India’s Israel Policy

—Immanuel Olsvanger

Founded in 1885, the Indian National Congress not only led India’s struggle for independence but also showed an active interest in various international developments. The problems faced by Indian laborers in different parts of the world dominated its external interests. It empathized with other national-liberation movements in their fight against imperialism and colonialism. This inevitably drew the INC to the Middle East, a major arena of anti-imperialist struggle since the early twentieth century. In practical terms, it meant the Indian nationalists would get entangled in the struggle for a Jewish national home in Palestine. The Congress Party’s positions become pertinent also because it dominated the Indian polity for over a century and for nearly half a century enjoyed a political monopoly in free India. For many Indians and foreigners alike, the Congress Party was synonymous with India’s struggle for freedom.

Why were the Indian nationalists drawn into the Middle East? How did they view the Jewish aspirations in Palestine? Did they understand and empathize with the Jewish longing for statehood? Was the Congress Party’s stance driven by ideology or the result of domestic compulsions? Can one trace the roots of India’s Israel policy to the Congress Party and its stance on Palestine? Finally, how did the Zionists view the Indian nationalist cause and its usefulness for their enterprise in Palestine?

In the early twentieth century, two Middle Eastern developments caught the attention of the Congress Party, namely, the Khilafat struggle and the Palestine question. Toward the closing stages of World War I, the Indian nationalists joined with their Muslim brethren, who were concerned about European powers undermining the office of the caliph. As discussed elsewhere, the Khilafat movement dominated the Indian political atmosphere between 1919 and 1924. In 1922, the Congress Party declared that “effective guardianship of Islam and the Jazirat al-Arab [be] free[d] from all non-Muslim control.”¹ Capturing the central argument, its president, Mohamed Ali, observed that it would be “a sad day indeed for us when any part of it goes out of the hands of the Muslims, for then we would have betrayed a divine trust. Muslims will never acquiesce in any arrangements that permitted any form of control being exercised by a non-Muslim power over any part of Jazirat al-Arab.”²

As the Khilafat issue faded from political scene, Palestine became the major INC preoccupation in the Middle East.³ The first direct reference to Palestine came in 1923, when Mohammed Ali, the INC president, urged Indians to make common cause with the Palestinians.⁴ In January 1928, the Congress Party adopted its first formal resolution on Palestine. Coming in the wake of the Brussels Congress on Oppressed Nationalities, the party sent its “warm greetings to the people of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq and its assurance of full sympathy with them in their struggle for emancipation from the grip of Western Imperialism.”⁵ For the next eight years, there were no references to Palestine in the deliberations of the Congress Party.

In 1936, the Wardha Session of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) adopted a resolution on Arabs in Palestine. This came in the midst of the disturbances and violence in Palestine commonly known as the Arab Revolt (1936–1939). Without discussing the background, the Congress Party conveyed its greetings and sympathy “to the Arabs of Palestine in their struggle for independence against British Imperialism.”⁶ This was also the first exclusive INC resolution on Palestine. Subsequently, Palestine became its only concern in the Middle East. As the problem drew more attention from the Muslim League, the Congress Party declared September 27, 1936, as Palestine Day. Meetings were held in different parts of the country to express solidarity with the Arabs. Nehru, who by then had emerged as the principal spokesperson of the party on foreign policy, attended a mass rally in his native town of Allahabad.

In October 1937, the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) met in Calcutta and registered its protest “against the reign of terror that has been established in Palestine by British Imperialism with a view to coerce the Arabs into accepting the proposed partition of Palestine and assure them of the solidarity of the Indian people with them in their struggle for national freedom.”⁷ The following February, in his presidential address at the Haripura Session, Subhas Chandra Bose highlighted the contradictory and inconsistent policy of the British in Palestine. Because of the heterogeneous composition of the empire, he observed, the British had to be pro-Arab in India and pro-Jewish elsewhere. Thus, he charged, London “has to please the Jews because she cannot ignore Jewish high finance. On the other hand, the India Office and Foreign Office have to placate the Arabs because of the imperial interests in the Near East and in India.”⁸ On similar lines, another Congress Party functionary felt that British imperialism had a “clever knack of promising two or more sets of contradictory things…. The fact is, and it seems to be quite in keeping with British diplomacy, that Palestine was promised both to the Jews and to the Arabs.”⁹

Continuing its earlier policy, the Haripura Congress also condemned “the decision of Great Britain as Mandatory Power to bring about the partition of Palestine and protested against the continued reign of terror.” Extending sympathy to the Arabs of Palestine, it felt that the proper resolution of the Arab-Jewish problem would be an amicable settlement between the two parties. It appealed to the Jews “not to seek the shelter of the British Mandatory and not to allow themselves to be exploited in the interests of British Imperialism.”¹⁰ Three months later, the INC, for the first time, evoked the right of self-determination for Palestine. Deploring the “unnamable atrocities committed by the British Army and Police,” the CWC felt that “the issue of the future government of Palestine should be left to be decided on the principle of Self-determination.” On the question of the Jews, it declared in unequivocal terms: “While sympathizing with the plight of the Jews in Europe and elsewhere, the Committee deplore[s] that in Palestine the Jews have relied on British armed forces to advance their special claims and thus aligned themselves on the side of British Imperialism.” Demanding direct Arab-Jewish cooperation, it visualized the establishment of a “free democratic State in Palestine with adequate protection of Jewish rights.”¹¹ The fifty-second INC session, which met in Tripuri in March 1939, reiterated this idea.¹²

A month before the Tripuri session, in February 1939, the Congress Party managed to pass a nonbinding resolution in the Legislative Assembly demanding India’s withdrawal from the League of Nations.¹³ The supplementary motion, moved by Abdul Qaiyum Khan (a lawmaker from the North West Frontier Province, currently a part of Pakistan), cited British policy in Palestine as one of the reasons for the demand.¹⁴ Subsequently, Palestine drew little attention. The INC and its leaders were preoccupied with World War II and the political restrictions that followed. With most of its leaders incarcerated during the war, the Congress Party could not function normally and was unable to focus on external issues.

