The reasons are not far to seek. Firstly, the government’s stance on Gaza is an unprincipled one and it knows it, too. Indeed, there is a lot of myth-making about Israel in the Indian strategic folklore, but the fact is, India’s affinity with Israel has no simple straightforward explanation.
Some say, a “paradigm shift” took place when Israel supplied Indian army with artillery shells during the Kargil War when there was shortage of the item in our army’s inventory, which helped India to win the war — at least, not to lose that infamous war (
here).
But it is an idiotic thesis. The ingenuous, convoluted argument would have been at least partly tenable if only israel had supplied the shells
gratis. The point is, israel makes very good money and handsome profits out of the lucrative sale of military equipment to India. In fact, Indian purchases become a significant source of income for Israel and strong budgetary support for the country’s economy. In plain terms, therefore, it is a relationship of mutual benefit based on ‘bazaari’ instincts where emotions do not come into play.
But then, emotions and the human factor do come into the India-Israel military transactions also. And, if so, that is because these transactions are often sleazy deals. Israel too is notorious for its level of public corruption, like India — and it is not surprising if vested interests have formed within the Indian elites (civilian and military), including the political class.
However, that alone does not explain, either, the Indian elites’ romance with Israel. Three other factors come into play as well. One, the Indian security establishment, unsurprisingly, is besotted with its Israeli counterpart, because the latter is everything that the Indian side is not in sheer professionalism and ruthless efficiency. Again, this has spawned myths as if the Israelis have come from planet Mars.
Secondly, the unspoken reality is that Islamophobia has incrementally become a bond that brings the two sides together. Many in India would see Israel too as a ‘frontline’ state vis-a-vis the rising tide of islamism. Many among the Indian elites have a sneaking admiration for Israel precisely for the reason that it is apparently waging a war till eternity against extremist Islamists (terrorists) and yet is also thriving defiantly right in the middle of the Muslim world.
In short, many among the Indian elites admire Israel, as that country makes the Muslims appear to be a lower form of life. Of course, being a secular country, they cannot openly articulate this admiration based on Islamophobia. But, with the rise of Hindu nationalism in India in the recent decades, this sort of admiration for israel began surging.
Thirdly, there is a pragmatic consideration. The fact of the matter is that the Jewish groups and pro-israeli lobby in the US have acted as dalals or go-between for the Indian political leadership on various occasions. The Indian diplomats never shied away from seeking the help of these groups. The best-known instance has been the role played by these groups during the negotiations over the US-Indian nuclear deal.
Now, this nexus was originally formed during the previous NDA government under prime minister A. B. Vajpayee and it is on record that the then principal secretary to the PM and national security advisor Brajesh Mishra openly flaunted his association with the Jewish groups in the US and embraced them as India’s collaborators and partners.
This being the steamy background to the flourishing Indo-Israeli romance, it shouldn’t have come as surprise that Swaraj doggedly
stuck to her ‘Nyet’ in the parliament on Monday the Gaza massacre. But then, why did she have a change of heart so soon and how come Delhi sing a different tune in New York and Geneva?
The answer is simple: It is one thing to bully the opposition MPs in the Indian parliament, given the government’s big majority, but it is an entirely different thing to expose India to international isolation. At a time when the top UN official in charge of human rights issues globally Navi PIllay compared the Israeli brutalities on the Palestinians in Gaza to ‘war crimes’,
here, Delhi has been put to shame and is on slippery slope to maintain any further that it cannot “take sides”.
Plainly put, the Indian stance as displayed in the parliament has become morally repugnant, unprincipled and is blatantly pro-Israeli. Worse still, if a negative impression were to gather among the Muslim countries, rightly or wrongly, regarding the ascendance of Hindu nationalism in India’s West Asia policies, it could harm the Narendra Modi government’s ambitious bid for membership of the UN Security Council (which the PM forcefully projected at the recent BRICS summit).
The heart of the matter is that Israel and the US make just two votes in the UN, whereas, at the end of the day, the Muslim countries account for several dozen votes. To be sure, the professionals in South Block would have pointed out to Swaraj as to which side of the Gaza bread is buttered in reality for India’s ‘enlightened national interest’ — and being a realist, the minister grasped the point and okayed the Indian diplomats in Geneva and New York to go ahead and “take sides”.
The big question is, how far India can run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. All the time, the paradox is that it is so easy for India to reconcile this needless contradiction in its foreign policy — by taking a principled stance as a humane country and the inheritor of a glorious civilization that never committed aggression though the millennia of its existence.
However, alas, that may be too much to expect in India anymore because when the moral fibre of our civilization has weakened possibly beyond redemption, as evident from the ghastly incidents of this week alone in our decadent society,
here and
here, how can we expect morality and humaneness to become templates of our country’s foreign policies? After all, as Shakespeare wrote, there is special providence even in the fall of a sparrow.
UN Geneva @UNGeneva
