India-Iran Relations

Progress, Problems and Prospects

Sujata Ashwarya

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351987073
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines India's relationship with Iran since the post-World War II period and its unique search for meaningful bilateral ties in the West Asian region in the context of the changing regional and international scenarios. The four chapters highlight the achievements and constraints on the development of Indo-Iranian relations during the Cold War era; opportunities and limitations in bilateral engagements between India and Iran in the aftermath of the Cold War; impact of the 'US factor' on the development of crucial Indo-Iranian energy ties and the limitation imposed by India's relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia on the India–Iran ties. More specifically, the four chapters touch on the central drivers—energy imports, access to Central Asia, cooperation in Afghanistan, mutual trade and economic investments and security ties—of India's Iran policy, and how they structure India's interaction with the other countries of the region and impact on the articulation of national interests. Combining a rich interplay of facts and figures with nuanced analyses, this volume will be a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers, diplomats and any interested reader desirous of knowing more about Indo-Iranian relations in particular and India's West Asia policy in general.

Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

1.
The Cold War Years, 1947-1992

When independent India embarked upon the task of articulating its foreign relations, the West Asian region figured prominently in the minds of its policymakers. The region being in the “proximate neighbourhood” was immediately considered as vital to the security and stability of India. More so, because Pakistan, as it emerged warring and hostile towards India, straddled the borders of the West Asian region and the Indian subcontinent, separating them for the first time in history. The 560-mile-long border that India had earlier shared with Iran now being shared by Pakistan. This increased Iran’s significance in India’s eyes from both the political and strategic points of view. Conversely, Iran considered the security and stability of Pakistan as vital to its own interest, and therefore, considered that it had stakes in the affairs of the Indian subcontinent right from the very beginning. Pakistan consequently became a crucial factor in the Indo-Iranian relations for almost two decades—till a combination of factors diminished its importance.

The emergence of India and Pakistan as independent states in 1947 had reverberations for the West Asian region. While the two were warring states, mutually suspicious of each other, Pakistan was all the more so, fearing domination by India—a bigger, larger neighbour. Pakistan’s anti-India propaganda—aimed at securing legitimacy and winning friends—did gather sympathetic ears among the West Asian countries at that time. There was a considerable sympathy for Pakistan in the Iranian press, but the Iranian government of the day itself remained well disposed towards India, a fact acknowledged by Nehru himself. Even before India’s independence and the birth of Pakistan, Iran had participated in the first Asian Relations Conference held in New Delhi in March 1947, as a gesture of goodwill towards India. At the meeting, the Iranian delegate extended his country’s friendship and good wishes for India’s impending independence from the British colonial rule, cognisant of the shared historical experience of colonialism and occupation.

India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru too extended support to Iran in its dispute with the former USSR. Nehru, mindful of Iran’s struggles with constant interference by the Western powers, extended support to the Iranian demand for the withdrawal of the Red Army from the northern province of Azerbaijan, although he desisted from criticising the former Soviet Union. Nonetheless, he was categorical when he said that the Indian public opinion would strongly resent any aggression towards Iran or Turkey by any great power.¹ Again, when international furore erupted over Iran’s move to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian oil company in 1951, which was seen across the post-colonial states as an attempt to get rid of European imperialism, India extended its support for the Iranian move. However, Nehru was pragmatic and perhaps prescient, when he implored both the parties to have a peaceful settlement.²

Significantly, during this period, Iran also tried to steer clear of the Cold War bloc politics and pursue an independent foreign policy under Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadiq, which was similar to Nehru’s non-alignment. Non-alignment was the cornerstone of independent India’s foreign policy, predicated on the twin goals of autonomous domestic development and independence in the forging of foreign relations that would be compatible with one’s own national interest. In the context of the Cold War superpower rivalry between United States and the former Soviet Union that led to the formation of military blocs and alliance system, the non-aligned doctrine called for the perusal of a diplomatic path free of superpower domination and affiliation to one bloc or another. Jawaharlal Nehru declared, “We will not attach ourselves to any particular group. That has nothing to do with neutrality or passivity or anything else…”³ The ideas of non-alignment became immensely popular among the states of Asia, Africa and Latin America in the 1950s, even though the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was formally launched as an international organisation only in 1961 in Belgrade.