However, any understanding of the Congress Party’s policies toward Palestine would be incomplete without underlining certain crucial omissions: (1) There was no reference to the Balfour Declaration in the INC resolutions.¹⁵ This was in contrast to the Muslim League, which consistently demanded the abrogation of the British promise for a Jewish national home in Palestine. (2) The Congress Party did not take any formal position on the Jewish problem or propose a possible solution for it.¹⁶ (3) The Congress Party never repudiated Jewish claims over Palestine and its criticisms were directed only at the modus operandi of the yishuv. (4) While maintaining that the British gave contradictory promises to the Arabs and Jews, the Congress Party did not suggest a compromise between these conflicting promises. And (5) even though it demanded a democratic state in Palestine with “adequate protection of Jewish rights,” the Congress Party was not clear whether these rights were political and national or religious and social.

Nehru and the Palestine Question

As Bandyopadhyaya reminds us, since the Madras (now Chennai) session in December 1927, Nehru became the “recognized spokesman of the Congress on foreign affairs.” After the formation of the Foreign Department of the Congress Party in 1925, “practically every resolution of the Congress on foreign affairs was inspired, drafted, and piloted by Nehru.”¹⁷ What were Nehru’s opinions on Palestine and Jewish nationalist aspirations?

At one level, Nehru had a sympathetic understanding of the plight of Jews. In May 1933, he wrote:

They [that is, the Jews] had no home or nation, and everywhere they went they were treated as unwelcome and undesirable strangers…. They were humiliated, reviled, tortured and massacred; the very word “Jew” became a word of abuse, a synonym for miser and a grasping moneylender. And yet, these amazing people not only survived all this, but managed to keep their racial and cultural characteristics, and prospered and produced a host of great men…. Most of them, of course, are far from prosperous; they crowd in the cities of Eastern Europe and, from time to time, suffer “pogroms” or massacres. These people without home or country… have never ceased to dream of old Jerusalem, which appear to their imaginations greater and more magnificent than it ever was in fact.¹⁸

Like the Mahatma, he was also unsympathetic toward Jewish political aspirations in Palestine. The creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine was unacceptable because “Palestine was not a wilderness, or an empty, uninhabited place. It was already somebody else’s home… this generous gesture of the British government [the Balfour Declaration] was really at the expense of the people who already lived in Palestine.”¹⁹ Regarding Zionist aspirations in Palestine, he remarked: “The Arabs tried to gain their [Jewish] cooperation in the struggle for national freedom and democratic government²⁰ but… [the Jews] rejected these advances. They have preferred to take sides with the foreign ruling power, and have thus helped it to keep back freedom from the majority of the people.”²¹

On another occasion, Nehru highlighted the inability of Palestine to absorb new immigrants from abroad.²² Describing the Palestinian problem as a nationalist struggle against the British, he drew a parallel with India’s freedom movement.²³ Speaking in Allahabad on Palestine Day in September 1936, he reminded his audience of the British policy of playing one community off another to further imperialist interests.²⁴ Writing to the editor of The Jewish Advocate in August 1937, Nehru argued that a real solution to the Palestine question should consider the following factors: (1) independence of Palestine, (2) recognition of the fact that Palestine was an Arab country and therefore Arabs must have a predominant voice in it, and (3) recognition of the fact that the Jews in Palestine are an integral factor and their rights should be protected.²⁵ A few weeks later, in his message to the mufti of Jerusalem, he hoped for an undivided and free Palestine.²⁶ In October 1938, he declared in unambiguous terms: “Palestine is essentially an Arab country and must remain so, and the Arabs must not be crushed and suppressed in their own homelands.”²⁷ He frequently reiterated this as late as April 1947, at the New Delhi Asian Relations Conference.²⁸ This eventually became India’s policy after independence.

Like Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru’s views are also problematic. Speaking in Allahabad in 1936, he ruled out Palestine being a religious issue.²⁹ Both the Arabs and Jews invoked religious injunctions to buttress their respective claims and positions. The resolutions and pronouncements of various Indian leaders clearly testify to this and, in 1922, the Congress Party itself declared that Jazirat al-Arab should remain under Islamic control. Second, despite his prolonged exposure to Western education and culture, Nehru was unable to understand or appreciate the Jewish yearning for a national home. He was not ready to comprehend their nationalist aspirations and their desire to be a free nation. He was primarily preoccupied not with the Jewish national aspirations but their attempts to achieve this with the help of the British. Without ever repudiating Jewish nationalist aspirations, he confined his attention to their “collaboration” with the imperial power.

Moreover, while endorsing Jewish rights in Palestine, Nehru was unable to define them. Were the Jews entitled to any political rights? If so, what were the limits? He reiterated the Arab character of Palestine without ever clarifying Jewish rights. As reflected by the Indian Plan at the UN Committee, he was not prepared to grant any political rights to the Jews but merely settled for civic and religious rights. Above all, Nehru looked at the prevailing international situation through an anticolonial lens. Writing to the Zionist emissary Immanuel Olsvanger in September 1936, he remarked: “I cannot tolerate this imperialism in India or Palestine and the question I ask everyone is whether he stands for this imperialism or against it.”³⁰ His predisposition toward the Arabs made him view Zionism not as a genuine national liberation struggle but merely as a collaborator with British imperial designs in the Middle East and elsewhere. The close ties that the Zionists forged with Great Britain were a result of the harsh political realities of the time. The ability of the Zionists to seek a national home for Jews scattered to the four corners of the world depended entirely upon their success in securing the support and backing of a great power. Nehru was not prepared to appreciate the Zionist predicament.

