Last week India voted in favour of a UN resolution to launch an inquiry into Israel’s alleged war crimes in Gaza. Given the widespread support for Israel among India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the vote suggests that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may be more prepared to defy the far right wing of his party than many of his opponents expected.
Modi's own friendship with Israel goes back many years. As Chief Minister of Gujarat between 2001 and 2014, he sought billions of dollars of Israeli investment in his home state. In 2006, he paid a visit to Israel to promote agricultural cooperation, something no Indian head of state has ever done. And when he was elected Prime Minister in May, Modi tweeted that he and Benjamin Netanyahu were about to “script a golden chapter in the history of India-Israel relations.”
But there is a large section of Indian society that is hostile to Israel, particularly in light of the ongoing military offensive in Gaza. On 14th July, students and social activists staged a protest outside Israel’s Embassy in New Delhi. A week later, on 21st July, opposition leaders from the Congress and Left parties proposed a parliamentary resolution for the government to officially condemn Israel’s use of force. Ghulam Nabi Azad, a Congress politician and Leader of the Opposition, quoted an article written by Mahatma Gandhi in 1938: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense as England belongs to the English.”
Unsurprisingly, the BJP blocked this attempt to condemn Israel. Support for Israel is widespread among BJP leaders, who admire Israel’s strong economy and military, and see the revival of Hebrew in the 20th century as a model for the revival of the classical language of Sanskrit. Speaking against the proposed resolution, Modi’s foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj, argued that India should support the Palestinian cause “while maintaining good relations with Israel.” This action pleased conservatives, but caused outrage in the media and resulted in opposition leaders staging a “walk-out” of parliament, a common way for Indian politicians to express protest.
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Those on the right wanted Modi to go a step further in his support of Israel, by voting against a UN Human Rights Council resolution to launch an inquiry into Israel’s alleged violations of international laws. As the BJP government’s unprecedented electoral mandate means that it does not have to appease Muslim voters—whom previous Congress governments have depended on for support—the pro-BJP journalist Swapan Dasgupta argued that there is nothing holding India back from showing clear support for Israel. Others contended that because Palestinians have historically supported Pakistan in the Kashmir conflict, India should not support their political rights.
But when the UN vote was held on 23rd July, Modi’s government made a surprise decision to vote in favour of the investigation into Israel’s alleged crimes. Many of his followers were disappointed that India did not follow the US in voting against the inquiry, or at least with some European countries, who abstained. But the move was welcomed by numerous left-wing figures. Vijay Prashad, a Marxist historian who has spent the last year teaching in Beirut, argued that the government’s earlier refusal to condemn Israel matters little in the light of its pro-Palestinian UN vote. The vote confirms its respect for human rights, he said, as well as its solidarity with the other BRICS nations, who favour a two-state solution to the conflict.
The government’s decision to support the Palestinian cause at the UN while refusing to condemn Israel at home may seem counterintuitive, but it is a continuation of India’s foreign policy since the early 1990s. Nationalist leaders before then, including Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi, saw Gaza and the West Bank as occupied territories engaged in an anti-colonial struggle—just as India had been. There was also a practical reason to support the Palestinians: India did not want to upset Palestinian allies in the Arab world on whom it relied for energy supplies. However, the end of the Cold War saw Congress Prime Minister Narasimha Rao normalise diplomatic relations with Israel and adopt a pragmatic foreign policy that recognised the benefits of Israeli trade. Successive Congress and BJP-led governments have separated the Israeli-Palestinian peace process from India’s bilateral economic relations with Israel. India has consistently voted in favour of Palestinians in international conferences, but Israel is now its second biggest supplier of arms, after Russia.
Modi’s decision to stick with tradition and support Palestinians at the UN indicates that, contrary to the gloomiest predictions about his deference to the nationalist Hindu right, he may be willing to stand up to them in important areas. But to truly distance himself from the far right of his party, he would need to stand up to them in areas closer to home, including the Kashmir conflict and India’s border dispute with China. On these questions, however, there is little evidence to suggest that Modi will surprise us.
