9

Feb

The Right Course for Agitators in Iran

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Suranya Aiyar

New Delhi | Monday | 9 February 2026

Iranian agitators must start a mechanism for on-going dialogue and engagement with the regime. Unless the Ayatollahs and conservative and radicalised parts of their society are persuaded to become more liberal, there will be no real movement forward. The West does not understand that this is not simply a fight between ruling clerics and free spirits. It is a division in Iranian society between a highly orthodox and a modern value system. Even if all the Ayatollahs went, the problem would remain.

Continuous, peaceful engagement and the patience of at least a full generation's lifetime are the only path to resolution in Iran, or anywhere. There has been no overnight peaceful revolution anywhere in the world. India's took from the 1880s to 1947,  in the US, it took Blacks from the 1860s to 1964 to get full civil rights, and another half century for the US to have its first Black President,  in South Africa the struggle against Apartheid was roughly from 1912 to 1994. So, these are the timelines we are looking at if you don't want civil war and want a stable and lasting change to democracy.

As for India, Hindus in India need to see how difficult it is to shake the coalition that forms between power-hungry leaders and the uneducated masses in the name of religion, once you allow these forces to be unleashed in your society. We talk of the incarceration of dissidents in India, and of the repression of opposition here. This is all true, but the full effect of Hindutva rule is to be understood by looking at what has been done by Modi-Shah-Doval to the BJP and saffron world itself.

Article at a Glance
The article argues that meaningful change in Iran can only come through sustained, peaceful dialogue with the regime and a long-term effort to liberalise society.
The author stresses that Iran’s conflict is not merely between clerics and free thinkers, but reflects a deeper divide between orthodox and modern values that would persist even if the Ayatollahs were removed.
 Drawing on historical examples from India, the US, and South Africa, the piece contends that stable democratic transitions take decades, not sudden revolutions, unless civil war is the goal.
Turning to India, the author warns Hindus to learn from Iran’s experience, highlighting how religious majoritarianism enables authoritarian control.
She criticises the Modi-led BJP for sidelining educated voices and fostering an atmosphere of fear, particularly in Gujarat, which she describes as a successful experiment in Hindu authoritarian rule—an outcome India risks replicating unless history’s lessons are heeded.

First, the exclusion from Modi's cabinet of any educated person, except Jaishanker, who has now been marginalised. The saffron verse was always short of educated people, but even the few hanging around have been firmly pushed to the margins. They have all been pushed to the background like  Swapan Dasgupta.

It is not just the lack of educated BJP ministers, it is the pushing out of anyone who might conceivably have an opinion or some standing. They did the same in Delhi by throwing out Dr Harshvardhan and making sure that Meenakshi Lekhi would be neither seen nor heard.

Second, the total cowing of the state of Gujarat by Modi. There is no set of people that Modi ignores as completely or treats with as much contempt, as his own Gujarati base. Gujarati Jains and Hindis are the most scared of Modi of anyone in the country. I observed this extraordinary state of affairs with my own eyes in the course of a case involving a Jain Gujarati family whose baby was taken by German child services.

Modi-voting Gujaratis are totally subjugated and will not say or do anything except under orders from the Supremo. They have absolutely no understanding of themselves as citizens of a democratic polity. None. They are a state under authoritarian rule already. They self-regulate, self-censure and hide themselves away.  Gujarat is Modi-Shah-Doval's first experiment in Hindu Authoritarian rule, and it has had complete success.

So, this is the fate we are racing towards. An Indian Hindutva version of Ayatollah rule. So dumb, so tragic. Unless we are willing to learn from history.(  Suranya Aiyar is an activist, writer and dramatist. Her work can be found on : thinkindiasabha.blogspot.com )

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