Regardless of robust ties, Khamenei’s previous criticisms embody India’s dealing with of Muslim affairs and the Kashmir area.
India has slammed Iran’s supreme chief for feedback on the remedy of its Muslim minority.
India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs stated in a press release on Monday that remarks made by Ali Khamenei in a publish on X had been “misinformed and unacceptable.” Whereas India and Iran typically take pleasure in shut relations, the angle of India’s Hindu nationalist authorities towards minorities has led to disagreements up to now.
“International locations making feedback about minorities are suggested to have a look at their very own observe document earlier than making feedback about others,” the assertion from New Delhi learn.
The transient letter adopted a social media publish by Khamenei on Monday that stated: “We can’t contemplate ourselves Muslims if we’re oblivious to the struggling of a Muslim in Myanmar, Gaza, India or anyplace else.”
The enemies of Islam have all the time tried to make us detached to our shared id as an Islamic Ummah. We can’t contemplate ourselves Muslims if we ignore the struggling {that a} Muslim is present process in #Myanmar, #Loop, #Indiaor some other place.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) September 16, 2024
India and Iran have a typically good relationship, mirrored of their robust financial ties. In Might, they signed a ten-year contract to develop and function Iran’s Chabahar port on the nation’s southeastern coast.
India is growing the port as a gateway for exports to Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, permitting it to bypass rival Pakistan’s ports of Karachi and Gwadar.
However Khamenei has been important up to now on points involving Muslims in India and the troubled Muslim-majority area of Kashmir.
Human rights teams have alleged that mistreatment of Muslims has elevated below Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who took workplace in 2014.
Since then, the nation has seen an increase within the variety of assaults towards Muslims and their livelihoods. Reviews of hate speech have additionally elevated.
Instances of mob lynchings dedicated below the pretext of defending cows, thought of sacred by some Hindus, have elevated throughout Modi’s time in energy, and houses and properties have been demolished.
In March, the Indian authorities introduced guidelines to implement the Citizenship Modification Act, a controversial legislation that paves the way in which to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from neighboring international locations.
It declared that Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled to Hindu-majority India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, primarily Muslim international locations, earlier than December 31, 2014, had been eligible for citizenship.
The legislation has been declared “anti-Muslim” by a number of human rights teams as a result of it excludes the group from its scope, elevating questions in regards to the secular nature of the world’s largest democracy.
In the meantime, critics additionally accuse Iran of discrimination towards minorities.
Final month, a UN report stated ethnic and non secular minorities, significantly the Kurdish and Baluchi minorities, have been disproportionately affected by Tehran’s crackdown since mass protests in 2022.
