India-Iran relations beyond Khamenei and ongoing war

The assassination of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is roiling the domestic politics in India as the opposition criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi government's silence on the issue.

India has so far refrained from condemning the assassination of Ali Khamenei even as it criticised Iranian strikes on Gulf countries and called for restraint, dialogue and de-escalation in West Asia.

The government's response has drawn sharp political reactions from the opposition parties, with Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, in a newspaper article, termed the government's silence an "abdication" rather than neutrality.

The same day the article was published on Tuesday (3 March), Rahul Gandhi, in a post on X, too criticized the Modi government's silence on the Ali Khamenei killing issue.

Modi has spoken to leaders across the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Jordan, condemning attacks on their territories and emphasising the safety of the nearly one crore Indians living and working in the region. However, Modi is yet to speak to his Iranian counterpart.

In his separate conversations with Gulf leaders, Modi has emphasized the need for restoring regional peace and thanked them for ensuring the well-being of Indians living there.

Citing government sources, leading Indian dailies The Times of India and The Hindu said New Delhi's responses are guided by national interests, including energy security, the welfare of nearly one crore Indians living and working in West Asia, Middle East and strategic partnerships in the Gulf. This was evident in a long statement issued by the External Affairs Ministry on Tuesday (3 March).

India's former Ambassador to Iran Rakesh Sood was quoted by The Hindu as saying that there are at least three reasons behind New Delhi's decision not comment directly on the killings in Iran.

"First, the challenge of navigating today's complex geopolitics. Second, a circumscribed relationship overall with Iran in recent decades, despite the Chabahar port. And third, Khamenei's criticism of India on the issues of Kashmir and the treatment of minorities," he said.

India's engagement with the Gulf has gone up significantly in the past decade, spanning sectors like energy, defence and connectivity.

It may be noted that in 2015, India invested politically and economically in the Chabahar port project in Iran that would allow India access to Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan and Afghanistan.

India and Iran signed a MoU in 2015 to jointly cooperate on the development of the Shahid Beheshti Port at Chabahar, Iran as a major regional and international hub in the movement of humanitarian and commercial goods. This would also give India shorter land route access to central Asia bypassing Pakistan. In May 2016, Modi had paid a bilateral visit to Iran.

In recent months, however, the project came under US sanctions and India slowed down its involvement in it. The same is the reason for India scaling down its import of energy from Iran in recent years.

The rough edges in India-Iran relations started showing between 2017 and 2024. New Delhi took strong exception to Ali Khamenei commenting on India's internal issues, ranging from the abolition of Article 370, which ended Indian Kashmir's special constitutional status, to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that gives Indian citizenship to minorities who came from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till 2014 and the Delhi riots of 2024.

These comments by Khamenei prompted India to summon Iranian envoys each time and reject his remarks as interference in India's domestic affairs.

In 2017, Ali Khamenei called on the Islamic world to support what he described as "oppressed Muslims of Kashmir."

After the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019 by the BJP-led federal government that ended the special constitutional status of India's only Muslim-majority region Jammu and Kashmir, Ali Khamenei went on record to urge India to adopt a "just policy" on Kashmir, following which the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) summoned the Iranian envoy in New Delhi.

During the January 2020 debate over the CAA that gives Indian citizenship to non-Muslims who came to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, Iran's parliament Speaker criticised the law as "anti-Muslim discrimination." India also rejected this as interference in its internal affairs.

In March 2020, amid the Delhi riots, Khamenei tweeted that India should "confront extremist Hindus," described the violence as a "massacre of Muslims," and warned of "isolation from the world of Islam," using the hashtag #IndianMuslimsInDanger. The MEA again summoned the Iranian Ambassador.

In September 2024, Khamenei placed India alongside Myanmar and Gaza in a social media post, drawing an official response from the MEA calling the remarks "misinformed and unacceptable."

It is important to note that the Modi government and the Indian opposition have been at loggerheads on the issue of Article 370 abolition, CAA and Delhi riots.