Indian medical students caught in yet another geopolitical conflict, this time in Iran

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NEW DELHI – When Mr Faizan Nabi left for Iran to study medicine in February 2025, he had hopes for a bright future. But those dreams now lie in tatters. Over the course of a year, he has had to flee the country and return to Kashmir in India not once, but twice.

The 22-year-old, a student at the Kerman University of Medical Sciences in south-eastern Iran, left the country on Feb 23, following an advisory from India asking its nationals to leave as war clouds loomed over the region.

Five days later, Israel and the United States struck Iran, prompting retaliation from Tehran and plunging West Asia into yet another deadly bout of conflict.

Back in June 2025, Mr Nabi was also among 3,597 Indian nationals – more than half of them medical students – who were evacuated from Iran during the 12-day war that began after Israel bombed Iran in a surprise attack.

“I had dreamt of becoming the first medical doctor from my family, but those hopes seem shattered now,” he told The Straits Times on the phone from his home in Srinagar. “I can’t even muster the courage to watch the news,” he added, “because I can’t bear to see a land I have lived in be destroyed.”

Mr Nabi is not sure when he will return to Iran – if at all – and finish his 5½-year studies. An estimated 1,000 Indian students are still in Iran, remaining there because of key exams scheduled for March 5. These were cancelled after the conflict began.

Among them is Mr Asif Gulzar, 21, a third-year medical undergraduate at Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in western Iran’s Khuzestan province. ST was able to reach him despite extremely patchy phone and internet connectivity in Iran.

“Everything is open in the sky… We can see, hear and feel them,” he said on March 2 in messages over WhatsApp, referring to “massive blasts and interceptions”.

“We panicked at first but now I think it has become normal for us,” he added.

Currently lodged in his university hostel, Mr Gulzar said nearly all Indian students wish to leave Iran as soon as possible, but have been told by the Indian embassy to wait until the airspace opens up.

Access to food and other essentials is not a problem for now, he added. Mr Gulzar had managed to speak with his parents on March 1 and continues to be in touch with the Indian embassy through local phone networks for any important updates.

Many Indian students in Tehran, which continues to take the brunt of the US-Israel attack, have been relocated to Qom by the Indian embassy in Iran. But Qom has also come under attack and Mr Faisal Latif, one of those students, said they are feeling “very unsafe”.

“We humbly request the Indian embassy to evacuate us as soon as possible so that we can return home safely,” he says in a video message shared with ST by the All India Medical Students’ Association (AIMSA), which has maintained contact with Indian students in Iran.

Concerns have also mounted over the fate of around 30 Indian students stranded at the Urmia University of Medical Sciences. “We actually don’t sleep at night... Our days and nights are equal,” says one of the students in another video shared by AIMSA.

While no Indian fatality has been reported from Iran, worry has mounted among families of the students stranded there, along with growing calls in India to ensure their safe evacuation.

In a statement on March 4, Dr Mohammad Momin Khan, AIMSA’s national representative, urged the Indian Ministry of External Affairs to evacuate Indian citizens from conflict-affected areas, “preferably through the nearest secure land border once feasible”.

In recent years, Indian medical students abroad have often found themselves caught in the crossfire of geopolitical tensions, not just in Iran but elsewhere too.

In 2022, India had to evacuate over 18,000 of its nationals from Ukraine – the majority of them medical students studying at Ukrainian universities – soon after Russia invaded the country.

More than 20,000 Indian students in China, most pursuing medical degrees, were affected by Covid-19 pandemic border closures as well as the 2020 border tensions between India and China. These incidents delayed their return to their campuses by as many as two to three years.

Recent political tensions and unrest in Bangladesh – another popular destination for Indian medical students – have also caused uncertainty and safety concerns.

According to Dr Jitendra Singh, AIMSA’s national president, an estimated 25,000 Indians go abroad to affordable locations to study medicine each year. Popular destinations include Eastern Europe, Central Asia, China, Jordan, Iran, Bangladesh and the Philippines.

At the heart of this phenomenon is a deep structural problem. Demand far outstrips the number of places in Indian government medical colleges, where education is affordable. But pursuing a medical degree in a private Indian school remains far too expensive for most families.

More than 2.2 million students sat the national undergraduate medical school entrance exam in 2025, competing for fewer than 120,000 seats. Around half of them were in government institutions and the other half in private.

A medical undergraduate degree abroad could be much cheaper than the 10 million rupees (S$139,500) or even more at a good Indian private medical school. “Many parents therefore think it is better to go for a degree abroad,” Dr Singh told ST.

Both Mr Nabi and Mr Gulzar chose to go to Iran – where one can earn a medical degree for less than two million rupees – as they did not get a seat to pursue a bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery degree at a government medical college. They also could not afford the high tuition fees at a private institution.

Mr Nabi took the annual undergraduate entrance exams thrice and was twice offered dentistry at a government college, something he did not want. Instead of wasting another year, he chose to go to “pocket-friendly” Iran. It also helped that Tehran is just around four hours away on a direct flight from Delhi, and he managed to get a 90 per cent tuition fee waiver.

There was also growing family and peer pressure to contend with. “That social stigma ultimately pushes one to go abroad and study,” he added.

Students and others say it would help if the government were to increase the number of medical colleges and better regulate tuition fees at private medical institutions.

The Indian government has focused on expanding capacity in its medical colleges in recent years, adding nearly 112,000 undergraduate and postgraduate seats since 2014. This is part of a broader vision to create 75,000 additional seats by the end of 2030. But this expansion is still inadequate given the high demand for medical education in India.

Dr Neethi V. Rao, a fellow at the Delhi-based think-tank Centre for Social and Economic Progress, said that increasing the number of medical colleges is not easy, given the need for affiliated hospitals that meet prescribed standards as well as a shortage of faculty, even in existing colleges.

“Compared to practising, teaching is not as remunerative, particularly so in government medical colleges,” she told ST, recommending greater investment in research at medical colleges that can help create an attractive ecosystem to draw doctors to teaching.

Regulating fees at private institutions is also not simple, she added, as these institutions reserve subsidised seats for students admitted through government quotas, while using the remaining seats to “cross-subsidise”. This can make the latter unreasonably expensive as the private institutions seek to generate a profit after recouping the high costs of setting up and running the colleges.

Mr Nabi said the Indian government should allow students in Iran to transfer to other colleges in safer locations abroad such as Armenia or Kazakhstan. Current rules mandate that students must finish their entire course at a single medical university.

Given a choice, he said he would not return to Iran. “My parents get scared each time a conflict breaks out there. I get scared. So what’s the point of staying there?”

But if going elsewhere is not an option, the Indian students know they will have to head back to Iran to pursue their career dreams.

“We must return again to complete and get our degrees,” added Mr Gulzar.