However, on the central issue of the Holocaust and Jewish suffering, Nehru was more forthcoming and helpful. On this front, the track record of the Congress Party was mixed. It adopted no formal resolution on the Jewish problem that plagued Europe or on the Holocaust. In December 1938, the Congress Party referred to “the plights of Jews in Europe.” The CWC resolution on Palestine, declared, inter alia: “While sympathizing with the plight of Jews in Europe and elsewhere, the Committee deplore[s] that in Palestine the Jews have relied on British armed forces to advance their special claims and thus aligned themselves on the side of British Imperialism.”³¹ The primary focus was on Jewish “collaboration” with imperialism and not their persecution in Europe. The foreign-policy resolution adopted in the INC’s 1939 annual session made a passing reference to the situation in Europe, lamenting:

International morality has sunk so low in Central and South Western Europe that the World has witnessed with horror, the organized terrorism of the Nazi government against the people of the Jewish race…. The Congress disassociates itself entirely from British policy which has consistently aided the Fascist powers and helped in the destruction of the democratic countries. The Congress is opposed to imperialism and fascism alike and is convinced that world peace and progress required the ending of both of these.³²

Both these resolutions were adopted well before the formal Nazi decision to annihilate the Jews through mass murder and gas chambers.

Nehru was far more forthcoming and unsuccessfully tried to declare the party’s support for Jewish refugees. Keeping in mind “the terrible pogrom in Germany against the Jews,” he favored inviting Jewish refuges who could contribute to India’s progress. In response to a letter from a Jewish person in Prague, he noted that inviting Jewish experts would be also be beneficial to India.³³ In the early 1930s, many Jewish refugees from Europe approached the AICC seeking employment in India.³⁴ Even though he was not holding any public office, Nehru

played a notable role in getting the Government of India to take in Jews…. He also succeeded in persuading the reluctant Indian Medical Council to recognize Continental European medical qualifications which enabled many highly skilled refugee doctors to practice in India…. Between 1933 and the outbreak of the war, Nehru was instrumental in obtaining entry for several German Jewish refugees into India.³⁵

Due to opposition from various quarters, however, “a large-scale emigration of the Jews to India could not be achieved.”³⁶

The British policy of declaring German Jewish refugees as “enemy aliens” infuriated Nehru, who bitterly remarked, “it will become more and more difficult for [Jewish refugees] to come, as the difficulties placed in their way by the British government are very great.”³⁷ Some argue that the pro-Palestinian policy of the Congress Party “encouraged the British to insist that each Jewish refugee have a guaranteed job before being allowed entry into India.”³⁸ Despite the hurdles and difficulties, a number of refugees came to India, and Nehru pleaded for and facilitated their absorption into various provincial governments. Some prominent personalities, such as the communist leader M. N. Roy and the future diplomats B. Shiva Rao and R. K. Nehru (also a distant cousin of Jawaharlal Nehru), were married to Jewish refugees from Europe.³⁹

Nehru, however, faced a serious challenge from the Congress Party. Keeping the unfolding Jewish tragedy in mind, he sponsored a resolution in the CWC. This most likely happened at the Wardha session in December 1938, following his return from Europe. The draft resolution read: “The Committee sees no objection to the employment in India of such Jewish refugees as are experts and specialists and who can fit in with the new order in India and accept Indian standards.”⁴⁰ This was not acceptable to the CWC and especially to Subhas Bose, the INC president, and was rejected. Commenting on his failure, Nehru felt that Bose “did not approve of any step being taken by the Congress which was anti-Japanese or anti-German or anti-Italian. And yet such was the feeling in Congress and the country that he did not oppose this or many other manifestations of Congress sympathy for China and the victims of Fascist and Nazi aggression.”⁴¹

Nehru had just returned from a European tour, where he had received first-hand experience on the plight of Jews. What motivated him to seek such a resolution? In his April 1939 letter to Bose, Nehru clarified his stance:

I felt that we must express our opinion in regard to it [that is, the pogrom]. You say that you were “astounded when I produced a resolution seeking to make India an asylum for the Jews.” I am surprised to learn that you felt so strongly about this as, so far as I remember, you did not express yourself definitely at the time. But is it fair to characterize my resolution as one seeking to establish an asylum for the Jews in India?… It was not from the point of view of helping Jews that I considered this question, though such help was desirable where possible without detriment to our country, but from the point of view of helping ourselves by getting first-rate men of science, industry, etc., on very moderate payment. Quite a number of countries sent special commissions to Vienna, after the Nazi occupation, to pick out good men. Turkey has profited greatly from such specialists. It seemed to me an ideal chance to get the right type of technicians and specialists. Their coming here on low salaries would have helped us also to bring down other salaries. They would have come for a period and not to settle down for ever. And only a limited number would have come, and only such as were of definite use to us and accepted our standards and political outlook.⁴²

Nehru felt that India, on the threshold of freedom, would benefit from the expertise and skills of Jewish refugees, while also offering refuge to the persecuted Jews of Europe. Though appearing selfish, he was not alone in making such calculations and indeed was better than many of his contemporaries in other parts of the world.⁴³

However, the central issue of the Holocaust still remains. Nehru’s desire to host Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany was accompanied by an indifferent attitude of the Congress Party toward the Holocaust. The end of World War II revealed the magnitude of the problem and provided some opportunities for the party to articulate its stance. Indian leaders were not ready to admit any link between the Holocaust in Europe and Jewish aspirations in Palestine. When the Special Session of the UN General Assembly met in April 1947 to deliberate the future of Palestine, India vehemently opposed the proposed UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) visit to the Displaced Persons camps in Europe. Even the UNSCOP, of which India was a member, rejected such a linkage, and the majority of the members recommended that “any solution for Palestine cannot be considered as a solution of the Jewish problem in general.”⁴⁴ This line of argument is more poignantly reflected in post-1947 Indian writings. Whenever Indian scholars discuss the Holocaust, it is invariably linked to Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians. In the words of one: “Close to a million Palestinian Arabs were evicted from their ancestral homelands just as Hitler’s tyranny had uprooted many Jews from theirs.”⁴⁵ Palestinians being asked to pay for Hitler’s sins remains their theme song.

