Divya Malhotra
Despite a historical relationship shaped by challenging phases, mutual interests guide India and Iran to maintain their strategic engagements bereft of ideological and geopolitical hangovers.
As two influential regional powers, India and Iran have had a historical and civilizational relationship that has withstood the challenges of geopolitical transformations and political upheavals. Yet, the relationship has been subjected to constant push and pulls with both nations managing to navigate the troubled waters through diplomatic deft and guided by the virtues of mutual interests. While numerous irritants like the Pakistan-China binary, the American-Israeli entanglement in West Asia, and Iran’s nuclear programme will continue to test this relationship, vectors of mutual interests – energy security, strategic connectivity, and regional balance – will pragmatically drive their future convergence.
Text page image: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Kazan, October 2024.
Banner image: Collage images of the Indian takeover of a part of the Chabahar Port in December 2018, and the Iranian Navy Band playing the Indian National Anthem during a ceremonial parade at Bandar-e-Abbas port, August 2015.
From the era of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, to the present, India’s relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran has been neither sentimental nor ideologically driven. Rather, this relationship has been firmly rooted in a realist pursuit of national interests.
New Delhi’s diplomatic calculus has remained steady, guided by three axioms: energy security, strategic connectivity, and regional balance. By prioritising those interests, India has successfully maintained robust ties with Iran, regardless of Tehran’s ruling regime—a strategic consistency in an unstable neighbourhood.
Image: The Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and his wife, Farah Pahlavi, with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during a state visit to India in 1970. Photo courtesy: Wikicommons.
This consistency is rooted in India’s long-term realist approach to Iran, which has endured despite the dramatic transformation of Tehran’s political system, from the pro-Western monarchy of the Shah to the revolutionary Islamic Republic. Rather than allowing regime shifts to dictate foreign policy, India has engaged Iran as a sovereign actor whose geographic centrality, energy resources, and regional influence remain vital to New Delhi’s strategic vision.
The ideological nature of Iran’s leadership, whether secular or theocratic, has mattered less than its enduring relevance to India’s interests in West Asia.
What makes this consistency particularly notable is its durability in a neighbourhood defined by volatility. West Asia’s geopolitical landscape has been shaped by regime change, proxy warfare, and fluctuating great power interventions, yet India’s Iran policy has remained largely steady.
Even as Iran’s own alliances have shifted and its relations with the West have grown increasingly adversarial, India has navigated these complexities with calibrated engagement.
Under the Shah during the 1950s and 1960s, India and Iran forged warm ties grounded in cultural affinity and mutual benefit. Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi valued Iran as a trusted neighbour and a major oil supplier, at times meeting half of India’s crude needs.
The India-Iran trade agreement of 1974 marked this era, ensuring favourable terms, credit financing, and energy stability for India.
When viewed from the prism of Realism – viz, the Realist school of thought in international relations, which contends that foreign policy is shaped less by ideology and more by the pursuit of national interests – New Delhi’s engagement with Tehran consistently mirrored this worldview, eschewing value-based alignment in favour of strategic pragmatism.
New Delhi recognised that a reliably stable Iran was foundational to its own growth and regional influence. As Iran became a consistent energy partner, India’s economic and security foundations deepened, rooted in enduring national interests rather than ideological alignment.
This historical context was further underlined during the India-Pakistan conflict of 1965, followed by the 1971 Liberation War that led to the creation of Bangladesh. Iran had militarily and diplomatically supported Pakistan during these conflicts under the aegis of their pro-Western alignment.
Toward the end of the Shah’s rule, strains began to emerge in Iran–Pakistan relations. In what was then seen as a significant diplomatic snub, the Shah refused to attend an Islamic summit in Lahore in 1974 after learning that Pakistan had extended an invitation to Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.
That same year, Iran also dismissed Islamabad’s appeal to publicly denounce India’s nuclear test “Smiling Buddha,” signalling a subtle divergence in regional alignments. This display of restrained realism continues to shape India’s belief that Iran can serve as a rational actor in regional geopolitics.
Delhi’s balancing act
The Islamic Revolution of 1979, which uprooted the Shah from power, rocked regional geopolitics. Western governments recoiled, but New Delhi did not abandon Iran.
