The good things in life are like the birth of a child. Ninety percent waiting.
—James Michener
When it comes to the Jews, Israel, and the wider Middle East, even Mahatma Gandhi is not infallible. At one level, he appeared to have repudiated any Jewish claims to Palestine. This was evidenced by a widely quoted statement he made in 1939: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that En gland belongs to the English and France to the French.”1 For many Indians and non-Indians alike, this signaled his unequivocal rejection of a Jewish national home in Palestine. Careful examination of his other statements, including a confidential note he wrote to his old Jewish friend Hermann Kallenbach in July 1937, presents a much complex picture. Moreover, on the eve of the World War II, the Mahatma strongly advocated Jewish nonviolence against Adolf Hitler. This, he hoped, would melt the Fuehrer’s heart and force him to abandon his destructive path. At the same time, the Indian leader chose to “understand” the Palestinian Arabs’ use of violent tactics against the British authorities. In a similar vein, a decade earlier the Mahatma did not demand that the Indian Muslims practice nonviolence as a precondition for his support for the Khilafat struggle.2 A very selective use of morality, personified by Mahatma Gandhi himself, has been the most dominant feature of India’s Israel policy. Until full relations were established in January 1992, India was cool, unfriendly, and even hostile to the Jewish state. This was so despite India being free of any forms of anti-Semitism and remaining friendly toward the Jewish people since their first known arrival in India, following the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70. Despite being hospitable to the Jews, India’s policy toward Israel was long manifested by nonrelations rather than by cordial ties. The prolonged absence of diplomatic ties with Israel is an aberration in India’s overall attitude toward the Jewish people.
For decades, Israel remained the most controversial and deeply divisive issue in India’s foreign policy. The Indian attitude toward Israel was in sharp contrast to its policies regarding China and Pakistan. Prolonged differences, tensions, and even armed conflicts with these countries did not prevent New Delhi from maintaining normal diplomatic ties with both countries. Israel, with whom it never had any bilateral dispute, remained an outcast. The prolonged nonrelation was justified by moral self-righteousness, and critical issues such as domestic influences rarely received adequate attention. The tremendous progress in bilateral relations since 1992 should be seen against the backdrop of protracted Indian reluctance to come to terms with Jewish history and nationalist aspirations.
Regarding India’s foreign policy, Israel occupies a unique, controversial, and unparalleled position. Until full diplomatic relations were established in January 1992, Israel did not fit into any pattern or model that could explain New Delhi’s policy toward the world outside its borders. No other issue was as contentious and acrimonious as the absence of formal Indian ties with Israel. It lacked domestic consensus, exposed a hypocritical aspect of India’s foreign policy, and dented the moral credentials of India’s venerated leaders. For nearly four decades, it was an aberration and, at times, an embarrassment for the mandarins of India’s policy.
Unrequited love. This term aptly explains the Indian responses to prolonged Israeli overtures. Since the founding of the Jewish state, India reacted and responded, often negatively, to various Israeli efforts toward recognition and normalization. India was active when violence erupted in the Middle East and did not accommodate Israel’s concerns and fears. While Israel eagerly sought close ties, Nehru’s India was reluctant and coy. For over four decades, it was India that decided, shaped, and controlled the bilateral developments. In the absence of diplomatic ties between 1948 and 1992, even the term “relations” may not be appropriate. During this phase, nonrelations remained the hallmark of India’s Israel policy. It was only after Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao’s decision in January 1992 that one can speak of “relations” and debate the influence of one upon the foreign-policy interests and calculations of the other.
Despite the eventual emergence of widespread support, India’s Israel policy never enjoyed unanimous support within the country. The issue was first discussed in the Indian Constituent Assembly in December 1947, more than five months before the establishment of Israel.3 Since then, the official Indian policy regarding normalization and India’s attitude toward Israel has come under close public scrutiny and criticism. Some of the most acrimonious debates in the Indian parliament revolved around Israel. More than any other foreign-policy agenda, the recognition of Israel and, subsequently, the establishment of diplomatic relations with it preoccupied the Indian lawmakers. The absence of relations became a powerful instrument through which the opposition could vent their disapproval and anger, and such a stance should not be dismissed as a political gimmick.