In short, the Indian leadership, comprising the Congress Party and its two stalwarts, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, were not in favor of Jewish national aspirations in Palestine. While some of their arguments could be challenged, it is undeniable that they were not ready to endorse the Zionist enterprise in Palestine.

How can one explain and rationalize this pro-Arab and anti-Zionist stand?

Rationale

Asia in general was indifferent to the Jewish longing for a historic home. According to one school of thought, this apathy was due to the absence of the Judeo-Christian heritage in the continent. The history of the Jewish people and their claims to the Holy Land were alien to the predominantly non-Christian Asian masses. Even their Western-educated leaders were less than familiar with Jewish history. In the words of Michael Brecher, Theodore Herzl “did not succeed in his efforts to enlist diplomatic support from Zionist aspirations, but Christian leaders did not question the propriety of his actions or doubt the unique Jewish link to Palestine…. Such sympathy, let alone active support, was unthinkable among Asian leaders, because historic Israel, Jewry, and Judaism are little known east of the Arab world.”⁴⁶ Others, however, attribute the Asian reluctance to its suspicion and disapproval of the goals and objectives of Zionism. For them, serious differences with Jewish aspirations in Palestine made the Asian leaders wary of Zionism’s colonial desires. The Asian reluctance to endorse the Zionist aspiration has to be located within the context of the “incompatibility between the anticolonial upsurge in Asia and the methods and goals of the Zionist movement.” Furthermore, as M. S. Agwani points out, the European Judeo-Christian heritage “did not prevent the sustained persecution of Jews, a circumstance to which Asian history affords no parallel.”⁴⁷

Both arguments are strong but incomplete. The Judeo-Christian heritage significantly facilitated the formation of the Jewish state. A host of “gentile Zionists” actively contributed to the Jewish-homeland project in Palestine.⁴⁸ Reasons for their support differed. For some Christians, a Jewish homeland was the fulfillment of the prophecy; for others, it was an atonement for their prolonged persecution of the “chosen people.” Support for Zionism was also seen as an “honorable” solution to the age-old Jewish problem in the non-European and non-Christian Palestine. Thus, predominantly Christian Latin America played a crucial role at the United Nations, and Christian or Christian-majority countries contributed the bulk of the thirty-three votes in favor of the partition plan. In short, the Judeo-Christian heritage contributed significantly to the popularity and international support for Zionism.

Similarly, Islamic countries or countries with a large or sizable Muslim population viewed the Jewish claims in Palestine through an Islamic prism. Persecution of the Jews was alien to Islamic civilization, and there are no Islamic parallels to the Holocaust, blood libel, or pogroms. Under the rubric of Dhimmi, the Jews were considered as a protected people with a revealed sacred text. So long as they accepted Islamic rule, their lives and properties were protected. At the same time, the concept of political equality between Muslims and non-Muslims was singularly absent. As Bernard Lewis pertinently asks: “How could one accord the same treatment to those who follow the true faith and those who willfully reject it?”⁴⁹ Seen in this Islamic tradition, the demand for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, among others, challenged the traditional Islamic paradigm of Dhimmi. As a result, not only Islamic countries but also countries with sizable Muslim populations, such as India, opposed the partition plan in 1947.

In short, countries with large Muslim or small Christian populations were unfamiliar with the historic links that the Zionists sought to establish with their ancient home. Even though most of the Indian nationalists, including the Mahatma and Nehru, were Western educated, they did not understand or comprehend the prolonged Jewish suffering that culminated in the Jewish nationalist aspiration. Like most Arab and Islamic peoples, they traced the problem primarily to the Balfour Declaration. Prolonged Jewish statelessness and their longing for political rights were unfamiliar to them. As a result, Indian nationalists never viewed Zionism as a genuine liberation movement. As an official Indian narrative puts it, “the seeds of the present tension” in the region were “sown at the beginning of [the twentieth] century, when the proposal to create a ‘Jewish National Home’ in Palestine received the sanction of the British Government.”⁵⁰ The world was born yesterday.

Second, the imperialist connections of the Zionists figured prominently in Indian thinking. The compulsions that made Herzl highlight “international guarantees” as a precondition for the success of Zionism was never part of the Indian thinking. The Indian nationalists settled for a simple explanation of a complex reality. While the Arab nationalists were fighting the British in Palestine, they felt that the Zionists were cooperating with and benefiting from the Mandate authorities. This imperialist connection dominated Nehru’s thinking and his refusal to endorse Zionist aspirations in Palestine. Commenting on this, Ariel Glucklich stated: “instead of identifying Zionism with modern liberation movements, Indian intellectuals identify Zionism with its countries of origin—as English, Russian, and American colonialism.”⁵¹ While the Mahatma advised the yishuv to abandon relying on “British bayonets,” Nehru demanded that Zionists prove their credentials by siding with the anti-imperialist struggle of the Arabs.

Three, as will be discussed below, religious considerations played a critical role in India’s unfriendly and indifferent attitude toward Zionism. Commenting on the role played by the Jews in shaping the U.S. policies, one U.S. congressman observed: “Israel succeeds in the Congress for the simple reason. Two or three per cent of the voters care intensely about it and the rest are uninformed and don’t care.”⁵² This logic is equally applicable to India’s Middle East policy. The Arab viewpoint on Palestine was strongly articulated by the Muslim leadership both within and outside the Congress Party. Declarations and resolutions on Palestine adopted by various Muslim organizations such as the Muslim League, the All-India Khilafat Committee, and Jamaa’t ulema-e-Hind testify to the attitude of the Muslims of the Raj.⁵³

During the Khilafat period, Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party did not hesitate to endorse Islamic claims over Palestine and the need to preserve it under Islamic rule. But they were not ready to accept Jewish religious claims to the same territory. As manifested by the Mahatma, the Indian attitude was conditioned by the need for Hindu-Muslim unity against the British. This became acute in the 1930s when the Muslim League began presenting itself as the authentic voice of the Muslims of the subcontinent. As the Muslim League was demanding the abrogation of the Balfour Declaration,⁵⁴ the Congress Party felt compelled to be more supportive of the Arabs of Palestine. Endorsing the Arab cause alone would not have ensured Muslim support for the Congress Party. But it is reasonably certain that a contrary position on Palestine would have alienated the Muslim minority from the Congress Party and pushed it closer to the Muslim League. Though couched in anti-imperialism, the pro-Arab stand of the Congress Party was primarily a political move driven by domestic calculations.

