India's Ministry of External Affairs summoned Iran's ambassador in Delhi on 18-19 April and urged facilitation of India-bound vessels, the first formal diplomatic protest of the 2026 war from a major crude buyer and non-aligned power 1. The summons followed the 18 April IRGC fire on the Sanmar Herald and Jag Arnav inside the strait . Indian state refiners are estimated to hold contracts for 60 to 70 per cent of the Iranian crude now sitting uncovered by GL-U.
Delhi had held a studied public neutrality for the first 49 days of the war, even as its tankers appeared on President Trump's Hormuz toll-interdiction list. The flag-state protest format had previously reached only France and Japan, which filed formal objections on 14 April after their vessels appeared on that same list . The Indian summons extends the same format to a non-aligned Asian economy on which Iran depends commercially more than it does on either of the two prior protesters.
The diplomatic signal lands at a difficult moment for Tehran. The Foreign Ministry is simultaneously arguing that Hormuz can be managed safely for friendly parties while its IRGC fires on vessels carrying Iranian radio clearance. India's bilateral summons is a step short of a United Nations Security Council filing, but it puts on record a protest format Tehran had hoped non-aligned buyers would avoid, and it does so at a point when GL-U's lapse has already stripped Indian cargoes of legal cover under US sanctions.
