Corridors of Memory, Faultlines of Empire

Azerbaijan’s backing of Pakistan in Operation Sindoor rekindles an ancient contest of empires, grievances and loyalties.

Few in New Delhi’s corridors of power have been surprised by Azerbaijan’s expressions of support for Pakistan after India carried out Operation Sindoor as direct retaliation for the horrific terror attack at Pahalgam on April 22 carried out by Pakistan-sponsored militants. Baku’s unwavering loyalty to Pakistan has become a cornerstone of its foreign policy ever since the latter became the second country (after Turkey) to recognize it following the collapse of the USSR.

Yet this seemingly routine diplomatic alignment reveals deeper geopolitical undercurrents that stretch across centuries and continents, linking the Caucasus to the subcontinent.

Azerbaijan, a small but oil-rich Caspian state, has positioned itself as a Turkic-Islamic bulwark in its alliance with Pakistan and Turkey, thus forming a triptych of strategic solidarity. Its antipathy towards Armenia, born out of the long-standing conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, has gradually intertwined with Pakistan’s anti-India stance, giving rise to a peculiar geopolitical equation. Meanwhile, India’s warming ties with Armenia - a country otherwise peripheral to its core interests - can be seen as a response in kind.

But these alliances are not mere matters of convenience. They are forged in history, scarred by empire and driven by long memories of betrayal, occupation and displacement.

Turbulent Theatre

The South Caucasus, flanked by the Black Sea, the Caspian and the converging footprints of Russia, Turkey and Iran, has long been a crucible of empire. Tsarist Russia absorbed both Armenia and Azerbaijan in the 19th century, pushing back Persian influence and consolidating Orthodox power in a mostly Muslim periphery. With the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, brief independent republics emerged before being reabsorbed by the Soviet Union, under which Armenia and Azerbaijan became constituent republics with an imposed peace.

Deep ethnic tensions simmered beneath the Soviet veneer. In Armenia, memories of the 1915 genocide under the Ottomans, in which an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were systematically exterminated, has long remained potent. The Armenian-American historian Richard Hovannisian observed that for the Armenians, the painful history of the genocide remained an open wound.

Turkey’s continued denial of the genocide has kept the wound festering. The Turkish historian TanerAkçam, who broke ranks by publicly acknowledging the Armenian genocide, has argued that denialism is not just about memory, but the architecture of the modern Turkish state.

When Azerbaijan and Armenia descended into full-scale war over Nagorno-Karabakh after the Soviet collapse, Turkey and Pakistan stood squarely behind Azerbaijan. India, sensing an echo of its own territorial disputes and wary of Pakistan’s uncritical endorsement of Azerbaijan’s military campaigns, leaned cautiously towards Armenia.

Azerbaijan’s alliance with Pakistan is rooted in both sentiment and strategy. Following Pakistan’s recognition of Azerbaijan’s independence in 1991, it has never established diplomatic ties with Armenia, ostensibly in solidarity with Azerbaijan. In return, Baku has been an energetic supporter of Islamabad on Kashmir. The language of ‘territorial integrity’ used selectively by all parties has proven remarkably flexible.

Azerbaijan has framed its war over Nagorno-Karabakh as a just cause of reclaiming territory; Pakistan says the same about Kashmir. Armenia’s appeals for self-determination in the former echo India’s defence of autonomy in the latter.

India’s relationship with Armenia is of relatively recent vintage but has grown in depth and symbolism. New Delhi has supplied Yerevan with Swathi weapon-locating radars and Pinaka rocket systems, and Indian firms have begun winning contracts to build military infrastructure in Armenia’s rugged highlands. More importantly, India has given quiet diplomatic support to Armenia in multilateral forums.

