Humera Iqbal
IN an unanticipated incident the world woke up to a strategic attack on Israel by Hamas. As a result, the world is once again divided in a war between those taking sides with Israel and those raising voice in support of Palestinians. The focus has shifted from Ukraine-Russia war to blazing Middle East region of Israel and Gaza. Among Israeli supporters, an instantaneous show of solidarity came from India’s Narendra Modi to Netanyahu. While expressing solidarity with Israel Modi sympathized with a decades-old oppressor Israelite and condemned Hamas attack as terrorist group.
The forthrightness of Modi revealed New Delhi’s policy under his administration of stepping away from its traditional stance of supporting two-state solution. However, Modi’s reckless statement had put the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in a delicate and challenging position to issue another statement to maintain balanced diplomacy. MEA tried to advocate New Delhi’s established position of negotiations, sovereignty and independent state of Palestine. Despite a balancing statement, the MEA was unable to overshadow Modi’s preferred partisan policy choice.
To be a Muslim in Modi’s India has become a serious punishable crime. Therefore, Palestine under the present circumstances fighting back friendly state Israel and demanding their land is seen as Kashmir fighting back Modi’s imposition of Hindutva. Modi’s Hindu nationalism has moved away from anti-colonial stand to supporting a strong security alliance with Israel. Relationships between India and Israel are not new, they thrived over the years where Tel Aviv has increasingly been engaged in defence and security cooperation.
For Netanyahu and Modi’s majoritarian politics, ethnic cleansing and Muslim genocide has become a common tool in order to fulfill their commitment of establishing a strong religious state. Both Israel under Netanyahu’s Zionist ideology and Modi under Hindutva have made their countries extremely aggressive and insensitive towards Muslim. Both the leaders also share commonalities in elevating themselves politically. Being hardliners, they excelled in their politics by portraying Muslims as existential threat to their respective ethnicities, i.e. Hindu and Jews.
Theyboth thrived on the political brand of fear and prejudice. Modi, not only followed Netanyahu in implementing his apartheid Model at home to deal with Muslim minorities especially in Jammu and Kashmir but has strengthened ties with Israel since he assumed power. Another common bond between Modi and Netanyahu are their popularity due to being known as ‘Mr. Security’ and ‘Mr. Economy’. Even though on both the grounds they are being questioned at home. However, Modi and Netanyahu has not learned anything from the history where aggressive policies always saw a backlash.
India is expected to have general elections in coming months. Modi very shrewdly, is trying to capitalize on the Israel-Palestinian armed conflict based on rightest anti-Muslim sentiments to incite ethnic sentiments at home. For Hindu nationalist, ethnic prejudices are on the rise at home which favors Modi’s re-election. Modi’s Hindutva policies and their associated networks have aggressive attitude towards Islam for which they have BJP’s IT Cell to produce disinformation. Since Modi came into power, disinformation and fake news has become a powerful tool commonly being used by the far-rightest under him. Hindutva’s influential outreach into foreign land has risen over the nine decades and has come to ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict. The disinformation apparatus has reportedly been noticed on social media especially X, carried out by Indian rightest group spreading anti-Palestinian and Islamophobiac narrative since war broke out between Israel-Gaza. Lots of fabricated stories are being circulated against Hamas as a brutal force and supporting Israel under the disinformation campaign verified as Indian X users mostly based in India. Hashtags like Islamis The Problem withhold and false videos or messages like one retired Indian soldier tweeted that, ‘Israel must finish off Palestine from the planet.’
Conveniently for Modi, US and the Western supporters of Israel eventually feel diplomatically reassured about Modi’s policies aligned with the US. Modi was hugely criticized and doubted during his visit to the US because of not taking side with Washington in condemning Russia over Ukraine under the impression of strategic autonomy. However, in this ongoing war Modi lost no time in taking side of Israel over innocent Palestinians. This has been a gaining ticket for Modi in the West particularly in its ambitious strategy of countering China.
Aligning with Netanyahu and Biden has won him credible boost, but the impacts of ongoing war cannot be ignored which have shifted in contemporary times due to deeper effects on global strategies and interests. As New Delhi seeks larger role in Middle East, Modi jeopardizes the ambitious economic projects like India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, planned during the G20,and India-Israel-UAE-US grouping (I2U2), which would surely be effected by the present Middle East reality till the normalization of situation. Besides Saudi Arabia, within region Iran, China and Russia chose to stand with the Palestinians and are highly critical of Israel and the US for its support, surely poses challenging situation for India.
While raising slogans of giving voice to the Global South, in the context of Palestine, India also lost the status of a mediator and balancer, in addressing the hourly needed negotiations to support ceasefire. As a democratic countryIndia under Modi has lost its democratic credibility by siding with Israel who has imposed extermination of Palestinians. Modi’s India is among few countries who have labelled Hamas as terrorist and ignored ongoing genocide of Palestinian children and unarmed people. Prime Minister Modi chose to be with the oppressor rather than being neutral like he was in Ukraine-Russian war. Hence, whenever a mediation would be considered diplomatic approach of President Xi would be preferred than Modi’s.
India under the leadership of Narendra Modi and his majoritarian agenda, has no doubt lost respect, as a democratic nation. On account of humanity, sovereignty, standing against oppression, India is not a democratic country upholding principles of rule of law. Favoring aggressor like Netanyahu, blinding oneself from the physical abuse, unjust methods of snatching away basic human rights of people, using air and artillery power over unarmed innocent children, harassment on daily basis both in Palestine and at home in India does not make a country more powerful, but an aggressor. The unaddressed plights and continuous aggression acts as a ticking bomb which may result in a massive eruption.
—The writer is a Research Analyst at the Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad. Email: hum.iqbal@gmail.com