Instead, recognising that Iran remained central to India’s strategic geography, connectivity ambitions, and energy security, New Delhi maintained open channels. An informal goodwill delegation led by Ashok Mehta visited Tehran soon after, and India continued economic and diplomatic engagement with the new regime despite Iran’s ideological shift.
Even during the 1980s, amid Iran hosting pro-Kashmir Islamist groups, decision-makers understood that preserving communication with Tehran served India’s broader interests.
After formally forging ties with Israel in 1992, India has walked a delicate balance between two adversaries. New Delhi compartmentalised these dynamics with a distinct strategic flavour: initiating defence cooperation with Israel while maintaining energy and economic engagement with Iran.
Image: Dr. Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, with the President of India and the External Affairs Minister during his visit to New Delhi, May 2025. Photo courtesy: PIB
Since then, India’s Iran policy has been emblematic of its broader foreign policy ethos—anchored in strategic autonomy. Rather than binding itself to rigid alliances, New Delhi has crafted a flexible web of partnerships rooted in mutual interest and pragmatic cooperation.
This approach allows India to pursue national security objectives—rooted in energy, connectivity, or regional strategic balance—without external constraint or ideological alignment.
This balance has been especially visible in multilateral forums such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). During the Iran nuclear negotiations and subsequent sanctions era, India supported diplomatic dialogue over isolation while adhering to UN mandates.
India voted in favour of a resolution in September 2005, calling on Iran to enhance its cooperation with the Agency. It was the first time India had voted against Iran’s nuclear programme. However, the draft was carefully drafted to avoid immediate referral to the UN Security Council, thus preserving diplomatic space while upholding non-proliferation norms.
In November 2009, India cast a pivotal vote against Iran at the IAEA, censuring Tehran for advancing a clandestine uranium enrichment facility. The vote underscored New Delhi’s commitment to preventing nuclear proliferation in the neighbourhood and safeguarding its credibility on the global stage.
The episode occurred during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose anti-Western rhetoric and defiance of international norms had deepened global distrust of Tehran.
Crucially, it came a year after India concluded its 2008 Civil Nuclear Agreement with the US, a landmark deal signalling Delhi’s readiness to align more closely with Western frameworks to secure both access to peaceful nuclear technology and global legitimacy. Thus, India’s stance in 2009 can be understood as both consistent with its non-proliferation postures and motivated by its growing energy and diplomatic ties with the U.S.
However, India never severed its bilateral ties with Tehran.
In fact, President Ahmadinejad visited New Delhi in 2008, the same year India signed the landmark civil nuclear deal with the US. Later, in 2012, Tehran hosted the 16th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit, which was attended by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
These engagements reflected the enduring pragmatism in India–Iran relations, both sides acknowledged their strategic compulsions and sought a workable middle ground despite external pressures.
Even after the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, India advocated for continued engagement with Iran, arguing that unilateral sanctions undermined global order. At the same time, India began reducing Iranian oil imports under U.S. pressure of sanctions and gradually increased reliance on Russian crude oil to meet its energy needs.
More recently, in June 2024, India abstained from voting on an IAEA resolution critical of Iran, reflecting a calculated decision to preserve its energy and strategic ties with Tehran while acknowledging legitimate concerns over Tehran’s nuclear transparency.
Navigating between the US, Iran and Russia required a careful calibration of interests without breaking diplomatic bridges.
The ‘Tehran Declaration’ of 2001 and the ‘New Delhi Declaration’ of 2003, along with the Chabahar port initiative of 2018 and the renewal of this port contract in 2024, demonstrated India’s sustained realist interest: leveraging Iranian geography to access Afghanistan, Central Asia, and reduced dependency on Pakistan.
Both declarations articulated a clear framework for strategic cooperation rooted in mutual interests.
The Tehran Declaration emphasised energy security, including long-term oil and gas supply agreements, development of transit routes, and shared concerns over extremism in the region. The New Delhi Declaration expanded this agenda to include defence cooperation, intelligence sharing, coordinated responses to terrorism, and the operationalisation of the North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).
These events reflected a pragmatic convergence: two civilisational states anchoring their partnership in tangible, interest-based priorities within a volatile regional landscape.
Even as sanctions mounted, India continued importing Iranian oil and expanded the Rupee–Rial payment mechanism, isolating energy trade from geopolitical turbulence.