The Indian leaders were equally aware that their position regarding normalization was rather weak and untenable. Over the years, a number of them admitted that relations should have been established immediately after Nehru’s decision to recognize Israel in September 1950. During his meeting with the visiting Israeli diplomat Gideon Rafael in 1961, the Indian prime minister conceded that very point.4 Likewise, his close confidant Krishna Menon told Michael Brecher that if India “had sent an ambassador at that time [that is, soon after recognition] there would have been no difficulties.”5 Morarji Desai, who was prime minister from 1977 to 1979, reflected similar sentiments.6 In the wake of normalization, Indian intellectuals argued that had relations been normalized in the 1950s, the hype and expectations surrounding the 1992 decision would have been prevented.7
The unfriendliness toward Israel contradicted the traditional Indian attitude toward Judaism. Historically, anti-Semitism has been alien in Indian culture. Theologically, Hinduism can and did coexist with Judaism without much difficulty, in part because of their mutual suspicion and opposition to conversion. As a nonproselytizing religion, Judaism does not threaten Hinduism. This is in contrast to the other two Semitic religions, Christianity and Islam, for whom converting others into their faith remains a cardinal theological goal. Furthermore, at the height of the Nazi persecution a number of European Jews took refuge in India, and amid the nationalist struggle against the British, Nehru, as the leader of the Indian National Congress (or Congress Party), was instrumental in securing employment for some of these refugees. At the end of the World War II, India became a safe haven for Jewish refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan until their emigration to the newly formed state of Israel. Official hostility toward Israel but prolonged hospitality toward the Jewish people is another paradoxical element of India’s Israel policy.
As the opposition parties argued, Nehru’s India remained hostile to Israel even in the absence of any tensions—let alone disputes. If the public postures are an indication, India remained more hostile to Israel than toward its political, territorial, and military adversaries. Between 1947 and 1992, India fought four military conflicts with Pakistan and China. In India’s assessment, both these countries are in illegal occupation of vast Indian territories. The 1962 Sino-Indian conflict dealt a crushing blow to Nehru’s leadership aspirations in the Third World. In the case of Pakistan, the hostilities often spilled into cross-border terrorism and its support for separatist militants in Kashmir. Despite these conflicts, New Delhi has always maintained formal ties with both Pakistan and China, and even during the military conflicts India did not expel their ambassadors. India decreased its diplomatic presence in Beijing following the Sino-Indian war but did not terminate its relations. Israel remained an exception. A controversial media remark even led to the Israeli consul (the highest Israeli representative in India) being declared persona non grata in 1982.