From a strategic standpoint, New Delhi sees Armenia as a toehold in the South Caucasus - a region where China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Russia’s military presence and Turkey’s pan-Turkic ambitions are all in contest. It also helps that Armenia, though Eastern Orthodox, carries within its cultural DNA an old Indian connection. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Armenian merchants were a visible presence in Mughal India, particularly in Agra, Surat and Dhaka, serving as jewellers, diplomats and translators. In his classic work ‘Armenians in India’ (1937), historian Mesrovb Jacob Seth chronicled that the Armenian community in India was small in number but great in enterprise, bridging trade between Isfahan, Bengal and Venice. These networks endured well into the colonial era. He notes it was Emperor Akbar, “the Marcus Aurelius of India, who induced them to come and settle in his dominions instead of being mere sojourners in the country” as he was well aware of their “intelligence” and “integrity in commercial matters.”

These soft historical links today offer New Delhi a narrative counter to the Islamic solidarity that binds Pakistan and Azerbaijan.

For Armenia, India offers an alternative axis. Landlocked and squeezed by a Turkey-Azerbaijan pincer and increasingly wary of Russia’s ambiguous loyalties (exposed starkly during the 2020 and 2023 conflicts), Yerevan has sought new friends in unlikely quarters. It has welcomed Iranian energy, French diplomacy and now Indian arms.

The entanglements of these four states - India, Pakistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan - are replays, in miniature, of older imperial dynamics. The Ottomans saw the Armenians as a fifth column for Tsarist Russia. The Russians saw Azerbaijan as a restive Islamic frontier to be tamed. The British, for their part, viewed the Indian subcontinent and the Caucasus through a similar lens: strategic zones to outflank rivals and protect trade routes. The ‘Great Game’ between Britain and Russia was waged partly through buffer states in this region.

Turkey’s present-day neo-Ottoman posture under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has brought back a language of civilisational revival that resonates deeply in Baku. Erdoğan’s frequent appearances alongside Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, especially during military parades celebrating victory over Armenia, speak volumes. Pakistan, meanwhile, sees in Turkey a patron who shares its Islamic identity and geopolitical anxieties. It is no accident that Pakistani military officers frequently train in Turkey. The late Pervez Musharraf, the architect of the 1999 Kargil War, spoke fluent Turkish, was a self-confessed admirer of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, and had once said he wanted to fight as a volunteer during Turkey’s 1974 invasion of Cyprus.

India, uncomfortable with this pan-Islamic axis, has responded by deepening its relationships with countries that feel similarly threatened - Greece, Egypt, the UAE and now Armenia.

Tectonic Drift

The recent round of hostilities between India and Pakistan following the brutal Pahalgam terror attack and culminating in Operation Sindoor, is part of this broader tectonic drift. While the operation itself may be localised, its aftershocks have global resonance. Azerbaijan’s support for Pakistan is less about Kashmir and more about alliance signalling.

Conversely, Armenia’s quiet solidarity with India is not about South Asia but about survival. Isolated and wounded by successive military defeats, Armenia is rethinking its strategic doctrine. Yerevan now talks of building ‘strategic autonomy,’ a term familiar to Indian ears. It is distancing itself from Russia, whose peacekeepers proved ineffective, and looking west and east for new friends.

Stephen Kotkin, historian of Soviet power and possibly Stalin’s greatest biographer, has observed through his works that the wreckage of empires is not just territorial but psychological as well. Armenia’s search for new alliances and India’s response to Azerbaijan’s provocations are both post-imperial instincts and manifestations of insecurity in a world that remembers far too much.

What is emerging between Armenia and India is a convergence of vulnerabilities and aspirations in a desire to resist encirclement, to assert autonomy and to recover from historical injury.

At heart, the contest between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and by extension their friends in India and Pakistan, is about history: how it is remembered, who gets to tell it, and what lessons are drawn from it. The Armenian genocide remains unrecognised by Turkey and denied by Azerbaijan. The partition of India and the unresolved status of Kashmir remains a deep grievance for India and an obsession for Pakistan with which to target India with.

The afterglow of Operation Sindoor (which has paused, not ended as stressed by Prime Minister Modi) will linger in unexpected ways. The next round of conflict in the Caucasus or the subcontinent may look different not because of new weaponry, but because of new friends and old enemies.