Indian media has been awash during the last few days about Iran joining the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signed recently between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, which is alarmingly being called the Islamic NATO. Interestingly, the Western media has been conspicuously silent on this seemingly explosive issue. Has the Western media been amiss on noting such a momentous development or the Indian media is reading portents when none is there? Last Monday, in this column, we had categorically stated that the Mecca pact is a US-sponsored enterprise to sharpen and exploit the Shia-Sunni fissure so that a broader Islamic empathy does not push these three Sunni nations towards Iran during the Shia Iran’s present conflict with the US and Israel. That conflict has gradually drifted into a war of attrition and any outside support to Iran would be to the clear disadvantage of the US and Israel. So far, Iran is officially and openly supported by none of the Sunni countries and in that universe, the only support it enjoys is from its proxies like Shia Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shia militias, the Shia Houthis of Yemen and the decimated Hamas, a Sunni organisation, which supports Iran because of its vital patron Shia Hezbollah. None of these is recognised as a state.Bahrain, a Shia-majority country, is ruled by Sunni royal family and it is allied with other Sunni powers in this region in opposing Iran. Even in Shia-majority Iraq, where Iran has invested heavily for arming Shia militias, some of which are integrated into the state security apparatus, there is no unconditional state support for Iran and the Shia-led regime plays a balancing game between the US and Iran. In this scenario, it is inconceivable that the three predominantly Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan would open their new pact to Iran.

For a change, we did a Google search on why India media would go ballistic about the news of Iran being offered membership of the Mecca Pact and the West would keep absolutely silent on the issue. It said that the reason is Indian media and youtubers’ obsession with Pakistan. It also said that the Western media views this claim as unverified speculation from regional sources that lack official confirmation. The news is attributed to Mehdi Rahimi, head of the Iranian Parliament’s Khaneh Millat news agency who is said to have told the Lebanon-based Arabic news channel Al Mayadeen that “Iran has received an invitation to join the Mecca Agreement and the matter is under review.” Al Mayadeen is described by media observers as aligned with Iran and Hezbollah.

None of the dozens of Indian news outlets that carried this story bothered to examine why such a momentous news story was broken to a minor news channel from Lebanon when the person who was breaking it heads an official news channel in Iran. Why would he ignore his own organisation and give leverage to another, an indiscretion unthinkable in the highly competitive world of journalism, particularly in the matter of breaking news? Neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran nor that of the three countries that are signatories to the Mecca Pact confirmed this news when approached.

Throughout the course of the Iran War, Indian media and the social media posts emanating from such media have been supportive of Iran, going to the extent of false headlines on YouTube videos declaring the complete destruction of US aircraft carriers by Iranian missiles and exaggerating losses in Iranian attacks on US bases and on Israel in the region. One extreme view about such Indian journalists, who have been declaring Iranian victory against the US and Israel, was taken by a writer in the Middle East Forum in an article “Why do Indian media and strategic experts sympathise with Iran?” He answered in the subtitle, “Ashamed of India’s pre-Islamic identity, diplomats and journalists took positions favouring Iran to prove their secular credentials.”

India, aware of the importance of ties, both with the West and with Iran, has refrained, officially, from taking sides in the Iran War, keeping a door open with Iran for our energy security and food security, as a large part of our oil, gas and fertilisers come through the Strait of Hormuz. More important is a need that did not exist before Pakistan was created; land connectivity towards the West. There was still a possibility of connectivity through Kashmir when it was ceded to India by its ruler but our government of the day lost a large part of Kashmir to Pakistan and then accepted a ceasefire. Till India regains the lost parts of Kashmir, land connectivity is out of question and India has been looking for alternatives through Iran, Chabahar being a link in that direction. The other link through the proposed multi-modal India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), remains a distant dream and Chabahar remains the only immediately feasible connection point in the near future.

In spite of the pro-Iran tilt of the Indian media, Iran has been discomforting India by its stance on Kashmir. Iran was strongly critical of abrogation of article 370 in 2019 and has always bracketed Kashmir with the Palestinian issue. The Iranian theocratic regime has been supporting, through its proxy Hamas, Terror groups in Kashmir like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. If the present regime in Iran comes out of this war intact, the terror groups in Kashmir will get a boost. Those who speak in support of Iran are either not focussed on this reality or are part of the tukde-tukde ideology that seeks to disintegrate India. The wide coverage in the India media to the unconfirmed feed about Iran getting an invitation to join the Mecca Pact shows another reality; the pitfalls of discussing geopolitics of the Middle East without factoring in the Shia-Sunni divide. The three Sunni states which are parties to the Mecca pact have been involved in violent conflicts with Iran in recent times; Saudis and Pakistanis directly and Turkey indirectly in Syria where Iran suffered a defeat. To say that these three will sign a mutual defence pact with Iran, which envisages a NATO article 5-like provision that attack on one will be deemed to be attack on all, can be excused only on the grounds of being naïve.

Kashmir is an interesting example of what Shia- Sunni divide does to geography and political status. POK has two parts, Gilgit-Baltistan and the so-called Azad Kashmir. The former is Shia majority, being the only such region in Pakistan and the latter Sunni dominated. That is the driving force behind providing two different political dispensations for the two regions. Since Sunnis of the so-called Azad Kashmir were trusted never to part from their Sunni Pakistani brothers, they got a Constitution, a Parliament, a President, a Prime Minister and a flag. Shia Gilgit-Baltistan got nothing; there have been repeated moves to merge it with Pakistan as its fifth province and it is at present administered directly from Pakistan. Part of this Shia territory in the Shaksgam Valley was ceded by Pakistan to China in 1963, as the pain of Shias in losing their territory could be ignored.The Shia-Sunni divide is of foundational importance for rulers of Islamic countries and ignoring it while undertaking geopolitical analysis will result in fallacies; giving credibility to the reports of Iran joining the Mecca Agreement amounts to propagating such a fallacy and a disservice to the Indian audience.

( DAILYWORLD )