Israel was unique in another sense. India’s refusal to maintain formal relations did not inhibit its leaders from seeking help and assistance from the Jewish state. Ironically, this trend began with Prime Minister Nehru. A few months after voting against the UN partition plan, he sought agricultural experts from Israel.8 A couple years later, despite a stalemate on the diplomatic front, India again sought similar assistance from Israel. This seeking help without normalization was more pronounced in the security arena. During the 1962 Sino-Indian debacle, Nehru sought and obtained limited quantities of military assistance from Ben-Gurion. Likewise, anti-Israeli statements in public did not inhibit his daughter, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, from establishing closer ties with the Israeli intelligence establishment.9
This private sympathy and public hostility was common to a number of Indian personalities. Even those who were friendlier toward Israel had their limits, at least in public. Sardar K. M. Panikkar, India’s first ambassador to China, personified this duality. In early 1947, he was confident that after partition India would be free from Muslim influence and would be more sympathetic toward Zionist aspirations in Palestine. A few years later, he even lamented India’s belated recognition of Israel. Yet in his autobiography, published in 1955, he sang a different tune and joined the official chorus against the formation of Israel.10 The same holds true for Rabindranath Tagore, a Nobel laureate, who felt that his sympathies for Jewish nationalist aspirations in Palestine were “private” views that should not be publicized.11
This duality continued after India gained independence. The Israeli collaboration with the British and French during the Suez war of 1956 provided an opportunity for Nehru, as the Israeli action had all the hallmarks of an aggression against a fellow member of the emerging Afro-Asian bloc and was a sign of collaboration with the imperial powers. Using the conflict as an excuse, he formally deferred normalization with Israel. But at the same time, he expressed no qualms about seeking closer ties with London and Paris. Indeed, his opposition to the policies of the imperial powers was accompanied by his desire for stronger bilateral ties with them. The British aggression against Nasser did not impede India’s continued membership in the British Commonwealth, and the same holds true for Nehru’s policy toward France. It is thus not possible to explain away India’s Israel policy within the context of its opposition to and disapproval of the policies of the latter or its connections to colonialism. Indeed, with the sole exception of its opposition to apartheid in South Africa, India’s opposition to the policies of a country was not accompanied by its refusal to maintain normal relations with it.
Furthermore, Nehru’s strong disapproval of Israel’s action during the Suez crisis was accompanied by an accommodating and pro-Soviet view during the roughly contemporaneous Hungarian crisis. Even within the Middle East, India has been selective in condemning aggression. The anger and frustration exhibited by India following the Israeli actions against Egypt was conspicuously absent when Saddam Hussein invaded, occupied, and annexed Kuwait in August 1990. Likewise, Indian leaders rarely spoke in support of the national rights or to condemn the statelessness of the Kurdish people.
During the 1950s, securing international acceptance of communist China was a major foreign-policy priority for Nehru. He wanted the outside world, especially the United States, to have normal ties with China, even if the West had strong reservations over the nature of the government in Beijing. He stressed that political differences among nations could never be resolved through exclusion and boycott. He even urged the Arabs to resolve their differences with Israel through negotiation. Nehru and his successors, however, could not internalize these noble ideals and treat Israel as a normal country. Far from treating it as a friend—let alone an ally—for over four decades, India was not prepared to maintain even a modicum of ties with it. As David Ben-Gurion lamented, the high moral principles advocated by Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru were never applied to India’s Israel policy.12
Israel was an exceptional case even when compared to Pakistan, a country described by some as India’s “center of gravity.”13 During the cold war, India’s foreign-policy choices were often shaped by the attitude of other countries toward Pakistan. The pro-Pakistan slant of the United States, for example, partly resulted in India moving closer to Moscow. Although India was not in a position to retaliate over Middle Eastern support and sympathy for Pakistan, its unequivocal support for the Arabs over Israel was never reciprocated. If the Arab states (especially Nasser’s Egypt) remained neutral during the Sino-Indian war of 1962, most remained sympathetic to Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971. Though the impact of Arab support did not influence the outcome of these conflicts, they pointed to India’s limited influence in the Middle East. As King Abdullah remarked during his state visit in January 2006, the Arabs perceived India to be a friend but saw Pakistan as an Islamic brethren. During much of the cold-war era, India’s influence in the region vis-à-vis Pakistan was limited, and India never took the Arabs to task for their refusal to accommodate Indian concerns, despite the latter acceding to their demands regarding Israel. It settled for suffering in silence. Avoiding any open discussion on Arab support for Pakistan, New Delhi merely highlighted the Arab “understanding” during conflicts and thereby hoped to minimize any negative fallout.
Whichever way one looks at it, Israel has been a unique, controversial, and at times hypocritical dimension in India’s foreign policy.
