented Indian Navy's often touted claim of being the net security provider in the Indian Ocean Region. PM Modi's state visit to Israel and acceptance of Knesset Speaker's medal just on the eve of this War, has been bad optics for India. The delayed and muted reaction to this war by India is also noticeable. India, by not condemning this war, stood out from its BRICS partners Russia, China and Brazil.  

The cost of this war is not limited to West Asia alone but has global ramifications. Gulf being the energy center of the world and a region with overwhelming number of immigrant population, any instability in this region directly or indirectly affects every household in the the world. Given such a large impact of this war, it is essential that the west should have had very well thought out reason for engaging in this war. Regime change was not a likely outcome of this war without out right invasion which was unlikely from the outset. The prospect of another mowing the grass war every few months or years will plunge West Asia into another crisis and the world economy will continue to remain hostage to instability in the Gulf. India will have to find its feet and break from Israel and USA on this issue and stand with those bystander countries whose economies are being damaged by this war, to ensure that this war now comes to an end and a repeat war of this nature is not imposed by Israel and US again. 

The risk of Iran now overtly becoming a nuclear weapons power by testing a device and causing a ripple effect in the region with Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey following suite also exists. Iran has every incentive to test a nuclear device now, if it still has the capability left. In such a scenario it would become necessary for India to resume open ended nuclear testing and develop a robust thermonuclear arsenal (as has been advocated in past by Bharat Karnad, K Santhanam, P K Iyengar and Ashok Parthasarathi) and much longer range delivery systems to secure itself in a changing world order.