Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn’t wait for the dust to settle. He didn't wait for the usual diplomatic focus groups to scrub the passion out of a press release. Within hours of the Hamas attack, the tweet was live. India stands with Israel. "In this moment and beyond."

It’s a sharp pivot. For decades, New Delhi played the middle. It practiced a kind of calculated neutrality that looked like a high-wire act, trying to balance its historical support for the Palestinian cause with a growing hunger for Israeli hardware. But that wire just snapped.

Modi’s "beyond" isn’t just a flowery expression of sympathy. It’s a roadmap. If you want to understand why India is suddenly the most vocal supporter of the "Startup Nation" in the Global South, you have to look past the condolences and into the ledger. This isn't just about shared grief. It’s about a $1.2 billion port, a suitcase full of spyware, and a desperate need to rewrite the rules of global trade.

Let’s talk about the friction. A few months ago, the big talk in D.C. and New Delhi was the IMEC—the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. It was supposed to be the "Spice Route" for the fiber-optic age, a massive rail and shipping link designed to bypass the Suez Canal and keep China’s Belt and Road Initiative from owning the future. Israel is the linchpin of that plan. If the Middle East stays on fire, that corridor stays on paper. Modi isn’t just defending a democratic ally; he’s defending a supply chain that India’s economic ego depends on.

Then there’s the tech. India is the world’s largest buyer of Israeli military equipment. We aren't just talking about old-school rifles and artillery. We’re talking about the invisible stuff. The drones. The surveillance tech. The NSO Group’s Pegasus software, which has popped up on the phones of Indian activists and journalists with suspicious regularity. New Delhi has spent years importing the Israeli security state’s playbook. When Modi says India shares Israel’s grief, he’s also acknowledging a shared philosophy: that internal security and tech-driven border management are the only things keeping a modern state from sliding into the abyss.

The old guard in the Ministry of External Affairs is probably twitching. They remember a time when India led the Non-Aligned Movement, championing the marginalized and keeping a healthy distance from Western-aligned military powers. But that India is dead. The new India prefers the "I2U2" group—India, Israel, the UAE, and the US. It’s a club for people who want to move money and data without worrying too much about the messy optics of occupation or historical grievances.

But there’s a cost to this clarity. By tethering India’s regional strategy so tightly to Netanyahu’s survival, Modi is gambling with India's massive diaspora in the Gulf. There are millions of Indian workers in countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia who send home billions in remittances. If the "beyond" in Modi's statement means active military or intelligence cooperation, that labor economy gets a lot more complicated. It’s a high-stakes trade-off: the dream of a new trade route versus the reality of millions of workers sitting in a powder keg.

The rhetoric is polished. The solidarity feels real. But don't mistake this for a sudden burst of moral clarity. This is about the cold, hard realization that India’s path to becoming a global superpower runs directly through the Mediterranean. Modi has decided that the "Palestinian question" is a legacy issue, a 20th-century ghost that’s getting in the way of 21st-century business.

He’s betting that the world will eventually look like the "Digital India" he’s been selling—automated, securitized, and deeply pragmatic. It’s a world where "grief" is a shared language, but the real conversation happens in the procurement offices and the shipping hubs. The question isn't whether India will stand with Israel "beyond" this moment. The question is how much of its old identity it’s willing to burn to keep that seat at the table.

After all, what’s a little historical inconsistency when there’s a port to build and a corridor to protect?