“A groundbreaking book...There is little doubt that Exile and the Nation will become foundational reading for any student of Iranian modernity and nationalism, as it provides the most comprehensive picture of both the history of Zoroastrian revival as a branch of Iranian nationalism but also a complete historiographical account that explains the turbulent political history of modern Iran.”
—Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies
“The perspective in [Exile and the Nation] is truly transnational, and its approach offers methodological as well as substantive inspiration for future studies…an intellectually provocative and engaging read.”
—TRAFO: Blog for Transregional Research
“[A] well-written, clearly argued study...Exile and the Nation is transnational history at its best; it demonstrates how those who helped revived the ancient ties between Iran and India, and then molded them to fit modern nationalism, were inspired by ideas that ostensibly came from the East but were leavened with German as much as British romantic elements. It is especially good at showing the insurmountable dilemma they faced: how to jump across centuries to Iran’s pre-Islamic, Zoroastrian past for inspiration, without disregarding let alone eliminating the country’s rich Islamic heritage.”
—Middle East Journal
“[Marashi's] engaging biographies of two Zoroastrians (one Parsi, one Iranian), two poets (one an Iranian translator of Zoroastrian texts, one a Bengali Nobel laureate), and an Iranian journalist with pro-Nazi sympathies contextualize the development of Iranian nationalism between the Constitutional Revolution and the 1930s, highlighting the significance of Parsi Zoroastrians to the related restoration of ‘Iranian authenticity.’”
—Journal of Asian Studies
“An exciting new book...Exile and the Nation is a richly textured study of some of the main threads that make up Iranian national culture. It makes a number of important interventions…[Marashi's] book should be in the hands of every Iranian interested in the history of ideas and the trajectories of Iranian national identities.”
—Peyk Magazine
“In showing how new scholarly methods, mass audience books, and an alternative national identity were imported from Bombay, then adapted to Iran’s contrasting sociopolitical context in unforeseen ways, Exile and the Nation is as important a contribution to colonial Indian history as it is to understanding the origins of the modern Middle East.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books
“[Exile and the Nation] is an extremely well-researched and well-written work that addresses a topic that has yet to be adequately addressed…There is also a welcomed element of storytelling to the book not often found in scholarly, historical works...it is in both the richness of the biographical details Marashi provides and his versatile and nuanced account of the intellectual and political developments, that the depth of Marashi's research and writing skills most shine...this book is highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of modern Iran, a better understanding of nationalism in a phenomenological sense, or a well-grounded, historically based story related in a highly entertaining and informative way.”
—Mashriq & Mahjar
“Absolutely masterful. This is a wonderful and lucid weaving together of many disparate elements. Marashi never disappoints in his recounting of an engaging story, one that becomes all the richer for his ability to use it to illustrate cultural and intellectual diversity. He makes a convincing case for the centrality of Iranian ideas of nation constructed vis-à-vis the contemporary Parsi community in Iran, recognizing that this relationship was complex and multidirectional. Marashi pioneers a model of moving away from 'area studies' and nation as a boundary and into larger intellectual and cultural areas of conversation. Exile and the Nation is not a simplistic account of influence, but rather an exploration of a variety of intellectual roads—those taken and those avoided.”
—Monica M. Ringer
“With this work, Marashi once again demonstrates that he is one of the most innovative and theoretically astute historians of Iran. The book takes a South-South perspective, which currently hardly exists in Iranian studies. His intuition that Iranian intellectuals in this period were not stuck in an exclusively East-West relationship proved to be a ground-breaking and fruitful avenue for research, and thus Exile and the Nation is long overdue.”
—Reza Zia-Ebrahimi
“[Exile and the Nation] succeeds in reconceptualizing Iranian modernity, and Iranian nationalism especially, in light of the Parsi-Iranian encounter. Through the stories of the book’s five protagonists, Exile and the Nation shows how Parsis played pivotal roles in the development of the ideologies that defined twentieth-century Iran. At the same time, Marashi’s book expertly weaves together disparate subfields within Iranian studies—namely, classical Zoroastrianism, colonialism, and Sufism—that are rarely in conversation. As such, scholars in the field will doubtlessly find Exile and the Nation enlightening and instructive.”