Contrasts and Convergences
Contrasts with Israel were often used to explain prolonged non-relations. There is nothing in common, the argument went, and therefore no relations. The contrasts between India and Israel are interesting and colorful. While the Indian nationalists were fighting the British, the mainstream Labor Zionist leadership was compelled to identify itself with the imperial power and its interests. Obviously the Zionists could not have fought the British, the only power that was prepared to endorse and help their political aspirations, and still hope for a Jewish national home in Palestine. Following Israel’s and India’s independence, the two countries took divergent paths. Anti-imperialism emerged as a cornerstone of India’s foreign policy; driven by regional hostility and isolation, Israel was compelled to continue and even strengthen its links with the imperial powers. Such a stand complicated things for Israel, especially when anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism became the theme song for the newly independent countries of the Third World.
Second, the partition of the subcontinent was relatively easy and mutually accepted. Despite their ideological reservations and opposition, the mainstream nationalists accepted the religion-based partition of India. The Congress Party opposed the two-nation theory propounded by Mohammed Ali Jinnah but accepted the communal partition as a price for freedom. Despite the communal riots that followed, both the Congress Party and the Muslim League accepted and implemented the partition of the subcontinent. This was not the case in the Middle East. The Arab majority in Palestine unanimously rejected the UN plan that advocated the partition of the Mandate territory into independent Arab and Jewish states. They were supported by the neighboring Arab countries, who opposed, both politically and militarily, the implementation of the UN plan. Indeed, until the late 1980s, mainstream Palestinian leadership refused to accept the UN resolution of November 29, 1947.14 As a result, unlike South Asia, the division of Palestine proved to be agonizing, complicated, and protracted. This in turn had negative repercussions for Israel and its political and diplomatic fortunes.
Third, India’s identification with the process of decolonization in Asia and Africa was consistent and hence relatively fruitful. Israel, on the other hand, could not take a stand. Preoccupation over its problems with the Arab world forced it to be less enthusiastic about decolonization. The convergence of its interests with France over Algeria, for example, led to both countries forging closer ties in the 1950s and resulted in nuclear cooperation. The same holds true for other former colonies who gained independence from the European powers. As with the yishuv over British India, the colonial powers proved to be politically more attractive to Israel than the liberation movements.
Fourth, India was more fortunate than Israel in facing organized hostility. In spite of its best efforts, Pakistan was unable to forge an anti-Indian political bloc. Though at times critical of India over Kashmir and the welfare of Indian Muslims, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has not been hostile to New Delhi. India has been far too important politically and economically for the Muslim world to adopt an explicitly hostile stand, especially when India had closer ties with some of the prominent members of the OIC. Israel, however, was less fortunate. The Arab League, formed in 1945, emerged as the principal political forum against the Jewish state, and an anti-Israeli posture soon became a cover for deeply seated inter-Arab quarrels. First, the Arab League tried to prevent the formation of Israel. Once this failed, the Arab League members sought to strangle the newly formed state by invading Israel hours after its establishment. Following the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 (or the war of independence, in Israeli parlance), the Arab League used its powers and clout to enforce a politico-economic embargo against Israel. These efforts led to Israel being excluded from various regional and international organizations, meetings, and groups, thereby institutionalizing its international isolation. This was not the case for India.
Fifth, India had to face serious challenges to its territorial integrity in form of wars with Pakistan and later China. Six decades after independence, it has unresolved border disputes with almost all of its neighbors, both large and small. Yet India’s existence was never in question. At worst, its regional adversaries have sought to limit its power and preponderance. Israel, on the contrary, has been less fortunate. Its existence as a sovereign entity has not been accepted by a vast majority of Arab and Islamic countries. It took three decades for an Arab country, Egypt, to formally recognize the Jewish state. Until they were revoked following the Oslo accords, the charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) explicitly challenged and denied the existence of the Jewish State. The Hamas charter still does not accept Jewish sovereignty over the “Islamic land” of Palestine. More than sixty years after its formation, Egypt, Jordan, Mauritania, and Turkey are the only countries in the Middle East that formally recognize Israel. Thus recognition and acceptance continues to be the major foreign-policy objective of the Jewish state.
