India-Iran Relations: A Deepening Entente

Abstract

Abstract : Ties between India and Iran date to the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great. The nations have long influenced each other in the fields of culture, art, architecture, and language, especially during the 1526-1757 period, when the Mughals ruled India. India and Iran also shared a border until 1947. Notwithstanding these connections, Iran s alignment with the West during much of the Cold War and India s nonalignment policy prevented the two countries from closely interacting. During India s wars with Pakistan, Iran helped the latter with military hardware. After Iran s Islamic revolution, New Delhi s dissatisfaction centered on Iranian support for Kashmiri aspirations and Tehran s efforts to spread its Islamic revolution. This era, however, has been followed by a significant improvement in ties in more recent years. This process has been abetted by a deterioration in Pakistan-Iran relations following the Iranian Revolution and increased hostility by Tehran toward Sunnidominated Pakistan. Incidents such as the May 2004 bomb attack on worshippers at a Shiite mosque in Karachi obviously still anger Tehran. Iran also was perturbed by Islamabad s role in creating the Taliban and in helping it to take control of Afghanistan. From Tehran s perspective, Pakistan s motives in creating the Taliban included a desire to eliminate Iranian influence from Afghanistan, prevent the expansion of Iran s presence in Central Asia, and block a southern export route through Iran for Central Asian energy. Building in part on Iran s problems with Pakistan and on Islamabad s failure to play a proactive regional role, Indo-Iranian relations were first boosted by the visit to Iran of Indian Prime Minister Rao in 1993, the first Indian prime minister to visit since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.