The country of India has historically demonstrated support for other countries struggling against colonialism, which can be seen for example in its alliances in the Non-Aligned Movement or its backing of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, having been the first country to boycott Pretoria. India in fact once stood by the Palestinians, going so far as to endorse a UN resolution equating Zionism with racism. What then are we to make of India’s current alliance and friendship with Israel, which has blossomed under the administrations of Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu?
The Jerusalem Fund recently hosted author and journalist Azad Essa to discuss his new book titled, Hostile Homelands, which analyzes the current relationship between India under Narendra Modi and Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, and investigates the historical development of this relationship throughout the last century.
Essa presented a number of arguments in order to answer the question above. Firstly, India’s initial support for the Palestinians was rooted in strategic political calculations, rather than a real commitment to anti-colonial struggle. Second, though the relationship between India and Israel has deepened exponentially under Modi’s leadership, it was actually initiated and facilitated by the Congress Party which had ruled India for most of its post-colonial history.
Essa’s discussion paid particular attention to the commonalities shared between Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, and Zionism, namely that both of these supremacist ideologies weaponize religious identity for political ends, and seek to create states which privilege a single culture or nation over others — “where certain citizens belong more than others.” This affinity between Hindutva and Zionism became more explicit as the Modi government saw it being in their best interest to project India as unapologetically militaristic and willing to assert its religious identity in much the same fashion as Israel. Hindutva circles in the diaspora adopted the same techniques used by Zionists to stifle any criticism: by going after universities and academics, attempting to alter school curriculums to reflect a pro-Hindutva narrative, and utilizing the accusation of “Hinduphobia” as a shield from any criticism of the Hindutva movement or Indian policies in much the same vein that “antisemitism” is utilized to silence criticism of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians. The similarities in these techniques are no accident, but rather the result of decades of cooperation and collaboration between the Hindu American community and Zionist organizations in the US.
The parallels between Hindutva and Zionism extend beyond the shared supremacist nature of the ideologies, or the shared techniques deployed to silence dissent abroad. This affinity is in fact further observable on a material level when comparing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank with India’s occupation of Kashmir, with both deploying recognizable counter-insurgency tactics aimed at entrenching foreign domination over a native population, while engaging in demographic engineering by sponsoring settlements on occupied territories. Hindutva and Zionism provide the ideological justification for such acts of colonization.
Considering the dearth of material analyzing the historical trajectory of Israel and India’s relationship, Essa’s book is essential reading for anyone looking to better understand the affection shared between Modi and Netanyahu. The parallels Essa draws between Zionism and Hindutva illuminate the kinship felt between Zionism and Hindutva as supremacist ideologies with similar political aims, but as Essa demonstrates, this kinship is also grounded in the material self-interest of both India and Israel.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this summary represent the perspectives and analysis of the speaker hosted by the Palestine Center and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Palestine Center or The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development.
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About the Speaker
Azad Essa is an award-winning journalist and author based between Johannesburg and New York City. He is currently a senior reporter for Middle East Eye covering American foreign policy, Islamophobia and race in the US. He is the author of The Moslems are Coming and Zuma’s Bastard, and has written for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and the Guardian.
About the Book
Under Narendra Modi, India has changed dramatically. As the world attempts to grapple with its trajectory towards authoritarianism and a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ (Hindu State), little attention has been paid to the linkages between Modi’s India and the governments from which it has drawn inspiration, as well as military and technical support.
India once called Zionism racism, but, as Azad Essa argues, the state of Israel has increasingly become a cornerstone of India’s foreign policy. Looking to replicate the ‘ethnic state’ in the image of Israel in policy and practice, the annexation of Kashmir increasingly resembles Israel’s settler-colonial project of the occupied West Bank. The ideological and political linkages between the two states are alarming; their brands of ethnonationalism deeply intertwined.
Hostile Homelands puts India’s relationship with Israel in its historical context, looking at the origins of Zionism and Hindutva; India’s changing position on Palestine; and the countries’ growing military-industrial relationship from the 1990s. Lucid and persuasive, Essa demonstrates that the India-Israel alliance spells significant consequences for democracy, the rule of law and justice worldwide.
