Iran conflict puts India’s cherished Middle East neutrality to the test

For years, India has prided itself on a foreign policy doctrine of “dehyphenation”: maintaining productive, parallel relations with conflicting countries such as Israel, Iran and the Arab Gulf states without letting any one bilateral tie poison the others.That doctrine is now being tested to the limit.The killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by US-Israeli strikes within days of Narendra Modi returning from a high-profile visit to Tel Aviv provided instant ammunition for the Indian prime minister’s political opposition.“Two days after Mr Modi celebrated his visit to Israel, Israel and the US have begun their joint assault on Iran,” Jairam Ramesh, general secretary of the Congress party, wrote on social media on Saturday.“This was fully expected given their military build-up in the last few months,” he said, calling the timing of Modi’s trip “shameful” in light of the strikes that followed.Modi’s government, for its part, has said India is “deeply concerned” about the Iran conflict and called for restraint and dialogue.