While nations around the world have responded with statements of support for one side or the other, wishes for a quick end to hostilities and offers to mediate a peace deal, India’s lack of response on the part of its political leader is notable for being non-existent.

As missiles hit targets in Iran, Israel and several other Middle Eastern states in the past 24-hours, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi busied himself posting nearly 20 times on social media, celebrating cricketing milestones, touting business investments and marking health initiatives throughout Saturday, February 28. The following morning, he opted to post a number of birthday messages to Indian dignitaries.

Yet while one of the most consequential geopolitical flare-ups in recent years made headlines across the world, he stayed silent, making no direct statement and offering no appeal for restraint.

The silence from Modi is particularly striking, not least because he spent several days of the week prior to the outbreak of hostilities in the region. During a landmark visit to Israel, Modi was photographed pressing the flesh with his Israeli counterpart - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was an image that symbolised a new closeness between New Delhi and Jerusalem after decades of limited interaction on many fronts.

And while India as the world’s largest democracy has long prided itself on strategic autonomy when conflict breaks out, fence-sitting too often can shade into allodoxaphobia.

New Delhi has honed the art of fence-sitting into an art form of late, maintaining relations with rival camps while committing fully to neither on many occasions. In the most recent conflict this sees New Delhi purchase arms from Israel and energy from Iran, while all the time courting the US.

As one expert on India’s foreign relations told Bne IntelliNews on condition of anonymity, Modi “doesn't rush to reactions generally. He plays media / public statements very safe, and only when stakes become so low that his statement can't change anything does he issue one.”

For a government keen to project India as a rising global power and a voice of the Global South, silence may prove the loudest – but worst - message of all.