The shoes are by Bally, slacks by Balenciaga, the bag by Givenchy and the hijab by decree. Elsewhere, in places like the island resort of Kish in the Persian Gulf where the laws tend to be slack, one can see blonde-streaked hair peeping out from under a Hermes scarf worn somewhat casually. This is the modern Iranian woman who also typifies modern Iran, a mixture of the old and the traditional, the modern and the technological. This, despite 28 years of sanctions, which no Iranian lets you forget.
Tehran itself is a concrete jungle, a moving parking lot as the locals call it, where all power and privilege resides in the north and the people live in the southern part of the city. Petrol sells at the equivalent of one US cent a litre and bottled mineral water costs thrice as much — not that there are water shortages or power outages. The infrastructure is marvellous and the roads, like the one to Arak where the Iranians have built their heavy water facility for the 40 MW reactor to be constructed, are black-topped without potholes.
Iranian scientists at Arak asserted that the indigenously built IR-40 heavy water reactor would produce radioactive isotopes for various medical and industrial uses. Western scientists say that the facility at Arak could produce plutonium in another seven years. This and the other facilities across the country are a symbol of not just the Iranian struggle for modernity, but also of national pride and sovereignty that no Iranian is willing to give up at any cost. As signatories to the NPT, Iranians assert it is their right to process uranium for peaceful purposes.
If Arak and the Tehran TV tower, the fourth highest in the world and built indigenously, are symbols of modernity, Isfahan signifies the traditional and artistic Iran. Isfahanis proudly call their city Naqsh-e-Jahan (Half of the World). Close to the exquisite Imam Mosque is the Chehel Sotun Palace. On its walls hang paintings of Nadir Shah’s conquests in India and of the visit of deposed emperor Humayun to the court of the Safavid King, Tahmasb I, seeking assistance for his restoration.
Four hundred and fifty-three years later, Murli Deora visited Tehran seeking an agreement for LNG but he got neither the kind of coverage nor the promise that Humayun got. The Iranians are keener now to have the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. There is also a sense of astonishment, hurt and even anger at the way India has twice voted against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency. They interpret this as a sign that India has subserved its strategic independence in favour of US interests in the region.
In our search for new strategic options we seem to forget that Iran and India were neighbours for centuries till 1947. Iran was anti-India at its virulent best during the time of the Shah of Iran, America’s regional surrogate. It is true that in its initial post-revolution years, the regime routinely exhibited its Muslim closeness by siding with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. It is equally true that it was Iran which prevented a consensus Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) vote on Kashmir in 1994 that would have led the Kashmir issue to be eventually re-opened at the United Nations Security Council. Given that gratitude is not reason enough for international relations, India has to seek mutually beneficial relations with Iran purely for geo-strategic considerations.
Ten per cent of the world’s oil reserves — about 132.5 billion barrels of proven reserves — are in Iran. It has the world’s second largest reserves of gas. Given these assets, it is far too irresistible a prize, far too important, to be left alone and strong in the region. Iran is, therefore, a natural and prime target of US actions in the region in its quest for full spectrum global dominance. The German-born Baron Reuter (of Reuters news agency) acquired the Reuter Commission in 1872 that gave the British monopoly over Iran’s economic and financial sector. From then to the overthrow of the brutal Shah in 1979 was a long history of exploitation of Iran by Western interests.
Courtesy : The Hindustan Times, May 10, 2007
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