Finally, unlike the Arabs, the Zionists lacked an effective and influential constituency within India. Even individuals who were sympathetic toward their cause, such as K. M. Panikkar and Rabindranath Tagore,⁵⁵ were not prepared to come out in the open. The Mahatma’s more sympathetic statement to Kallenbach written in 1937 was not made public while he was alive. Panikkar’s memo visualizing post-1947 “Hindu-Zionist cooperation” long remained secret and confidential. Thus, well before the question of Palestine came before the United Nations in April 1947, the Indian position was known and well publicized. As far back as in 1938, Nehru visualized the formation of “a large Arab federation with a Jewish autonomous enclave.”⁵⁶ The following year, the Tripuri Session of the Congress Party proposed an “independent democratic state in Palestine with adequate protection of Jewish rights.”⁵⁷ This subsequently became the official position on Palestine when India was elected to the UN committee.

However, the Zionists and yishuv leadership also share some responsibility for the pro-Arab disposition of the Indian nationalists.

Yishuv and Indian Nationalists

The non-Western world in general and Asia in particular did not figure prominently in the political calculations of the yishuv. At one level, with foresight and long-term calculations, the yishuv systematically cultivated major powers but paid little attention to the rest of the world. As David Ben-Gurion aptly put it on the eve of the formation of the state, “When we say the whole world it is an exaggeration. We never think of India or China or similar countries, but rather about the countries in which Jews have lived or are living.”⁵⁸ This indifference was reciprocated by the Asian apathy toward Zionist aspirations in Palestine. Out of the eight non-Arab Asian members, only the Philippines, a former American colony, voted for partition. Five countries, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey—all Muslim states—and India opposed partition; nationalist China abstained and Thailand was absent.⁵⁹ Real support for partition came from distant Latin America, which overwhelmingly endorsed Jewish aspirations in Palestine.⁶⁰ This Asian indifference and isolation was never fully overcome. Even though Israel later on was eager to befriend countries such as Burma (now Myanmar), the overall indifference continued. It was only in 1956, ironically coinciding with the Suez crisis, that Israeli leaders began to pay serious and concerted attention to Asia in the form of a twelve-nation Asian tour undertaken by Moshe Sharett, the former prime minister.⁶¹

However, before examining the yishuv contacts with the Indian nationalists, one has to examine the obstacles before the yishuv leadership. Unlike other territorial nationalist movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Zionism was not just about a nation becoming a homeland—it was about creating a homeland for a dispersed nation. Bringing the Diaspora to their ancestral home was the central pillar of Zionism. Even if Zionism could provide the necessary ideological zeal for Jewish emigration to Palestine or aliya, operationalizing such an ambitious plan was truly herculean.

Herzl was clear that without an international guarantee Zionism would have remained a messianic cult without a messiah. The Zionists, who were soliciting the support of all the major powers in Europe, found in Great Britain their principal benefactor. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the granting of a Mandate for Palestine made Great Britain the main partner in the Zionist enterprise in Palestine. Since the Jewish national-home project depended heavily upon the cooperation and support of the imperial power, the Zionists could not even dream of being anti-British. Rather than perceiving this as a collaboration with imperialism, one has to see the Zionist alignment with the British as a tactical move toward the realization of their larger political aspirations. As the Revisionist tactics highlighted, the Zionist-British cooperation was not written in stone. Simply put, at least in the initial years the Zionists could not have fought the British and still hoped for a Jewish homeland. The Zionist demands for political support from Indian nationalists, therefore, could not be accompanied by any reciprocal gesture.

Even without the imperial dimension, India was less attractive for the Zionist struggle. Zionist interests were focused on countries that enjoyed significant clout internationally, and their political activities were focused on these centers of international economic or political power. Though London was more forthcoming than the rest, during the run up to the Balfour Declaration, the Zionists worked with other powers, including France, Germany, Russia, and even the Ottoman Empire.⁶² During the interwar period, the United States emerged from its self-imposed isolation and began playing an active role in international politics. This resulted in the gradual shift of the nerve center of Zionist diplomacy from Europe to the United States. This is not to suggest that they ultimately ignored Europe but simply that over time the Zionists became more U.S.-centric. India did not fit into any of these categories. It was a colony of the British Empire, and if its economic clout was small, its political influence was even less. It was not in a position to promote and further Zionist interests internationally.

Moreover, countries with significant Jewish populations drew the considerable interest and attention of the Zionist leadership. Their success in Palestine depended heavily upon the solidarity and support of the Jews in the Diaspora and their identification with Zionist goals and tactics. The solidarity of the Jewish community with their goals in Palestine resulted in the Zionist leadership paying attention to larger communities in different parts of the world. Even on that account, India was not an important player. Its tiny Jewish population meant that the Zionists had little interest in India.⁶³

Finally, the Jews in India were historically free from the persecution and ill treatment that had plagued them in Europe for centuries. The tolerant and assimilationist nature of Hinduism meant that there were fewer reasons for Jews to mark and maintain their distinct religious identity. Hinduism is apprehensive of proselytizing religions such as Christianity and Islam, but Judaism has never posed that type of threat. Historically, Hinduism and the Hindu-dominated Indian society have been extremely accommodating of Judaism and Jews. Anti-Semitism as it is universally understood has not existed in India.⁶⁴ On the other hand, this tolerant environment meant that India was not a crisis area that required the utmost attention of the Zionist leadership. Indian Jews were not a beleaguered community. Ironic as it sounds, Zionism often thrived on anti-Semitism. The rise of anti-Semitism led to an increase in Zionist consciousness among Jews and vice versa. In the absence of anti-Semitism, Zionism never took hold in India.

