At a time when, after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, Iran’s women have stepped out to demonstrate and free themselves of the brutally enforced hijab, protests that the West has supported, New Delhi has chosen not to speak on the subject. The diplomatic posture is no surprise, as it is in line with both India’s consistent support to the Iranian government, as well as its refusal to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries or comment on their treatment of women or minorities — with the exception of Pakistan, on which the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) comments quite regularly. For its part, the Iranian government has also maintained a silence over the curbs on hijab in classrooms in Karnataka, although it did issue a demarche over the comments on the Prophet made by a ruling party spokesperson this year, and it sometimes comments on Kashmir.
Suffice it to say that neither the hijab curbs in Karnataka nor the Iranian hijab enforcement measures came up during the meeting this month between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand on September 16. India and Iran have lived with one another for centuries, said Mr. Modi, highlighting that “ties are marked by historic and civilisational connections, including strong people to people contacts”.
Instead, it is the more delicate tightrope walk the two sides must negotiate over trade, connectivity and energy issues that took centre-stage, areas where India would have much to gain, but many interests to counter-balance if it chooses to improve ties with Iran. In a sense this is India’s catch-22 problem with Iran: each issue of bilateral cooperation comes with a new set of problems in other bilateral relations.