In this context, it is worthwhile to note the significance of the 2022 statement by India’s External Affairs Minister (EAM). S. Jaishankar, which implicitly highlighted the Western hypocrisy on global issues. Jaishankar had exclaimed that the West believes that its problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not its problems.
Beyond flagging the inherent double standards in the Western approach, the EAM’s remarks were seen as a sharp articulation of India’s strategic autonomy in the face of Western pressure. More recently, as tensions between Iran and Israel escalated to a war scenario, India called for restraint from all parties, balancing its engagement with both Iran and Israel.
India’s Chabahar engagement has also acquired renewed significance amid shifting global trade corridors. In May 2024, India signed a ten-year agreement to operate the Shahid Beheshti terminal at the Chabahar port, reaffirming its long-term vision for connectivity.
With the revival of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) in 2022—marked by the successful transit of goods by Russia’s RZD logistics to India via Iranian territory—India’s sustained investment in Iran’s port infrastructure has bolstered its role as a critical link in emerging Eurasian trade routes.
This also signals that India is prepared to derisk regional access routes beyond China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), enhancing both economic and strategic resilience.
Tehran’s realpolitik: Navigating between rivals
Image: Collage photos of the Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, with the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers.
New Delhi’s strategic coherence mirrors that of Tehran. Iran, too, pursues realist balancing between Pakistan, China, and India, managing its external relations to maximise national interest.
Tehran’s ties with Beijing are illustrative. China remains the largest buyer of Iran’s oil—a lifeline for Iran’s global energy economics. Both countries share a 25-year strategic accord signed in 2021, involving Chinese commitments of USD 300–400 billion in energy, infrastructure, high-speed rail, ports, and even technology sectors such as 5G and AI.
Yet when conflict flares—such as during the recent Israeli airstrikes on Iran—China’s response remains cautious and risk-averse, emphasising de-escalation while ensuring economic continuity.
Many reports underscore Pakistan’s acute concern over Iranian instability and militant spillover across their porous 900-km border—where ethnic Baloch separatists and Sunni radicals could exploit a power vacuum. Both nations engage in diplomatic signalling: Pakistan condemns Israeli actions against Iran as “a violation of all norms of international law,” while Iran reciprocates concern over Pakistani security interests and its position on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Militarily, the stalled Iran–Pakistan gas pipeline remains a signalling device: initiated in 2013, shelved under sanctions in 2014, but still emblematic of the two countries’ willingness to manage economic potential even through turbulent politics. Although construction on the Pakistani side has been stalled and the project faces legal threats under international sanctions, neither Tehran nor Islamabad has officially terminated the agreement.
The pipeline exists in a state of strategic limbo, neither fully dead nor alive, but is periodically revived in diplomatic discourse, underscoring its symbolic function. In realist terms, such initiatives operate less as immediate economic instruments and more as long-term signalling tools, reflecting intent to cooperate and hedge against geopolitical volatility.
For Delhi, these recurring negotiations are of interest not only due to their regional energy implications but also as indicators of Iran’s calibrated outreach to Islamabad.
This balancing is also evident in Iran’s nuanced positioning on Kashmir. While Tehran has periodically issued statements criticising human rights violations, it has stopped short of fully endorsing Pakistan’s stance. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s remarks on Kashmir in 2017 and 2024 provoked a diplomatic response from India, though the relationship did not rupture.
Iran’s leadership has long employed a nuanced vocabulary when referencing Kashmir—shaping its rhetoric not just for ideological solidarity, but from calculated geopolitical intent.
There were instances when Tehran has raised the issue to position itself as a voice for the broader Islamic Ummah. At other times, such commentary has subtly coincided with efforts to nudge India away from alignment with U.S. sanctions policy or push Delhi towards continued engagement in Iranian oil trade.
Divya Malhotra is a research fellow with the Centre for National Security Studies (CNSS), Bangalore. She holds a PhD in West Asian studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
The article was published in The Polity as It takes two to tango: How mutual interests guide India-Iran ties on 01 August 2025.
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.
Acknowledgement: This article was posted by Tanmyi Anthwal, Research Intern at IMPRI.
Read more at IMPRI:
Service Plus (2012): Metadata-based E-service Delivery Framework
M K Bhan Young Researcher Fellowship Programme (MKB-YRFP), 2020-21