Last, although both countries are formally committed to the principle of secularism, Israel primarily sees and defines itself as a Jewish state. Unlike India, it does not subscribe to separating religion from national-identity formation. Provisions such as the Law of Return, preferential treatments to exclusive Jewish institutions such as the Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund, and the primacy enjoyed by Judaism in state symbols such as the national anthem, flag, holidays, and dietary laws explicitly preclude non-Jews from easily identifying themselves with the state. In this sense ironically like the other countries of the Middle East, Israel has yet to evolve a territory-based national identity. India is placed slightly better in this regard. Periodic communal tensions and violence against minority groups has challenged India’s secular foundations, but mainstream political forces, including the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, are formally committed to keeping the country secular. This is evident when Indian leaders recognize and accommodate the views of India’s Muslims when dealing with Israel. The Arab minority in Israel, on the contrary, does not influence Israel’s policy toward the Arab world.
This is only one side of the story. Any nuanced understanding of India’s Israel policy would have to be located in some of the larger similarities shared by both countries. Both countries have more in common than many care to admit. Placing them in a comparative perspective would enable us to appreciate not only the post-1992 developments but also the dilemma faced by Nehru regarding normalization. Both gained freedom around the same time: India in August 1947 and Israel the following May. Despite their recent emergence as sovereign entities, both countries trace their history and civilization to well before the birth of Christianity. As Chaim Weizmann taunted the British during the run up to the Balfour Declaration, both nations were civilizations long before London and Paris became cities. And both countries are immensely proud of their unique traditions, cultures, and civilizations.
As modern political entities, both almost treaded the same path. Their formation not only coincided but also raised similar issues. Their freedom was accompanied by partition along religious lines and a resultant communal bloodbath. They were confronted with hostilities from their immediate neighbors and their state-building efforts were complicated by the influx and absorption of a large number of refugees. Both attained independence around the same time and from the same imperial power, Great Britain. As free nations, they were not willing to entangle themselves in the Eurocentric cold war, and both consciously pursued a policy of nonalignment (or nonidentification, as it was known in Israel). In the early years, both countries had a similar worldview; on a host of international issues such as the Korean crisis, the recognition of communist China, and the larger cold war, both Nehru and Ben-Gurion adopted identical views. In the early years, there was considerable mutual goodwill toward each other.
Despite Nehru’s initial reluctance to recognize it, Israel was enamored by the foreign-policy vision of the Indian leader. This approach is vividly apparent in the long letter written by Israel’s most senior diplomat, Walter Eytan. Outlining Israel’s foreign policy to the head of the Israeli delegation to the Lausanne Conference on August 11, 1949, Eytan observed:
In the course of a debate on foreign affairs in the Indian parliament on March 8th of this month Pandit Nehru made the following statement:
We are friendly with all countries. We approach the whole world on a friendly basis, and there is no reason why we should put ourselves at a disadvantage by becoming unfriendly to any group. India has a vital role to play in world affairs. There is absolutely no reason why we should be asked to choose between this ideology and that. In the past, India spread her cultural doctrine to other countries, not by force of arms, but by the strength and vitality of her culture. There are no reasons why she should give up her own way of doing things simply because of some particular ideology emanating from Europe. By aligning with any particular group we lose the tremendous vantage ground we have of using the influence that we possess—and that influence is growing—for the sake of the world peace. We do not seek domination over any other country, and do not wish to interfere in any other country’s affairs, domestic or other. Our main stake in world affairs is peace; to see that there is racial equality and that people who are subjugated are free. For the rest, we do not seek to interfere, and we do not desire other people to interfere in our affairs. If there is interference, political, military or economic, we shall resist it. The supreme question today is how can we avoid a world war. If there is a World War, it will mean such a catastrophe that for a generation or more the progress and advancement of humanity will be put at an end. This is a terrible thing to contemplate. Everything should be done to avoid the catastrophe. I feel that India can play a big part and may be an effective part in helping the avoidance of war. Therefore, it becomes all the more necessary that India should not be lined up with one group of Powers or other, which for various reasons today are full of the fear of war and are preparing for it. This is the main approach of our foreign policy. It is possible that other countries who are also not happy at the prospect of war may support our attitude and back us in this march….
