The growing unrest in Iran has left many students in India living with constant fear, uncertainty and silence from home. As protests spread across Iranian cities and communication channels remain shut, Iranian students and Indian nationals with families in Iran say the hardest part is not knowing whether their loved ones are safe.
Waiting for a message that never comes
Speaking to The Indian Express, a 32-year-old PhD scholar studying in Delhi said she has not been able to reach her parents in Tehran for days. “Some posts vanish within minutes. Others contradict one another. There’s no way to find out whether my family is ok… if my parents are alive,” she said.
Until last week, she spoke to her parents every day. Now, calls fail and messages go undelivered. “I cannot focus. I cannot sleep,” she said. “Every moment my phone buzzes, I hope it’s my family… The only thing that would make this better is hearing their voices.”
Iran is witnessing one of its longest internet shutdowns on record, with more than 92 million people cut off from the outside world. Iranians have now been without internet access for over 170 hours. By comparison, the country’s longest shutdowns in the past lasted about 163 hours in 2019 and roughly 160 hours in 2025.
Protests, police presence and Iran’s collapsing economy
Speaking to The Indian Express, the 34-year-old said, things worsened after Iran’s currency collapsed. “One dollar is about 1.4 million rials now,” she said. Shopkeepers and small business owners were the first to protest as they could no longer keep their businesses running.
“Then everyone came out. No one was satisfied with the situation,” she said, adding that what people see outside Iran is not the full picture of what is happening on the ground. She believes the internet shutdown is deliberate. “They don’t want people to speak. That’s why they shut everything down.”
Her father runs a small grocery shop in Tehran, which she believes is now shut. “The last time I spoke to my parents, they told me it’s not stable,” she said. “People are protesting. Police are everywhere.”
Syed Hadi, a 21-year-old undergraduate studying at Jamia Millia Islamia, said he last heard from his 19-year-old sister on January 8. She studies psychology in Tehran and lives in a hostel. “After that, nothing,” he said. “Since the internet dropped, there has been no contact,” he told The Indian Express. Hadi said the flood of information online has only added to the confusion. “Most of it is biased or intellectual propaganda,” he said. “In the age of AI, you don’t even know what’s real anymore.”
A 33-year-old PhD scholar studying commerce and management in Pune under an ICCR scholarship said she has not heard from her family for over a week. “I don’t know whether they are alive or dead,” she said.
Citing information circulating within Iranian networks, she claimed that more than 13,000 people had been shot and killed in the streets, though official confirmation remains unavailable.
India prepares to evacuate citizens
Meanwhile, India is preparing to bring back its almost 10K nationals stuck in Iran. With Tehran temporarily closing its airspace and tensions rising amid uncertainty over possible US action against the Iranian regime, the Ministry of External Affairs has said it is making arrangements to help Indian nationals who wish to return. The Indian embassy in Tehran has advised nationals to avoid protest areas and consider leaving the country.