On January 24, India quietly did something that would seem bewildering. It voted on the same side as China and Pakistan at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

The resolution was to censure the Islamist Ali Khamenei regime in Iran for its reported brutal excesses and mass murder of protesters. While the motion won 25-7 with 14 abstentions, India voted no with China, Cuba, Indonesia, Iraq, Vietnam, and Pakistan.

Iran’s unfolding tragedy stares us in the face. So far, about 30,000 innocent protesters have reportedly been massacred and thousands more tortured since protests sparked by the rial’s collapse on December 28, 2025. It should have been an open-and-shut case for India to take a stand against the regime.

But from India’s point of view, the issue has nuances and complications it can only gloss over at its peril.

Let us first look at the reasons India should overtly oppose the Iranian regime.

The first one is simple: as the world’s biggest democracy, supporting the resolution would reinforce India’s image as a champion of human rights and freedom of expression, in line with western........

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