As the Israel-US confrontation with Iran deepens, India’s cautious diplomatic response has sparked debate at home. Critics have asked why New Delhi did not issue condolences after the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader. The government, of course, has chosen restraint. Others are calling it a dereliction of duty.
However, before we see the Indo-Iranian relationship only through today’s strategic lens, it may be worth recalling a striking piece of history.
In the early 20th century, when Iranians were challenging the royal authority and demanding constitutional rights, one of the most influential voices in that struggle emerged not from Tehran. It came out of Calcutta.
In 1893, an Iranian scholar, Syed Jalaluddin Hossaini Kashani (Moayyed-ol-Islam Kirmani), started a Persian (Farsi) newspaper in Calcutta called Habl-ul-Matin (The Cord of the Master), printed in a press in the Chitpur area. The paper soon became one of the most widely read Persian newspapers globally.
Iran was then ruled by the Qajar dynasty. The Shah, the monarch from this dynasty, exercised strong control over political criticism and the press. Open calls for reform or representative government were brutally suppressed. So, reformers looked beyond Iran’s borders.
Calcutta offered something rare: modern printing presses, a busy international port and enough freedom to publish controversial ideas. From this unlikely base, Habl-ul-Matin began writing boldly about corruption, poor governance and the need for constitutional rule.
Copies of the newspaper did not travel openly. They were carried quietly into Iran through traders, travellers and pilgrims. In bazaars and homes, people read its articles discussing ideas that were still dangerous to express openly inside the country. And those ideas helped prepare the ground for a dramatic political change.
Between 1905 and 1911, Iran experienced the ‘Persian Constitutional Revolution’. The movement forced the Shah to accept a constitution and establish a national parliament, the Majlis. During those turbulent years, the Calcutta-printed Habl-ul-Matin became one of the most influential newspapers supporting the constitutional cause. Interestingly, during the same period, Calcutta and Bengal, per se, were fighting British imperialism with the Swadeshi movement.
Calcutta’s role in Persian journalism did not appear suddenly. The city already had experience publishing Persian newspapers. In 1822, Raja Rammohan Roy launched Meraat-ul-Akhbaar (Mirror of News), widely regarded as the first fully Persian weekly newspaper in the world.
Rammohan Roy used the language deliberately. Persian connected the intellectual circles across India, Central Asia and Iran. Through the paper, he argued for freedom of the press and social reform, such as the abolition of sati. When colonial authorities imposed strict press regulations in 1823, he closed the paper in protest rather than submit to censorship. His experiment showed that Calcutta already possessed the printing skill, intellectual tradition and political confidence to publish Persian journalism that spoke openly about reform.
Decades later, that tradition found a new purpose in Habl-ul-Matin.
It is an extraordinary historical irony. When Iranians debated constitutional rights and the limits of royal power, some of those arguments were first printed beside the Hooghly. India and Iran were friends then, bound by ideas and learning. I believe they remain friends even today. That civilisational link runs far deeper than the politics of the moment.
Devasis Chattopadhyay is a narrative history writer and columnist