The ongoing Iranian crisis again exposes India’s confused Middle East policy. India’s historical pro-Palestinian stance, reluctance to declare Hamas a terrorist group, and its conciliatory approach towards the Islamic Republic—despite India’s 1,200-year struggle against jihadism, temple destructions, forced conversions, and Hindu genocide by Islamists—defies common sense. So, too, does the decision by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, known for its stance against Islamism and its criticism of previous Indian National Congress governments for their pro-Islamist policies and hesitance to strengthen ties with Jerusalem, to vote against the United Nations resolution sanctioning Iran’s Islamist regime.
On the Iranian protests, India’s current government is silent.
The Hindu right-wing ecosystem, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh volunteer paramilitary, and their podcasters, influencers, nonprofits, student organizations, and media have zero tolerance for Islamist terror. This anti-Islamism has been the cornerstone of their election campaigns, resulting in three consecutive national victories. However, on the Iranian protests, India’s current government is silent.
Jihadi terrorist groups revere Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for displacing a secular government and replacing it with an Islamist one. The instrumentality of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution in enabling the growth of modern jihadism and inspiring terrorist groups from Kashmir to Lebanon, continues to be a matter of academic research in counterterrorism circles.
India, being a victim of both Pakistan-supported terrorism and transnational Islamist networks, has no reason to appease the Iranian regime as it faces its worst crisis. Tehran has both promoted the radicalization of Shi’a in Kashmir, and contributed to separatist sentiment among them. On various occasions, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has branded the Kashmir jihadist movement as a fight for freedom, drawing false parallels with Gaza. Iran has also cultivated sleeper terrorist cells in India and allegedly used them to target the Israeli embassy in New Delhi.
Facing pressure over its decade-long involvement in the Chabahar port project due to rising U.S.-Iran tensions and its growing proximity to Jerusalem, India now accepts the prospect of failure in Chabahar and considers withdrawal. China’s growing influence in Iran leaves its strategic connectivity projects vulnerable to Chinese sabotage. Furthermore, the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a U.S.-brokered multimodal corridor across Armenia’s Syunik province, could block Iran’s access to Russia, further weakening the prospects of Chabahar port, as a part of the International North-South Transport Corridor.
Additionally, Iran’s intransigence, repression of civilians, and ties with terrorists should embarrass India as it builds free-trade agreements and strategic partnerships with Western democracies.
Torture and murders of Iranian citizens protesting inflation, demanding jobs, water, religious freedom, and quality of life, find little audience in India.
Delhi’s behavior is hypocritical. Indian right-wing organizations protested wearing the hijab in schools and colleges. Al Qaeda chief Ayman Al Zawahiri’s subsequent support created a political embarrassment. Today, India’s right-wing intellectuals dismiss Iranian women’s anti-hijab outrage as an outcome of American intervention. When Islamists slaughter Hindus in Bangladesh, Indian news channels shout; however, torture and murders of Iranian citizens protesting inflation, demanding jobs, water, religious freedom, and quality of life, find little audience in India. Even though India takes pride in its commitment to a rules-based world order, democracy and multiculturalism, and condemns Pakistan’s military dictatorship and terror factories, it has no qualms in standing with China, Russia, and Pakistan in the United Nations.
The only purpose Modi’s pro-Iran stance serves is to generate favorable optics in India. Against the backdrop of tension between Modi and President Donald Trump, with Modi facing accusations of giving in to American pressure on Russian oil purchases, and his criticism over the new universities’ regulation that allegedly discriminates against upper-caste Hindus, his supporters’ projection of India’s pro-Iran stance as Modi’s defiance of the United States serves as a diversion. The other reasons that can explain India’s stance are both Modi’s over-reliance on a bureaucracy reeling under the Cold War hangover with socialist baggage, and the absence of strategic thinkers in the political leadership.
