Indian journalists, strategic experts, retired generals, and diplomats are declaring Iran’s victory a triumph of civilizational power over a Western imperial power. Analysis of their statements and op-eds suggests a strong anti-Western bias, emotionally charged rhetoric, and a lack of logically constructed arguments to defend their positions. Nevertheless, a strong belief in the millennia-old civilizational ties between Iran and India emerges as the most common theme.
No doubt, both India and Iran have strong civilizational legacies and a history of exchange, owing to their shared Aryan ancestry and geographical proximity. However, these exchanges were not always cordial. In Hindu mythology, the Sanskrit word Deva means God, whereas in Persian, which shares a common lineage with the Indo-European language group, it denotes a demon. The Sanskrit word Asura refers to a demon, whereas in Persian it denotes a noble, God-like creature. Hindu mythology frequently depicts Asuras are battling Hindu Gods, a reference to wars between the different branches of Aryan tribes who migrated at different times and inhabited Iran and India.
No doubt, both India and Iran have strong civilizational legacies and a history of exchange, owing to their shared Aryan ancestry and geographical proximity.
However, in pre-Islamic Iran, ties were cordial. Persecuted by Islamic invaders, the Zoroastrians sought refuge in India. To this day, Zoroastrians live in India. While small, India’s Zoroastrian community has produced eminent lawyers, jurists, freedom fighters, entrepreneurs, civil servants, diplomats, and generals. The famous Persian song, “The Ballad of King Vahram,” laments the Islamic conquest, describes the invaders as barbaric and lacking valor, and invites Indian King Vahram to save Persia.
After the Islamic conquest, all this ended. Islamic Iran married its princesses to Turkish sultans and Mughal kings, the imperial masters of India, who occupied India by force, destroyed temples, converted Hindus, and levied the Islamic jizya tax. In the modern era, Iranian ruler Nadir Shah sacked Delhi in 1739, slaughtered between 20,000 and 30,000 residents, and looted the legendary Koh-i-Noor diamond. His generals continued raids into India until 1762.
The Mughals considered Iranians intellectually and culturally superior to Hindus and employed Persians as high-ranking administrators, judges, and diplomats. Persian language, culture, and mannerisms replaced Sanskrit in the courts, palaces, administration, judiciary, diplomacy, and literature. To this day, Persianized Hindi or Urdu, borrowing heavily from Persian, remains prevalent in India’s revenue records, judicial proceedings, and police records, particularly in northern India. Even Hindu elites abandoned Sanskrit, as it did not secure powerful court positions. It was cultural genocide.
This cultural genocide was most visible in Kashmir. Once a cradle of Hindu civilization and Sanskrit learning, Kashmir succumbed to the invasive Iranian influences brought by Islamization and the arrival of Iranian Sufis. Modern Kashmiris identify more with Iran than with India on cultural matters. Such attitudes have fueled separatism, extremism, and racism against Hindu minorities. Kashmir’s Shi’a consider Iran’s supreme leader as their source for emulation and accord him a status higher than India’s constitutional head. Notably, they donated $5–$6 million to Iran during the ongoing conflict.
The Indian strategic community’s inherent anti-Americanism, a remnant of its colonial and Cold War legacy, also drives its attitudes.
The lingering impact of this Islamic cultural colonization continued to shape India’s consciousness, in turn shaping the thought processes of India’s strategic community. Independent India’s early diplomatic and political elites embraced Mughal etiquette, culture, and language. It was a variant of Stockholm syndrome. They chose to whitewash the brutalities of India’s Islamic history, and adored Iran and general Islamic history as an epitome of civilizational refinement and glory.
Similar attitudes persist among today’s diplomats, strategic experts, and military leadership. Skeptical, ignorant, and ashamed of India’s pre-Islamic cultural and religious identity, India’s strategic community, until recently, found Israel untouchable, lest they be branded as fanatic communalists. Taking positions favoring Palestinians and Iran was their instrument to prove their secular credentials. The continued presence of such mental attitudes, beliefs, and ideological undercurrents also generated ignorance and collective amnesia about India’s national security interests, even among the Hindu nationalist strategic thought leaders.
In more recent times, Iran’s shah offered logistical facilities to Pakistan during the 1965 war with India. The Islamic regime’s sympathies with Kashmiri separatists are open. Most recently, Tehran criticized the Modi government’s 2020 measures against illegal Muslim immigrants.
Additionally, the Indian strategic community’s inherent anti-Americanism, a remnant of its colonial and Cold War legacy, also drives its attitudes. The recent downswing in U.S.-India relations, due to President Donald Trump’s anti-India stance after a four-day India-Pakistan war in May 2025, has embittered Indians to the extent that many now derive pleasure from U.S. difficulties in Iran.