In the passage I have just quoted you have only to substitute the name “Israel” for “India” and you have an excellent statement of the principles of Israel’s foreign policy. I am convinced that with India thinking this way and Israel thinking on the same lines…
Eytan concludes that both India and Israel could join hands and contribute to world peace.15
It is unusual and extremely rare to quote the statement of a foreign leader to explain one’s own policy, but Eytan did exactly that in 1949. One can also find Nehru’s influence in the initial Israeli policy of neutrality during the Korean crisis and in the Israeli recognition of communist China.16 Israel often used such similarities and convergences of views to highlight and promote its friendship toward India.
Both contrasts and convergences had their utility. Prior to normalization, the former dominated Indian thinking and for many they were useful tools to explain and justify the prolonged absence of relations. Normalization of relations has reversed this trend, and noting points of convergence between the two nations has become more common. That both nations are ancient civilizations and the prolonged absence of Indian anti-Semitism have become prominent in Indian political discourse on Israel. Earlier, such references were politically imprudent, but after 1992 they became essential ingredients of the Indian policy.
India’s Israel policy is also unique in another sense: domestic determinants played a pivotal role in some of the critical decisions concerning Israel. Although the Indian nationalists understood the history of Jewish suffering and persecution, it was accompanied by a marked lack of sympathy for Jewish political aspirations in Palestine. The absence of a significant Jewish population in India was compounded by another factor, namely, the Islamic prism.
The Islamic Prism
During the British rule, India had the largest number of Muslims in the world, and currently it has the third largest Muslim community, after Indonesia and Pakistan. This demographic reality was amply reflected in India’s policy on Israel. Its unfriendly approach toward Jewish aspirations was partly because its nationalists viewed the problem in Palestine through an Islamic prism. The demand for a Jewish national home in Palestine fundamentally challenged the traditional Islamic attitude toward the Jews. The fulfillment of the Zionist aspirations meant that the erstwhile Dhimmi17 were to become the owners and masters of a land that had been under Islamic rule since the seventh century. If one excludes the Crusades period (1099–1291), Jerusalem and its environs had remained continuously under Islamic rule since the caliph Umar conquered Jerusalem in A.D. 638. Jewish lives and property were protected so long as they were prepared to accept Islamic rule and the conditions imposed by the Dhimmi arrangement. The scope of death and destruction rampant in European Christendom thus never visited the Jews of Islam. Zionist aspirations and the demand for a Jewish homeland in Palestine fundamentally altered this historic arrangement. The Zionists now demanded sovereignty, not protection; equality, not toleration; and political rights, not religious privileges.