These facts lead us to an inevitable counterquestion. If India lacked any economic, political, or demographic incentives, why did the Zionists make any efforts at all in courting India?

Why Was India Important?

Israel has long been critical of its “unrequited love affair” with India.⁶⁵ The indifference and unfriendliness of the Indian nationalists figure prominently in its discourse. India’s “unsympathetic and hostile stand” toward the Jewish state has come under severe criticism, both in Israel and elsewhere.⁶⁶ Idealism is the most common explanation for the Zionist interest in India. The familiarity of and admiration for Indian leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru by the yishuv illustrate this aspect. Long before he became a leading figure in the nationalist struggle, Nehru’s Autobiography was translated into Hebrew,⁶⁷ and so were the poems of the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. For a language revived after being dormant for centuries, these translations were no mean achievements.

Idealism, ironically, plays only a marginal role in international relations. Hard-nosed and realistic calculations are justified through moral considerations and ethical arguments. While one cannot go to the extent of suggesting that international relations are immoral by nature, one should not attribute the behaviors of groups and states merely to moral and ethical calculations. Zionism was no exception to this trend, and thus one must look for other reasons for the Zionist interest in India. As India was slowly moving toward independence, the Zionists realized that they could not ignore such a big country. Since the end of World War II, it was clear that Britain would relinquish its “jewel in the crown.” The formation of the interim government in September 1946 under the leadership of Nehru was a major step in this direction. Meanwhile, India joined the United Nations as a founding member and was slowly making its presence felt as an independent player in a number of international bodies. Its election to the eleven-member UNSCOP in May 1947 pointed to its burgeoning relevance and importance.

There was also a larger political consideration: India’s Muslim population. Its unique position as the center of world’s largest Muslim population enhanced the importance of British India. As the largest community outside the entire dar ul-Islam (House of Islam), the Indian Muslims received considerable attention world over, and the yishuv was not an exception. The Zionists were aware of the Muslim factor at the time of the Balfour Declaration. The perceived opposition from Indian Muslims considerably delayed the British decision to endorse the demand for a Jewish national home. Senior officials in the India Office were opposed to Jews being given special privileges in Palestine. Such a move, they feared, would result in widespread opposition from the Indian Muslims and would lead to unexpected consequences. The fears about the negative influences of British officials serving in India weighed heavily upon the Zionist leaders, Weizmann in particular.⁶⁸ For the Indian Muslims, Palestine was an integral part of the Jazirat al-Arab and could not be handed over to non-Muslims. This became a dominant issue during the final days of the Ottoman Empire, when European powers were seeking to place its Arab areas under an Anglo-French mandate. The Zionist political aspirations in Palestine came into conflict with the Indian Muslim struggle for the preservation of the caliph. The formation of Indian opinion critical of Zionist aspirations in Palestine occurred during this period, when the Indian nationalists, including Mahatma Gandhi, were making common cause with the Muslims on a religious issue.

Furthermore, the potential of Indian Muslims to impede Jewish aspirations in Palestine was exacerbated by another player: Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem. Ever since his appointment to that position in May 1921, al-Husseini was quick to recognize the Islamic nature of the problem in Palestine. He faced a twin challenge—strong internal opposition from other powerful Arab families such as the Nashashibis and growing Zionist activities in Palestine, especially immigration. The British administration was a new and unknown phenomenon, and he was not sure of gaining its confidence, let alone support. The mufti realized that his ability to confront the threats posed by Jewish immigration rested on the expansion of his support base beyond Palestine. Islam could be an effective instrument, and expanding the problem into a larger Arab and Islamic agenda was tempting. Instead of seeing Jewish immigration as an assault on the Palestinians, the mufti projected it as a threat to the Islamic world.⁶⁹ Such a worldview naturally drew him to India. In the early 1920s, he sent a three-member delegation to raise funds for the restoration of the dilapidated al-Aqsa mosque.⁷⁰ The delegation managed to persuade rich and philanthropic Muslim rulers of India to contribute generously and raised £22,000; the nizam of the princely state of Hyderabad in southern India alone contributed £7,000.⁷¹

Unlike the Zionists, the mufti had one distinct advantage: the ability to reciprocate. While seeking India’s support, he projected the prevailing political climate in Palestine as an anticolonial struggle; the British were the enemies of Indians as well as the Arabs. For a staunch anti-imperialist like Nehru, the mufti, who was despised by the Zionists, emerged as a genuine nationalist fighting for the liberation of the Arabs of Palestine.⁷² This ideological convergence overshadowed all the other contradictions between the mufti’s brand of Arab nationalism and Gandhian nonviolence. The mufti’s reliance on violence, Islamic orientation, and his Nazi connections during World War II became secondary to the Indian nationalists. Much to the chagrin of the Jews, the mufti’s personal meeting with Hitler in November 1941 rarely figures in Indian discourses on the Middle East. Besides the leaders of the Congress Party, the mufti succeeded in establishing personal contacts with important Muslim leaders such as Mohammed Ali and Shaukat Ali. He met the Ali brothers, the leaders of the Khilafat movement, in Mecca during the hajj pilgrimages of 1924 and 1926.⁷³ Mohammed Ali visited Palestine in 1928, and in the following year the Indian Muslims sent a delegation to the International Wailing Wall Commission, where Ali delivered “one of the three closing speeches for the Muslim side before the Commission.”⁷⁴

The mufti’s close association with the Ali brothers bolstered his standing among the Arabs. He could present himself as someone who was courted, consulted, and listened to by Muslim leaders beyond Palestine; this in turn enhanced his prestige among the Palestinians. Through his offer in January 1931 to bury Mohammad Ali’s body in Harem al-Sharif, in the precincts of the Islam’s third-holiest shrine, the mufti received the admiration, appreciation, and gratitude of Indian Muslims. Later that year, Shaukat Ali played a key role in the Jerusalem Islamic Conference organized by the mufti.⁷⁵

India thus provided the mufti with significant political, religious, and even financial support and raised the stakes of the Palestinian gambit. These efforts proved successful when the Muslim League commemorated May 16, 1930, as the first Palestine Day.⁷⁶ The popularity of this occasion compelled the Congress Party to adopt this practice: September 27, 1936, was again declared as Palestine Day.⁷⁷ The mufti’s growing involvement with India’s Muslim community rang alarms in Zionist circles. They feared that any active Indian involvement in Palestine would be detrimental to their cause. The Arab opposition to aliya was already causing concern in London, and active Indian involvement could only aggravate the situation. Therefore, a denial of Indian support, the Zionists felt, might help curtail the mufti’s efforts and his ability to “Islamize” the conflict in Palestine.