In October 1944, Mossadiq made a speech in the Majlis in the course of which he advocated a policy of Negative Equilibrium that embodied Iran’s pursuit of national autonomy, after having been through a phase of disturbing entanglements with imperialism and occupation during World War II.⁴ Mossadiq’s policy of Negative Equilibrium “advocated Iran’s maintenance of neutral stance in international affairs and sought to curtail foreign control of Iranian resources.”⁵ Under Mossadiq, “Iran refused like India to be drawn into one or other of the two great power blocs and clung tenaciously, if a little hopelessly, to her neutrality,” notes Elwell-Sutton.⁶ Although, the Negative Equilibrium policy preceded NAM, unlike the latter, it could not develop and achieve international recognition. Unlike in India where there was a broad national consensus on Nehru’s non-aligned policy, Mossadiq had to face two chief antagonists to his policy. One was the Tudeh (the Communist Party of Iran), which announced its own concept of ‘positive equilibrium’—a pro-Soviet stance that implied alliance with the former USSR.⁷ The other opponent to the policy of neutrality was the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who favoured a close alignment with the Western alliance system led by the United States.

The ousting of Mossadiq in a CIA-abetted coup and the reinstatement of the Shah in August 1953 terminated Iran’s brief experiment with foreign policy autonomy and put the country firmly into the Western camp. It had an inevitable impact on the Indo-Iranian bilateral relations. Christine Fair observes that “the friendship soon grew complicated [as] India and Iran found themselves enmeshed in the complex web of international relations of the Cold War.”⁸

Baghdad Pact and the Pakistan Issue

The Iranian monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, harboured a deep sense of suspicion toward the former Soviet Union, having witnessed the reluctance of the Red Army to vacate Iranian territory after the end of hostilities during World War II and saw his security interests as coalescing with that of the United States. Consequently, in 1955, Reza Shah entered into the US-sponsored ‘Baghdad Pact’—along with Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey and the United Kingdom—intended to counter the threat of Soviet expansion into the vital West Asian oil-producing regions, by lining up strong states along its south-western frontier.⁹ While the Soviet threat loomed large in the Shah’s perception in the 1950s and 1960s, it was also his ambition to catapult Iran into a regional power which he believed could be achieved only by aligning with the Western powers. As Christian Emery notes, “The Shah’s vision was to establish Iran as a regionally pre-ponderant and militarily self-sufficient power.”¹⁰ Therefore, throughout the Shah’s rule till 1979, Iran maintained close strategic relations with the United States, obtaining economic and military aid, which remained his highest priority.¹¹

In contrast, India’s non-aligned foreign policy rejected the bloc politics of the superpowers in favour of independent decision-making, with multilateralism as its basic underpinning.¹² India, imbued with the ideals of anti-colonialism and peaceful coexistence, refused to be a party to any alliance that contributed to the militarisation of the world and instead led the NAM that grew into a conglomeration of post colonial nations. Nehru believed that alliances sponsored by the superpowers militarised the global community and endangered international peace and security; he described the formation of the Baghdad Pact as “a wrong approach, a dangerous approach and a harmful approach” to international relations.¹³ In the early days of heady non-alignment, Nehru had little time for aligned nations and their security imperatives—an attitude that was considered ‘self-righteous’ by some.¹⁴ He showed little appreciation for the Shah’s misgivings and fears about Iran’s security and integrity. As a result of Nehru’s perceived consternation for those who became part of the Cold War military pacts, a barrier was created between India and Iran. Thus, “the bipolar structure of the international system became the ultimate arbiter of bilateral relations between India and Iran.”¹⁵

The Indo-Iranian relationship was further weakened by an improved relationship between Iran and Pakistan that was determined by a peculiar set of geographical, political and security considerations. The Shah of Iran believed that as a neighbour, Pakistan’s security had a direct impact upon Iranian security. Iran’s long border with Pakistan could be secured if the latter remained stable and developed and any political upheaval in Islamabad could unleash ethnic and Islamist forces that could destabilise the regime in Tehran. Iran was the first country to recognise Pakistan and it established full...