Skip to content 
Search

Latest Stories

Iran: The untold story

by Amit Roy

IF THERE is a country other than Britain or India that has shaped my life, it has been Iran, where I was sent as a young reporter on my first foreign assignment by The Daily Telegraph.


My tin trunk with press releases, newspaper clippings, maps, telex messages, posters and pages from my dawn Farsi lessons is probably still in the basement of the Intercontinental

Hotel in Tehran, which was my home for many years.

I thought the hostages crisis at the US embassy would be over in two hours. I was there for the 444 days that the siege lasted. I never did a personal interview with Ayatollah

Khomeini, but on a few occasions, I was ushered into his presence.

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the Iranian revolution which toppled Reza Shah Pahlavi in favour of an Islamic republic, with global consequences.

My contacts book, with most of the names crossed off, tells the story of the Iran tragedy. Ayatollah Beheshti, a senior cleric, for example, died with countless others when the headquarters of the Islamic Republican Party was destroyed by a bomb. Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, the foreign minister who had flown in with Khomeini on the plane from Paris,

was executed in prison by his enemies. Abbas Lavasani, a young press officer who had given me my Iran visa, was killed by gunmen in the Iranian embassy siege in London

before the mission was stormed by the SAS.

In Iran, I spent several years covering its long war with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who was then backed by the West.

February 14 also marks the 30th anniversary of Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie, by which time I was on Andrew Neil’s Sunday Times (where one of my colleagues on the foreign desk was Marie Colvin, the heroine of the film, A Private War). When I tipped off Tony Bambridge, the managing editor, of the gathering storm about The Satanic Verses – initiated from India – he put me in my place: “Look, this is just a little immigrant story – and we are a national newspaper.”

The editor instructed me to write a four-page special when the BBC TV news led with the fatwa. Bambridge, displeased at being countermanded, sent my copy to another reporter in

the office so “he can knock it into shape”. The fatwa, of course, shaped the politics of Muslim Britain.

Away from the blood-soaked, day-to-day news coverage in Tehran, I enjoyed learning about Persia’s rich and ancient culture, with many links to India, not least through the

Zoroastrian faith.

In trying to deal with the complexities of Iran today, one needs to understand that the ayatollahs are pragmatic folk with a strong instinct for self-preservation. Also, Iran has

been through a political and theological revolution, not a cultural one.

India is now caught in the conflict, trying to buy oil and trade with Iran, while simultaneously maintaining its strategic relationship with Donald Trump’s America.

The revolution has not been good for ordinary Iranians, but the problem with trying to overthrow the ayatollahs is that most young people have not known any other way of life.

More For You

The real challenge isn’t having more parties, but governing a divided nation

Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn

Getty Images

The real challenge isn’t having more parties, but governing a divided nation

It is a truth universally acknowledged that voters are dissatisfied with the political choices on offer - so must they be in want of new parties too? A proliferation of start-ups showed how tricky political match-making can be. Zarah Sultana took Jeremy Corbyn by surprise by announcing they will co-lead a new left party. Two of Nigel Farage’s exes announced separate political initiatives to challenge Reform from its right, with the leader of London’s Conservatives lending her voice to Rupert Lowe’s revival of the politics of repatriation.

Corbyn and Sultana are from different generations. He had been an MP for a decade by the time she was born. For Sultana’s allies, this intergenerational element is a core case for the joint leadership. But the communications clash suggests friction ahead. After his allies could not persuade Sultana to retract her announcement, Corbyn welcomed her decision to leave Labour, saying ‘negotiations continue’ over the structure and leadership of a new party. It will seek to link MPs elected as pro-Gaza independents with other strands of the left outside Labour.

Keep ReadingShow less
Amol Rajan confronts loss along the Ganges

Amol Rajan at Prayagraj

Amol Rajan confronts loss along the Ganges

ONE reason I watched the BBC documentary Amol Rajan Goes to the Ganges with particular interest was because I have been wondering what to do with the ashes of my uncle, who died in August last year. His funeral, like that of his wife, was half Christian and half Hindu, as he had wished. But he left no instructions about his ashes.

Sooner or later, this is a question that every Hindu family in the UK will have to face, since it has been more than half a century since the first generation of Indian immigrants began arriving in this country. Amol admits he found it difficult to cope with the loss of his father, who died aged 76 three years ago. His ashes were scattered in the Thames.

Keep ReadingShow less
One year on, Starmer still has no story — but plenty of regrets

Sir Keir Starmer

Getty Images

One year on, Starmer still has no story — but plenty of regrets

Do not expect any parties in Downing Street to celebrate the government’s first birthday on Friday (4). After a rocky year, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer had more than a few regrets when giving interviews about his first year in office.

He explained that he chose the wrong chief of staff. That his opening economic narrative was too gloomy. That choosing the winter fuel allowance as a symbol of fiscal responsibility backfired. Starmer ‘deeply regretted’ the speech he gave to launch his immigration white paper, from which only the phrase ‘island of strangers’ cut through. Can any previous political leader have been quite so self-critical of their own record in real time?

Keep ReadingShow less
starmer-bangladesh-migration
Sir Keir Starmer
Getty Images

Comment: Can Starmer turn Windrush promises into policy?

Anniversaries can catalyse action. The government appointed the first Windrush Commissioner last week, shortly before Windrush Day, this year marking the 77th anniversary of the ship’s arrival in Britain.

The Windrush generation came to Britain believing what the law said – that they were British subjects, with equal rights in the mother country. But they were to discover a different reality – not just in the 1950s, but in this century too. It is five years since Wendy Williams proposed this external oversight in her review of the lessons of the Windrush scandal. The delay has damaged confidence in the compensation scheme. Williams’ proposal had been for a broader Migrants Commissioner role, since the change needed in Home Office culture went beyond the treatment of the Windrush generation itself.

Keep ReadingShow less
Eye Spy: Top stories from the world of entertainment

Ed Sheeran and Arijit Singh

Eye Spy: Top stories from the world of entertainment

Ed Sheeran and Arijit Singh’s ‘Sapphire’ collaboration misses the mark

The song everyone is talking about this month is Sapphire – Ed Sheeran’s collaboration with Arijit Singh. But instead of a true duet, Arijit takes more of a backing role to the British pop superstar, which is a shame, considering he is the most followed artist on Spotify. The Indian superstar deserved a stronger presence on the otherwise catchy track. On the positive side, Sapphire may inspire more international artists to incorporate Indian elements into their music. But going forward, any major Indian names involved in global collaborations should insist on equal billing, rather than letting western stars ride on their popularity.

  Ed Sheeran and Arijit Singh

Keep ReadingShow less