Indo-Iran Relations Striding on Thin Cord

Indo-Iran Relations Striding on Thin Cord

Indo-Iran Relations Striding on Thin Cord

Relations between India and Iran date back to the Neolithic age. The existence of several empires spanning both in Persia and northern India ensured the constant migration of people between the two regions and the spread and evolution of the Indo-Iranian language groups. As a consequence, the people of Northern India and Iran share significant cultural, linguistic and ethnic characteristics.

Recent high-level visits by officials of both the countries have been termed as a new reset in Indo-Iranian relations by many geopolitical observers. The delicate rapport between the two Asian countries that was not so long ago considered to be perfect got marred by the issues that were outside of their bilateral paradigm. The relationship got soured after Indian withdrawal from proposed IPI pipeline in 2009, while later in 2013 Pakistan-Iran signed the bilateral accord bypassing India. Relations further nosed down after   India had voted along with the US, China and other major powers in favour of a German-sponsored resolution at the IAEA on referring the Iran nuclear programme yet again to the UN Security Council in November 2011, perceived by many under US duress.

India has been the second largest importer of Iranian oil after China. On one hand, India is being forced by US to cut down the Iranian oil imports and on the other India is also not able to pay back Iranians for its oil imports as Iran has been already barred from the international financial transaction system.

India and Iran used to have convergence on a variety of geopolitical issues from Central Asia to West Asia and beyond. Afghanistan is one of the most important issues in the bin where both the countries have ample convergence of opinion. India and Iran with Russia have supported Northern Alliance against the Taliban in the Afghan civil war before the US-led invasion in the year 2001.

After US forces thrown out of Taliban from Kabul and Kandahar, India emerged as one of the leading aid contributors to the development of Afghanistan. The then Iranian President Mohammad Khatami also supported the US invasion of Afghanistan for the multiplicity of the reason. Both India and Afghanistan have welcomed the overthrow of Taliban from Afghanistan.

After more than a decade of asymmetric warfare, the exhausted United States has decided to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan until the end of 2014 and started negotiating with the Taliban for the Political settlement of Afghanistan’s future government structure. India and Iran both do not want Taliban to come to power once again in Afghanistan. Taliban’s pro-Pakistan policies and their acrimony towards Shi’iets in general and for Iran in particular, is wide open.

India has developed 218 kilometres long Zaranj-Delaram Highway in Afghanistan to the Afghan-Iran border that further connects with the Cha Bahar port in the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan. The port has also been partially funded by India. The Cha Bahar port via this highway provides India access to Afghanistan and resource rich, untapped Central Asia market, where India is eying energy and mineral’s contracts with the Central Asian countries.

India is also concerned with Chinese takeover of the management of Pakistani deep-sea water port at Gwadar in the restive but strategically important province of Baluchistan. China also funded the most in the development of the warm-water port. Gwadar port provides China the outpost in the Indian Ocean on the tip of the strait of Homruz in Persian Gulf wherefrom almost 60% of world’s oil passes through a narrow strait. China is planning to build rail, road connectivity and pipeline from Gwadar to its Xinjiang province to transport oil and other goods.  The Gwadar port may easily be transformed into naval facility for combined Pakistan- China use or for later only, in the coming future.

Since India has promoted its relationship with the US to the strategic level and managed the Indo-US civil nuclear. The new improved relationship with the US has forced India to follow US sanctions that are outside the scope of already slated UN sanctions make Indian life difficult to deal with Iran. On one hand, India cannot stop importing Iranian oil while on the other Iran provides great strategic depth and leverage for the Indian schematic in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Iran has huge influence on another major oil exporter, Iraq whose Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki visited India in August 2013 in an attempt to consolidate the bilateral relations. Iran’s enormous influence post-2013 will be a force multiplier for new Indo-Iranian reset.

Syria crisis is another consternation where India and Iran hold almost the same view, albeit not openly. India does not want radical Islamic forces to overthrow secular Baathist government of President Bashar Al-Assad. Iran is the staunchest supporter of Al-Assad regime in Syria along with Russians. The visit of Bouthaini Shabaan, political adviser to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, to India on 8 March 2013 is seen in the same direction and precisely succeeded by Larigani’s visit to India in February. It is perceived that the Syrian regime wants Indian diplomatic support in the international arena, and Iran is backing the Syrians to present their case to politicians and diplomats in New Delhi.

India has large Shia Muslim population that is considered to be third after very own Iranian and Pakistani Shia population and Iran having a very high place in the minds and hearts of Indian Shiite Muslims. The well-thought-out Indo-Iran’s relationship will provide the former with a strategic asset to deal with the complex geopolitics of greater Middle East. Iran provides India a great leverage and space to manoeuvre in the resource rich highly volatile region.

Both India and Iran are the observers of Shanghai Cooperation organisation (SCO) and endeavouring to play a constructive role in post US-NATO withdrawal in Afghanistan and in Central Asia with the alliance of Russians. Many observers are of the belief that India should ask for full membership in SCO, whereas Iran is more than ready to get the upgradation in the organisation termed as NATO of the East.

Keeping all these factors in mind, India has to stride on a very thin rope where on one hand, it needs the USA as a global super power to counter growing Chinese influence, and on the other it has to strengthen its relationship with Iran and to put it back to standard and later convert it to the strategic one. Iran, due to a variety of reasons, is very vital for Indian interest in the Middle East, Central Asia and even to the Caucasus. 

Suffice to say that Indo-Iranian strategic relationship will bestow India with a long and hard leash to manoeuvre in the regional power equilibrium and shall offer the adequate strategic depth in West and Central Asia. The balance of bilateral relationship involving two countries is more than between two energy importing and exporting nations, it has huge latent scope, and both the countries are expected to revitalise the engagement in time to come.