—Iranian Studies
“The story of Zoroastrian migrations to India in the wake of the Arab conquest of Sassanid Iran in the seventh century is well known. These Zoroastrians, who came to be known as Parsis, settled mainly in Gujarat. Recent scholarship has drawn attention to a longer history of migrations from Iran to the Indian subcontinent. Zoroastrian presence continued in Iran even after Islam became the religion of the overwhelming majority. In post-7th century Iran, most of the Zoroastrian communities were (and are) concentrated in the Yazd and Kerman regions. Contact between the Zoroastrians of India and of Iran seems to have been very limited, if not non-existent, in the centuries following the initial exodus. There were fresh migrations to India in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which made it possible for the two branches to establish contacts and interact with each other. The history of this encounter has not received much attention in scholarly writings.Afshin Marashi’s Exile and the Nation is a pioneering work that examines the ways in which Zoroastrian intellectuals in India and Iran understood modernity, articulated ideas of nationalism, and how nationalist thinkers such as Tagore contributed to these ideas. The book explores this intellectual history by focusing on five protagonists.The consolidation of British power in western India in the eighteenth century and the emergence of Bombay as the preeminent urban centre of the west coast created favourable conditions for the growth of Parsi enterprise towards the end of the century. A section of Parsis, largely based in Bombay, achieved great success in commerce, industry, finance and shipping, thereby also contributing to the development of the city. Inspired by the success of the Parsis, a new generation of Iranian Zoroastrians, recent migrants to western India, adopted Bombay as their home and became a sub-community among the Parsis—usually recognizable by their surname ‘Irani’.The modern ‘discovery’ of Iranian Zoroastrians by the Parsis, against the backdrop of endeavours to bring about changes in their own society and religion, gave an impetus to the quest for roots which in turn generated interest in the pre-Islamic past of Iran. There was also a lot of enthusiasm among Parsi intellectuals to establish ties with Zoroastrians in Iran, as well as with Iran generally. At the beginning of the twentieth century Iran was undergoing a transition to democracy. The process of democratization was constantly thwarted due to imperialist intervention. The quasi-colonial status of Iran, with Russia dominant in the north and Britain exercising influence over the south, made it difficult for the transition to be completed. Eventually the process would be aborted by the British-American plot that led to the end of the popular Left-Wing regime of Mosaddegh in 1953 and the brutal tyranny of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.Nevertheless, there was some hope for democratic advance in the early 1900s when with the Constitutional Revolution of 1905 the Qajar ruler was forced to concede the demand for a constitution and parliament (Majles). A constitutional monarchy was established, which remained in place till the early 1920s, when a coup led by Reza Shah (Mohammad Reza’s father) put an end to Qajar rule. The Qajar dynasty had ruled since 1798. As the Iranian state under Reza Shah became increasingly authoritarian, it sought legitimacy by invoking ancient Iranian monarchical traditions. Reza Shah projected himself as the inheritor of the traditions of the Sassanian kings: the crown placed on his head at the coronation ceremony of 1926 was supposed to be modelled on the crown of the fourth century Sassanian King Shapur the Great. The state for its own reasons was willing to facilitate initiatives to promote the study of Zoroastrianism, and encouraged the Parsis in India to think in terms of remigration, a return to their ancestral homeland. There was at one stage a proposal for a Parsi colony to be established near Persepolis, the ancient capital of the Achaemenids (classical era predecessors of the Sassanians), who had also patronized Zoroastrianism.Already in the closing years of the nineteenth century there were intellectuals and political activists among Zoroastrians in Iran who were engaged in research on the history of their community and had enlisted the support of Parsis for acquiring a deeper understanding of their religion, its practices and theology. One of the book’s protagonists, Arbab Kaykhosrow Shahrokh (1874-1940), a member of the Iranian Majles for three decades, lived for a brief period in Bombay where he studied at the Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Zoroastrian School, and later set up schools in Iran with financial assistance from Parsis and local Zoroastrians. He went on to write a book which purported to be a Zoroastrian catechism, in the Persian language. What he presented in this book was a modern interpretation of Zoroastrianism, so that the book can be regarded as a manifesto for reform. Kaykhosrow Shahrokh’s son, tragically for him, became a staunch supporter of Nazism which might have been responsible for the father’s death. During the war, the son regularly featured in Radio Berlin’s broadcasts for audiences in Iran.The most outstanding product of Parsi-Iranian intellectual collaboration in this period was the leading scholar of Zoroastrian sacred texts, Ebrahim Purdavud. He had studied in Tehran, Beirut, Paris, and Berlin which was his home for several years. He came under the influence of Bhikaiji Cama in the early phase of his career when he was studying law in Paris. Through Madame Cama he gained access to literary circles in Paris, and the community of anti-colonial activists including Iranian expatriates. Moreover, Madame Cama introduced him to aspects of Zoroastrian religion which was important for his later intellectual trajectory. At a gathering in Bombay twenty-four years after his first meeting with Madame Cama in Paris in 1910, he spoke with emotion about the impact she had on him: ‘He described for his audience the patience with which Madame Cama introduced him to the ritual and theological subtleties of the Zoroastrian faith, such as the Navjote initiation ceremony and the meaning of the Sedreh and the Kushti garments. As Purdavud recalled in 1934, after his initial encounter with Madame Cama, he went on to become “a constant visitor to