The Pulse | Society | South Asia

Is Khamenei’s Killing Narrowing the Shia-Sunni divide in South Asia?

Arab-Iran conflicts have traditionally roiled Shia-Sunni relations in South Asia. Things are a little different this time.

A poster carrying a photograph of Iran’s slain Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with a slogan calling for Shia-Sunni brotherhood, hangs above a street at the Beckbagan Crossing, a Sunni majority neighborhood in Kolkata, India.

At Beckbagan crossing, a Sunni Muslim-dominated neighborhood in Kolkata, the largest city in eastern India, a poster hangs above a street. It carries a photograph of Iran’s slain Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with a slogan “Iran Se Sadaa Ayi/ Shia-Sunni Bhai Bhai” (Echoes are coming from Iran, Shia and Sunnis are brethren) written below.

Indeed, in a rare moment of unity between the two major sects of Islam, which are more often than not at loggerheads, Shias and Sunnis are rallying together in India. Kolkata has witnessed a significant Sunni participation in the protests following the killing of Khamenei by the U.S.-Israeli forces.

In a protest organized by the All Bengal Minority Youth Federation, a predominantly Sunni organization, in Kolkata last week, Shia and Sunni participants carried portraits of Khamenei, a revered Shia figure, and chanted slogans against the U.S. and Israel.

Sunni participation in protests against the killing of a Shia religious figure is significant. It comes at a time when Shiite Iran is targeting several Sunni-majority Arab countries — Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar, among others — in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.

These Arab monarchies have strategic ties with the U.S.

For years, the Sunni monarchy of Saudi Arabia and the Shia-majority Islamic Republic of Iran have remained engaged in a proxy war, and also, in a competition for the leadership of Muslims of the world. Iran’s conflict with Arab countries has exacerbated the sectarian divide within the Muslim community in different parts of the world in the past.

However, things are a little different this time in South Asia.

“Muslims are not looking at the attack on Iran through the lens of internal sectarian conflict. They are seeing it as a dangerous assault on Islam by Western imperialism that is spearheaded by the U.S. and Israel,” Abdul Matin, a political scientist at Kolkata’s Jadavpur University, told The Diplomat. This war on Iran is being seen as a continuation of the Palestinian conflict. Iran’s solidarity with Palestine has earned it the solidarity of the Sunnis, he added.

Kolkata was no exception. In northern India, the federally-administered Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is predominantly Sunni. But the valley witnessed large-scale protests in which Sunnis participated in large numbers.

Protests also took place in northern Indian cities like Delhi and Lucknow and southern cities like Hyderabad and Bengaluru. These demonstrations largely mourned Khamenei’s death, condemned the strikes as violations of international law, and expressed solidarity with Iran.

“Lucknow has never seen such huge crowds. From across communities (Shias, Sunnis, ahle hadith, and all other sects),” wrote a journalist on X.

Those speaking for pro-Iran solidarity are also highlighting how Khamenei issued a fatwa in 2010 prohibiting insult to any revered figure of the Sunnis.

The Indian government initially tried to curb the protests. In areas the........

© The Diplomat