With this objective in mind, in the 1930s the Zionists made contacts with Indian leaders.

Zionist Contacts

The Zionists sought and established wide-ranging contacts with the Indian nationalists and various segments of the Indian society. Such contacts were not confined to Gandhi, Nehru, and other senior Congress Party leaders alone but encompassed the leaders of Hindu, Muslim, and Jewish communities in India. They cultivated and befriended academic associations and institutions, Indian officials serving under the British Raj, influential personalities in various princely states, individuals who subsequently became pioneering diplomats of free India, and various other subaltern elements through public meetings and contacts.

Such diverse activities run counter to the popular notion put forth by Indian writers such as Jansen and echoed by Shimoni.⁷⁸ The earliest known Zionist contacts with Nehru could probably be traced to the Brussels Conference of Oppressed Nationalities in 1927.⁷⁹ In April 1930, Gershon Agronsky visited Bombay on behalf of the Jewish Agency Executive.⁸⁰ Olsvanger came to India in 1936, as an official emissary of the Jewish Agency. His mandate was to establish formal links with various Indian leaders and to seek a sympathetic understanding of the Jewish national aspirations in Palestine. Even though he failed to elicit a favorable Indian opinion, he managed to forge personal ties with Nehru that continued long after the formation of Israel.⁸¹ Likewise, Weizmann, who was instrumental in the Balfour Declaration, met Nehru on July 20, 1938, when the INC leader was in London, and subsequently corresponded with him.⁸²

During his six-month stay, Olsvanger met and interacted with a host of other Indian leaders, including Sarojini Naidu,⁸³ Sardar Patel,⁸⁴ B. R. Ambedkar,⁸⁵ G. B. Pant,⁸⁶ Tagore, and C. F. Andrews.⁸⁷ While Sarojini Naidu⁸⁸ and Ambedkar⁸⁹ came out in support of Zionist aspirations in Palestine, others were more cautious. Tagore, for example, was sympathetic to their cause but clarified that his view was “a purely personal one and not meant for newspaper publication.”⁹⁰ This private warmth and public caution was due to the prevailing pro-Arab position of the Congress Party. The Zionists were successful in convincing many INC leaders to accept their invitation for personal visits to Palestine for a first-hand assessment. Among others, Sarojini Naidu, Andrews,⁹¹ and S. Radhakrishnan⁹² agreed to visit Palestine. None of these planned visits materialized. The commencement of World War II and consequent incarceration of Indian nationalists prevented them.

While looking to the Congress Party and its leadership for political support, the Zionists were conscious of the need to cultivate a popular support base in India. This became essential in the light of the indifferent and unsympathetic positions adopted by senior INC leaders, especially Gandhi and Nehru. Both Olsvanger⁹³ and the Zionist activist Olga Feinberg,⁹⁴ who was working for the Women’s International Zionist Organization, addressed a number of public meetings in India and spoke about the situation in Palestine and the yishuv.

The vocal support for Israel expressed by the Hindu right wing can create the wrong and misleading impression that the Zionists confined their activities to anti-Muslim sections of India. For example, some Indian leaders offered to fight for the Jews.⁹⁵ Over the years, the Hindu Mahasabha, Jan Sangh, its later successor the BJP, and similar other groups, organizations, and individuals associated with this segment of the Indian public adopted an overtly pro-Israel stand. This might give the impression that the Zionists approached India within a narrow communal framework. However, the Zionists also invested considerable political capital in India’s Muslim community and leadership. As discussed elsewhere, Weizmann’s first known political contact was not with the INC leadership but with Muslim leaders. His meeting with Shaukat Ali took place in January 1931, many years before his meeting with Nehru. Likewise, Olsvanger forged personal relations with a number of Muslim leaders of the British Raj, including Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan,⁹⁶ Muhammed Iqbal,⁹⁷ and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.⁹⁸ Ghaffar Khan was an influential leader of the Baloch community that eventually became part of Pakistan; Iqbal wrote the song that was adopted as the national anthem of Pakistan. Azad emerged as Nehru’s principal adviser on India’s Middle East policy and, according to Michael Brecher, sabotaged Nehru’s plans to normalize relations with Israel in early 1952.

Olsvanger’s interactions with Muslim leaders led to an unusual development. In September 1936, he was asked by the Central Khilafat Committee to speak at its meeting in New Delhi. Declining this unique offer, he argued that in the absence of an Arab speaker from Palestine, “I somehow feel that my addressing the Congress would mean… to take advantage of the absence of a possible opponent and that would surely be not fair. If a Palestinian Arab would be present, both he and I could speak and reply to each other before an impartially listening audience.”⁹⁹ Similarly, in December 1937, another Zionist figure, Richard Freund, met Asaf Ali.¹⁰⁰ A decade later, Asaf Ali represented India at the crucial First Special Session of the UN General Assembly that led to the formation of the UNSCOP.

