4 min readMar 28, 2026 06:27 AM IST First published on: Mar 28, 2026 at 06:26 AM ISTWith Iran so much in the news, I find even my peripheral connection to the country evokes interest. Iran is the land of my distant ancestry, Parsis being followers of the prophet Zarathustra, who preached a religion far older than Judaism, Christianity or Islam. They see themselves as inheritors of the glorious traditions of two great ancient Persian empires, the Achaemenid (550-330 BCE) and the Sassanid (224-651 CE). The ruins of Persepolis are a reminder of the once-mighty Persian empire founded by Cyrus the Great.But Persia’s past has really very little to do with Iran’s present. India and Persia were two ancient civilisations with a deep connection and similar roots. Their early languages, Vedic Sanskrit and Avestan, are sister tongues with many common words, sometimes with opposite meanings. Their hoary religions have comparable practices, including the deification of fire. On a trip to Iran in 2005, I found commonality between the two countries even today. Similar words in our vocabularies, magical mosques and minarets that inspired our Mughal monuments. It was striking how proud the Iranians were of their pre-Islamic heritage, even if they knew very little about it. They continuously emphasised that they were Persian Aryans, as opposed to being of Arabic stock. Many continue to celebrate the ancient spring festival of Navroz with flowers and fruit decorations despite the disapproval of hardline Muslim clerics. (Incidentally, this Iranian pride in the past contrasted with what I observed on a trip to Sindh in Pakistan many years back. There was not a single Pakistani to be seen at that famed but deserted cradle of civilisation, Mohenjo-daro, the day I went sightseeing.)AdvertisementThe Parsis do not really look upon Iran as the mother country. They fled to India back in the eighth century after more than 100 years of religious persecution following the Arab invasion of Iran and assimilated completely into India. Zoroastrians who left Iran, however, retained ties with their co-religionists back home over the centuries through messages known as Rivayats. But while initially it was the Indian side that deferred to spiritual advice from their fellow-believers in Iran, the tables gradually turned as the Parsis became more prosperous and influential and the Iranian Zoroastrians more marginalised. For instance, when the Irani Zoroastrians pointed out the inaccuracies in the Parsi calendar with spring falling in August, Parsi scholars declined to acknowledge their mistakes in calculation. In modern times in Iran and much of Central Asia, Navroz and spring is ushered in on the basis of the vernal equinox, not calendars, but orthodox Parsis stick dogmatically to their own calendar. They compromised only to the extent of dubbing the new equinox festival “Jamshedji Navroz”. In the mid-19th century, prominent Parsis, enlisting the help of the British government, sought to improve the lot of their Zoroastrian brethren in Iran by getting the jizya tax abolished and encouraging them to settle in India with their assistance.The self-anointed Iranian monarchs of the 20th century, Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son Mohammed Reza Shah, impressed with the achievements of the progressive Parsis, tried to persuade them to return to Iran. Though Parsis often referred approvingly to the Pahlavi ruler as “apro Shah” since the family adopted its name from pre-Islamic Persia and Mohammad Reza Shah celebrated the 2,500 year centenary of Cyrus’s dynasty with jaw-dropping extravagance, they were not enticed to leave India. And playing up Persia’s long-ago glory only further alienated the Muslim clergy, which contributed to the Islamic uprising.In the 19th century, the taunts of Christian missionaries aroused Indian Parsis to study the ancient, dead languages of Persia, in which their scriptures are written. Generations of Parsi boys were made to study the language of their liturgical texts; Avestan, dating back to 1,500 BCE with similarities to Vedic Sanskrit, and Pahlavi, spoken from the third to the seventh century CE. Today, Zoroastrianism and these early Iranian languages are taught in just a few educational institutions in India and the West, including some centres, such as that at SOAS in London, funded by Parsi trusts. But there is little interest back in Iran in such ancient history.The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express