Israel and Indian Left

It was a Congress government that in 1992 established full diplomatic relations with Israel. Arafat assented to this Indian shift because he was himself taking the political journey to Oslo. So, the subsequent governments of Narasimha Rao, Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral, and those of UPA-I and UPA-II, respectively, adopted the basic policy of progressively strengthening their economic, military, technological, and political ties with Israel that, after all, was also an important conduit for deepening the post-Cold War political alignment with the US. The Indian attitude towards Palestine and the PLO was now to simply give money and political lip service to the Palestinian cause–even as Israel systematically and cumulatively violated the Oslo Accords, made Gaza the world’s largest open-air prison and carried out periodic air and military assaults on it (what Tel Aviv calls “mowing the lawn”).

In 2008 the Manmohan Singh government got Israeli material support enabling India to move from targeted to mass surveillance capabilities. In February 2014, a work agreement was signed between the Israeli Ministry of Public Security and India’s Ministry of Home Affairs to obtain, amongst other things, training by Israel of Indian police and security personnel for border management, ‘counterterrorism’ and crowd control. This was first implemented when the Narendra Modi government took over after the May 2014 elections and such arrangements subsequently further developed and extended.

The BJP-led governments of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Modi added an emotional-ideological dimension to the supposedly strategic contours of this bilateral relationship because of the kinship character of Hindutva and Zionism as belief systems. But where Israel from its inception has legally been a ‘Jewish’ nation and state, the Sangh Parivar and BJP have still to reach their goal of establishing a proper ‘Hindu’ nation and state. Moreover, while Israel has made itself the dominant military and nuclear force in the WANA region, India has not been able to do so in South Asia because of Pakistan and China. The ways in which Israel has contained the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories is seen as providing lessons for what the Modi government should do in Kashmir.

At least some civil society organisations and the mainstream left parties have voiced their condemnation of Israel and taken solidarity actions in support of the Palestinian people and Gazans in particular.

It should be noted that only pro-Palestine groups and the Left parties (not the Congress or other bourgeois parties) have supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign against Israel which has achieved notable success in many parts of the world causing a degree of material discomfort to Israel.

Given the ideological kinship of Zionism and Hindutva, the greater the extent to which Zionism is exposed and condemned for its inherently racist and discriminatory character, the better it is for the struggle to discredit Hindutva and its various political advocates. This is why the Indian Left must prioritise solidarity for the Palestinian cause. The latest demand call by the CPI(M), CPI, CPI-ML (Liberation), AIFB and the RSP on the Indian government vis-à-vis Israel has highlighted the need to prevent Indian military arms and ammunition supplies to Israel, to end Indian exports of arms from Israel and to end all forms of complicity by India with Israel’s illegal occupation and genocide.

The Left should go one demand better. It should call on the Indian government to sever all political, diplomatic, economic, technological, socio-cultural, academic and military relationships with Israel, full stop.

[Contributed by Achin Vanaik. The India Forum]

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Vol 57, No. 12, Sep 15 - 21, 2024