Another area where the Zionists had a significant edge over the Arab nationalists was their widespread academic interests. This partially explains the pro-Zionist views expressed by a number of Western-educated Indian intellectuals. As early as 1909, Weizmann was offered a senior academic position at the University of Calcutta. The Zionist leader declined the professorial offer on the plea that “this would upset our Palestine plans.”¹⁰¹ Had Weizmann, the key architect of the Balfour Declaration, taken up the offer, the destiny of the Zionist movement most certainly would have been entirely different. During his visit, Olsvanger met a host of Indian academics. Reacting to his suggestion for institutional cooperation between the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, the vice chancellor of the BHU, pledged to discuss “the matter with my colleagues when I return to Banaras. But I may say at once that if you wish to send any Jew students to study Sanskrit at the Banaras Hindu University, we shall give him every facility to do so.”¹⁰²

In the same year, another academic, B. S. Guha of the Zoological Survey of India, remarked: “It was indeed a very great plea sure to have met you [Olsvanger] and to be able to establish connection with the University of Jerusalem through your good offices.”¹⁰³ The participation of a ten-member Jewish delegation from Palestine in the first Asian Relations Conference in 1947 brought in more institutional interaction between the Zionists and Indian nationalists.¹⁰⁴ The Zionists also showed a keen interest in those Indians who were representing India in various international forums. The earliest known such contacts date back to 1931, when the Palestinian Zionist leader F. H. Kisch met and befriended Brejendra Mitter and L. K. Hyder, Indian delegates at the Assembly of the League of Nations.¹⁰⁵

Finally, the Zionists were attracted by the princely states of India and their senior leaders and officials. Among them Shanmukham Chetty, the Diwan (the rank of nobility) of the southern princely state of Cochin (currently part of the state of Kerala), expressed an interest in establishing “trade connections between Cochin and the Jewish Agency for Palestine.”¹⁰⁶ In 1938, the princely state of Bikaner (now in Rajasthan) sought technical assistance from the Jewish Agency in dry farming.¹⁰⁷ The Maharaja of Patiala (now in Indian Punjab) along with his foreign minister, K. M. Panikkar, sought cooperation with the yishuv. These contacts proved to be useful following the establishment of the state of Israel.

The extensive prestate contacts between the yishuv and India lead us to two interesting conclusions. First, if the Zionists failed to elicit favorable and sympathetic responses in India, it was not due to the absence of genuine efforts but despite them. And second, in terms of their sheer number, depth, and diversity, Zionist contacts with and efforts toward India were extensive and far reaching.

There is a catch, however. A comparison between the Zionist efforts in India and in other parts of the world leads us to a different and equally important understanding. A number of figures within the Zionist movement have acknowledged and even lamented that their efforts in cultivating India were too meager. Olsvanger’s observation in 1937 clearly highlighted this dilemma. In a candid letter to the British Zionist leader Selig Brodetsky, he observed:

If some twenty years ago Zionists would have tried to come into contact with Jawaharlal Nehru, when he studied in Cambridge, we would not see him today taking up such an attitude of lack of understanding towards our cause. The same applies to the greater part of those who are today leaders of Indian politics. But the greater part of their intellectuals… are at present spending their University years in one or other English towns. That is why the propaganda amongst Indians should be pursued in England…. The most dangerous and irresponsible attitude on our part would be to say: “We do not need these Asiatics at this juncture in view of the probable change in the Palestine political status.” We cannot take Palestine out of Asia. And what ever the changes may be, friendly connections with big Asiatic communities will always be of paramount importance to us.¹⁰⁸

A few years earlier, another Zionist emissary had warned: “The time has come for the Zionist Organization to consider without delay what measures can be taken that Zionist may turn its face, so to speak, to the East.”¹⁰⁹

In the absence of any visible progress toward improving contacts with Asia, a couple of years later, Olsvanger suggested:

Work in India must begin as soon as possible. This would be a threefold task.

a. Work amongst the Hindus, chiefly in Congress quarters.

b. Work among Moslems.

c. Work amongst the Bene Israel…

In addition to this, contact must be kept with the British officials in India, some of whom may one day be transferred to Palestine.

Our representative in South Africa will have to bear in mind that the Indian community out there can also become either useful or harmful to us.

It would be a grave mistake to rely for our work in India on the Zionists there. The task is too responsible.¹¹⁰

Sharing similar sentiments, Panikkar was equally categorical. In a confidential note to the Jewish delegation, the then foreign minister of Bikaner was blunt: “If there is no widespread expression of sympathy even in orthodox Hindu quarters towards Zionist claims, this is due to a large extent to the neglect of India by the Zionists themselves. No attempt has been made in the past to create such an understanding due no doubt to the ‘Western’ attitude of the Jews in general.” How to fix the problem? His advice: “the Jewish Agency should have representation at Delhi.”¹¹¹

Taking note of this situation, the Jewish delegation that came to India in 1947 recommended, among other things,

1. a permanent political representative of the Jewish Agency should be immediately sent to India.

2. a desk for India and Asia should be created in the Political Department of the Jewish Agency.

3. regular coverage should be given to India in Palestine press; and

4. the establishment of an economic liaison office in Bombay should be examined.¹¹²

A year later, Walter Eytan, who subsequently became the first director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, observed: “The KKL [Karen Kayemet l’Yisrael, or the Jewish National Fund] has now been looking for sometime for someone to go to India for three purposes: (a) KKL work proper; (b) work among Jewish youth [and] (c) political contacts.” He went on to add that as far as he was aware, “they have still not found anyone. I’ve been trying to help them, but have so far not hit on any bright ideas…. It’s perfectly true that we’ve neglected that country [India].”¹¹³

According to Michael Brecher, David Ben-Gurion, “who attached great importance to China in the 1960s, was indifferent to both East and South Asia on the eve of Israel’s independence.”¹¹⁴ Indeed, none of the leading figures of Zionism or yishuv visited India prior to the formation of Israel.¹¹⁵ The Weizmann-Nehru meeting of 1938 remained the only high level meeting between two sides, and by that time, the Zionists had lost India to the Arabs.¹¹⁶ It is obvious that while their attempts were deeper than has previously been asserted, the Zionists were less interested in India than in other parts of the world. India was not paramount. This indifference came up against a more powerful force that worked against the Zionist interests: India’s Muslim population and its involvement in the Palestinian question.