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I don't believe it. India needs the pipeline, it wants to assert an "independent foreign policy," and it needs Shia Iran's moral support to counterbalance Sunni jihadis in Kashmir. Not to mention the cultural links between the two. The Indian elites spoke Farsi until the rise of the British Raj. While India may back us up if we apply the screws tight enough, I think it's unlikely, and it's one reason why we've delayed the referral issue.

No Indian 'elites' ever spoke Farsi..They speak HINDU.

India can deal with a Shia Iran even after the proposed regime change, can't we?

This is for all of you.

Lejes Rimul is correct. Indian elites spoke Farsi and we did so FOR AT LEAST A THOUSAND YEARS! We Indians "officially" spoke in Farsi since the invasion of Mahamud Ghori and till the reign of the last Mughal Emperor of India (Bahadur Shah Zafar) who was deported to Burma by the British. And NO, Urdu was NEVER the official language in the court of Delhi. (It was the official language in the court of Nawab Ali Wardi Khan, Nawab of Lucknow).

Guys, we are missing a very important chapter of our history here. While the general masses of India spoke in derivatives of Hindi/Hindustani/Urdu or other native vernaculars depending on the geographical region, "official" India under Delhi without exception always spoke in Farsi and did so for a thousand years until it was replaced by English by the British. The Mughal Empire had ALL it official documents called "farmans" printed in Farsi. Every single text engraved on the walls of historical monuments of the time were written in Farsi. The great poet Amir Khusro wrote poetry and couplets in Farsi roughly a few centuries after Omer Khyiayam of Persia. Urdu was a far more recent language by comparison. The Hindustani language commonly spoken in northern India and Pakistan derives 70% of the words from Farsi and remaining from Sanskrit. Not just the Islamic rulers but also Rajputs, Jats, Dogras, Marathas and Sikhs officially used Farsi inside court rooms (as we do with English now).

In fact Mughal Emperors were very much recent invaders considering the time-line of Indian history. Muslims rule over northan India had already been well established for hundreds of years before the Mughals who were the decendents of the Mongol warriors. Babur was the decendent of Tamerlane from maternal side and decendent of (yours truly) Gengis Khan from father's side. (Don't argue with me on this).

Modern India has completely forgotten Farsi and like Sanskrit, its today a dead language and not spoken by anybody in India. English has replaced Farsi as the language of the elites. Modern version of Hindi has about 60% words of Farsi (along with Arabic and turkic) and remaining is Sanskrit. Hindi today is the descendant of Sanskrit and Farsi.

One last thing.......ancient India, before the arrival of Islam (i.e during the Vedic era and there after during the Buddhist era) Sanskrit was only the official language. It was never commonly spoken. Prakrit was always the spoken version of Sanskrit for the commoners. Sanskrit was for the elite Brahmans. Under Buddhist era the commonly spoken language was Pali and Ardha Maghadhi.

The ancient language of Persia was Zend Avestan.

PS: None of the historical ties have anything to do with the present Indo-Iranian relation.

Cheers,