Legacy of Iranian monarchy still divisive 45 years after shah’s exile

January 16 marks 45 years since the departure from Iran of its last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, marking the end of five decades of family rule and 2,500 years of monarchy.

“I am very tired,” a tearful Pahlavi said as he boarded an Egypt-bound flight from Tehran with his wife, Empress Farah.

In Tehran that day, hundreds of thousands of car horns blared in “wild scenes of celebration” as his departure was announced on the radio, with crowds celebrating across the country as newspapers reported “frenzied rejoicing” in the capital.

In Paris, soon-to-be leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, exiled by the shah in 1965, congratulated Iran on the “first step towards victory”.

Fewer than two weeks later, he would return to Tehran, welcomed by crowds of up to five million people before being declared Iran’s first supreme leader.

The royal family re-emerged in 2022 as the fiercest anti-government protests yet broke out across Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini in custody of the morality police after refusing to cover her head.

The protests spread to every province and attracted support from around the world, as crowds in North America and Europe denounced Tehran and its paramilitary forces responsible for the heavy-handed response.

Iran’s diaspora led calls for tougher action against Iran. Among voices critical of the government was Reza Pahlavi, the shah’s son and exiled prince, whose supporters believe he is the legitimate ruler of Iran.

The Pahlavi dynasty left a complicated legacy.

While it ushered in unprecedented economic reforms, privatised oil wealth and increased rights for women, many remember the shah, who died of cancer in Egypt in 1980, as an autocratic ruler reliant on his secret police, corruption, and political repression.

Fierce disagreement over his legacy as ruler has splintered opposition to the government in Tehran.

“Eventually, we went faster than some people could digest,” Pahlavi told the Washington Post from Cairo in the months before his death, defending his rule as a “blossoming” of wealth and intellectual life.