her place, and was deeply impressed by that Zoroastrian lady’s pure, intelligent and active life”’ (p. 138).Purdavud was well-versed in the European tradition of orientalist learning, was proficient in Avestan and Pahlavi, and had come to be recognized as an authority on Zoroastrianism. He travelled to India in 1925 at the invitation of prominent Parsi intellectuals and entrepreneurs. His main interlocutor was the Bombay lawyer and activist Dinshah Irani. Dinshah Irani played an important role in forming the Iranian Zoroastrian Anjoman of Bombay in 1918 and the Iran League in 1922—organizations that worked for promoting relations between the Parsis and Iranian Zoroastrians. His collaboration with Purdavud should be seen as the outcome of his own interest in Zoroastrian and Iranian antiquity. This was a pursuit that, for many, notwithstanding their liberal outlook, tended to be ‘a project of dismissing, diminishing, or imaginatively dislocating Iran from the edifice of Arab-Islamic civilization’ (p. 60). The emphasis on the common Aryan ancestry of Iranians (of the pre-Islamic era in particular) and Indians had the potential to reinforce racist ideologies. Purdavud ‘saw the fall of the Sassanian Empire as the end of a classical “golden age” of Iranian civilization and the beginning of a long period of decline’ (p. 170).During his Indian sojourn, which lasted two and a half years, Purdavud undertook translations of major Zoroastrian religious texts. He was able to regularly consult Parsi priests and scholars. The texts were translated into Persian, and published with commentaries, from 1927 onwards. Peshotanji Marker, a prominent entrepreneur, sponsored the publication of these translations.They were published by the Fort Printing Press of the Anklesaria family, as part of the Marker Avestan Series. Bombay, it should be borne in mind, was an important centre for printing texts in Persian, and catered to the market in Iran. From the point of view of the Parsi intelligentsia (many of the well-known intellectuals such as Dinshah Irani wrote extensively in Persian), it was necessary to make available Zoroastrian religious works in Persian for an Iranian audience, since Iranian Zoroastrians needed to ‘relearn’ their religion. It was felt that whereas the Parsis had retained their belief in more or less pristine form, Iranian Zoroastrians had incorporated local practices over the centuries which had made them diverge from their original religion.Given the authoritarian and anti-democratic character of the Reza Shah dispensation, it is not surprising that Rabindranath Tagore’s state-sponsored visit to Iran in 1932 should have become somewhat controversial. For Tagore, the visit was one among the many he made to different parts of Asia to speak about Asian unity, underlining shared histories. This was a rejection of narrow, xenophobic nationalism. Tagore travelled to Iran by aeroplane, his first experience of an air journey, arriving at Bushahr, and then made his way by road to Tehran via cities with magical names, Shiraz and Isfahan. Everywhere he went he was welcomed as a venerable sage, but also as a ‘brother Aryan’ who had come to discover ‘the old India’ in Iran. Tagore, we should remember, had grown up in a Persianate intellectual and cultural milieu in which Persian literary works were read and admired. His father, Debendranath Tagore often talked of his love for Hafez. Rabindranath’s visit to Shiraz, where Hafez and Sa‘di are buried, was a pilgrimage, and for his hosts an opportunity to present him ‘as a living heir to the poetic tradition of Sa‘di and Hafez’ (p. 114).Tagore stressed on the ‘civilizational bonds’ which historically united the peoples of India and Iran and constantly referred to the ‘Indo-Iranian civilization’ of which both were a part. Therein lay the problem. The notion of a common civilization could be distorted to present a racialized understanding of the connections between (Aryan) Iranians and Indians. As Marashi notes, ‘Iranian nationalists of the 1920s and 1930s were eager to construct an appropriate cultural-historical genealogy for Iran. Central to their ideological project was the construction of an alternative civilizational genealogy that conspicuously dissociated … Iran from the long-dominant Abrahamic-Islamicate civilizational genealogy and instead repositioned Iran within an Indo-Iranian civilizational concept rooted in the classicism of the Avestan, Vedic, Hindu and Zoroastrian heritage shared between Iran and India’ (p. 101; emphasis in original). Hence the criticism by intellectuals and activists ranging from Iqbal to GK Nariman, that Tagore had allowed his fame to be used by the ‘bigots’ who looked forward to the resurgence of Zoroastrianism in Iran and denigrated its Islamic traditions. Such a narrative could be used for furthering a divisive, communal, political agenda in India, and during the 1930s and 1940s by fascists in Iran.Marashi devotes an entire chapter to the political career of Saif Azad, a maverick who regressed from being a moderate Left-Wing anti-colonial activist in Berlin, to becoming a propagandist for the Nazis. Among his numerous forays into journalism was the publication of the bi-weekly Persian periodical Iran-e Bastan (‘Ancient Iran’) from Tehran. The periodical commenced publication in 1933 with financial support from Parsis. To begin with, its masthead depicted Parsi religious symbols. Soon, however, swastikas began to appear on the masthead along with these symbols, and within a short time Iran-e Bastan became a mouthpiece for Nazi propaganda. This made his Bombay-based Parsi financiers uncomfortable, and very quickly they distanced themselves from Azad.Parsis actively involved in the anti-colonial struggle in India were largely committed to secular democratic ideological positions. This was the dominant ideological trend in the national movement, and one that had been originally articulated by the tallest Parsi nationalist leader, Dadabhai Naoroji. In the context of Iran, Russian and British imperialism, and subsequently American imperialism, blocked the possibilities of a nationalist programme based on democratic and progressive principles. West Asia is still paying the price for the CIA-engineered overthrow of Mosaddegh and the systematic extermination of liberals and Communists under the Shah.”
—Amar Farooqui is former Professor, History, University of Delhi, Delhi, The Book Review, Volume XLIX Number 8 August 2025