A great deal has happened in the region since the Shah of Iran visited India last time in October 1974. This country has had an experience of authoritarian rule which has made a lot more people a lot more sensitive on the denial of personal liberty, suppression of dissent and maltreatment of prisoners. Mrs. Gandhi, Mr. Bhutto, Mr. Bandaranaike and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who all looked well entrenched in 1974, have since lost office, the last one his life, too, in one of the most bizarre coups in recent years. The Shah himself, though in power and reasonably secure is finding it much more difficult than before to convince even persons reasonably well disposed towards him and his efforts to modernize his country and build a strong economy not dependent on oil revenues beyond the next decade or two that the criticism against his regime emanates exclusively from hostile sources – communists and religious bigots and obscurantists. But the Shah remains a most welcome guest by virtue of his passionate commitment to peace, stability and prosperity of the region as a whole and to friendship with India. Millions of Indians will applaud if he is able to liberalise the regime in Teheran and thereby win over thousands of educated Iranians who have been alienated from his government for a variety of reasons. But that is essentially his and his countrymen’s affair. India is principally interested in exploring with him the possibility of developing further Indo-Iranian cooperation on the one hand and the viability of his larger scheme of a common market covering Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and some other countries in addition to India and Iran.
Certain sections of public opinion in this country are opposed to both on the ground that the Shah is acting on behalf of Washington which wishes to force an anti-Soviet regional grouping. This objection cannot be rejected out of hand because Iran’s ties with the United States remain extremely intimate in both the economic and the defence field and the latter has once again become quite active in the subcontinent with emphasis on this country on the specious plea that it merits special interest on account of restoration of democracy in it. But the Shah is nobody’s puppet as is evident from the role he has played since 1971in raising the prices of crude. Three other points are pertinent in this connection. First, Saudi Arabia and not Iran must be Washington’s long-term favorite by virtue of its much larger oil reserves, growing investments in the United States and its leadership position in the Arab world which Teheran just cannot match. Secondly, by virtue of its friendship with the Soviet Union, New Delhi can help promote a better understanding between Moscow and Teheran and thus assuage to some extent the Shah’s fears on the one hand and promote his independence of Washington on the other. The problem is complicated by virtue of the Kremlin’s stakes in Iraq in view of its compulsions and ambitions in the Arab world. But since the end of the Kurdish rebellion and the settlement of the Shatt-el-Arab dispute there is no direct conflict of interest between Iran and Iraq. Finally, Iran’s political orientation need not be an obstacle in the path of bilateral cooperation with India for the simple reason that it cannot prevent this country from developing similar cooperation with others, including the Soviet Union and Iraq. Indeed, the Shah knows this to be the case and accepts it.
But his larger scheme regarding the proposed common market is an altogether different matter. It is vulnerable not because it may be the thin end of the Western edge but because the other concerned countries have shown little interest in it. This is especially true of Pakistan. It has often been argued that its ruling elites, both military and civilian, are too insecure to be able to cooperate with India or a grouping involving India. But even if this argument is accepted at its face value, there is precious little New Delhi can do about it. Were Islamabad to regard the threat to be a military one, New Delhi could have taken certain steps like the establishment of demilitarized zones to reassure it. But it is apprehensive of even cultural and economic exchanges lest they undermine its “defences”. Witness the speed with which these fears have surfaced in the wake of the announcement that Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee would be visiting Islamabad and the manner in which the Kashmir issue has been resurrected by those who are anxious to ensure that the normalization of relations with India remains a limited, if not a formal, affair. Pakistan has faced a crisis of identity ever since it came into existence in 1947 and the secession of Bangladesh has not resolved it. And the irony of it is that the more India tries to befriend it, the more acute its sense of insecurity becomes.
Once it became reasonably clear in the summer of 1973 that the Shah had been finally convinced that India had no desire to work for the dismemberment of Pakistan and therefore decided to establish cordial relations with it, Mr. Bhutto and his advisers tried to fashion a strategy whereby they would, as it were, jump over Iran to develop close cooperation with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. He has since been overthrown in a military coup. But the men who fashion Pakistan’s foreign policy under the new dispensation remain the same. Also, in view of his own social outlook, General Zia-ul-Haq, too, must feel far closer to Riyadh than to Teheran. All in all it would appear that however desirable the Shah’s larger scheme in itself, Indo-Iranian cooperation is likely to flourish best in a bilateral context.