Despite strong ties, Khamenei’s past criticisms include India’s handling of Muslim issues and the Kashmir region.
India has hit out at comments from Iran’s supreme leader regarding the treatment of its Muslim minority.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement on Monday that remarks made by Ali Khamenei in a post on X were “misinformed and unacceptable”. While India and Iran generally enjoy close relations, the approach of India’s Hindu nationalist government to minorities has led to disagreements in the past.
“Countries commenting on minorities are advised to look at their own record before making any observations about others,” the statement from New Delhi read.
The curt missive followed a social media post from Khamenei on Monday that said, “We cannot consider ourselves to be Muslims if we are oblivious to the suffering that a Muslim is enduring in Myanmar, Gaza, India, or any other place.”
India and Iran tend to share a good relationship, illustrated by strong economic ties. In May, they signed a 10-year contract to develop and operate the Iranian port of Chabahar, on Iran’s southeastern coast.
India is developing the port as a gateway to exports to Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, allowing it to bypass the ports of Karachi and Gwadar in rival Pakistan.
But Khamenei has been critical in the past over issues involving Muslims in India and the troubled Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.
Human rights groups have alleged that the mistreatment of Muslims has increased under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who took over as prime minister in 2014.
Since then, the country has seen a rising number of attacks against Muslims and their livelihoods. Reports of hate speech have also grown.
Cases of mob lynching under the pretext of protecting cows, considered holy by some Hindus, have increased during Modi’s time in power, and homes and properties have been demolished.
In March, the Indian government announced rules to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act – a controversial law which opens the way to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from neighbouring countries.
It declared that Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled to Hindu-majority India from mainly Muslim Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before December 31, 2014, were eligible for citizenship.
The law was declared “anti-Muslim” by several rights groups for keeping the community out of its ambit, raising questions over the secular character of the world’s largest democracy.
Meanwhile, critics also accuse Iran of discrimination against minorities.
Last month, a UN report said ethnic and religious minorities, in particular Kurd and Baluch minorities, have been disproportionally affected by Tehran’s crackdown since mass protests in 2022.