Only Mahatma Gandhi succinctly captured the essence of this Islamic struggle against Zionism. Disregarding secular arguments, he recognized and accepted the Islamic rationale against Jewish aspirations in Palestine. His familiarity with religious scriptures and his philosophical worldview enabled him to recognize the Islamic nature of the problem and its resonance among the Muslims of India. Unlike the other nationalists, he was prepared to see the traditional claims among Indian Muslims that Palestine was a part of Jazirat al-Arab (the Islamic land of Arabia). Interestingly, in the Middle East the expression has been used traditionally only to denote the Arabian Peninsula, but in India it was expanded to include Jerusalem.18 Mahatma Gandhi was quick to recognize the underlying reason agitating the Indian Muslims regarding the British designs on the crumbling Ottoman Empire. Writing in April 1921, he readily accepted the “injunction” of the Prophet Mohammed regarding Jazirat al-Arab. As he rhetorically asked, the Muslims did not fight World War I to hand over Palestine to non-Islamic control. He went on to explicitly rule out non-Muslims seeking sovereign rights in Palestine.19 Indeed, largely under his influence, in 1922 the Indian National Congress demanded the liberation of Jazirat al-Arab “from all non-Muslim control.”20
This was inevitable. Toward the end of World War I, the Indian Muslims were agitating over the future of the Ottoman Empire, whose sultan was also the caliph. Protection and preservation of the institution that symbolized the unity of the believers preoccupied Indian Muslims and produced widespread public protests known as the Khilafat movement. For the Congress Party and its leaders, this became an opportunity to strengthen bonds with Indian Muslims. Hence, despite the explicitly religious nature of the problem, the Indian nationalists were at the forefront of the Khilafat struggle. Around the same time, the Muslim League, which subsequently championed Pakistani nationalism, began articulating a hardline stand on Palestine. Gradually, the problem of Palestine became an instrument for the Congress Party to further its influence among the Muslims. With the Muslim League clamoring to be the exclusive representative of the Indian Muslims, the Palestine issue became useful to the Congress Party to shore up its pro-Arab and pro-Islamic credentials. Though couched in secular-nationalist expressions, in the early 1930s the Palestine issue became the most prominent foreign-policy concern of the Congress Party.
As time went by, the intensification of Congress Party–Muslim League tension over Muslim support added a new twist to India’s attitude toward Jewish nationalist aspirations. Unlike the Muslim League, the Congress Party presented itself as the representative of all Indians, irrespective of their religious, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and caste divisions. Within this context, the religion-based nationalist argument of the Muslim League became a plot to divide India. The Pakistani nationalism pursued by the Muslim League and the Jewish nationalism in Palestine appeared fractious to the Congress Party. It saw both nationalist arguments as sinister attempts to divide and secede from India and Palestine, respectively. The Congress Party could not accept the Muslim League’s argument that the Indian Muslims constituted a distinct nation because they followed a different religion. Likewise, logically, it refused to concede that Jews were a different nation.
For the Congress Party, the endorsement of the right of self-determination did not mean endorsing the Muslims in India and Jews in Palestine as distinct nations. As its representative eloquently argued at the United Nations, “there is no reason why political considerations should be mixed up with religious considerations and why political rights in a state should be confused with religious rights.”21 Its eventual acceptance of the partition of the subcontinent in August 1947 was not an endorsement of the religion-based division propounded by the Muslim League but was the price for India gaining freedom from the British. That a large portion of Muslims opted to stay in India after the creation of Pakistan helped consolidate the Congress Party’s opposition to religion being the preeminent determinant of nationhood.22 At the same time, preoccupied with its rivalry with the Muslim League, the significant historical differences between the Jewish question and the problems of the Muslims of British India did not receive adequate attention among Congress Party circles.
After the partition of the subcontinent, the erstwhile Congress Party–Muslim League rivalry over the support of the Indian Muslims transformed into political competition between India and Pakistan for Arab support. The troubles over Kashmir and Pakistan’s attempts to speak on behalf of Muslim citizens of India complicated the matter. Thus, from the very beginning, Pakistan has occupied an important position in India’s foreign policy, and this manifested most clearly in its Middle East policy. To counter Pakistan using Islam as its principal foreign-policy instrument, India burnished its secular credentials. Both countries used their respective support for Palestinians as their principal means to establish their pro-Arab credentials. This competition with Pakistan resulted in India making a few controversial decisions, such as its gatecrashing the Rabat Islamic summit in September 1969.
The Islamic influences upon India’s Middle East policy were inevitable. Having opted for democracy, both before and after independence, the Indian leaders had to listen to the voices and aspirations of the various segments of the population. A country with extremely diverse religious, ethnic, linguistic, and national groups, democracy was and remains the only option if India is to survive as a political entity. Any other course would have vindicated Churchill’s prediction of India being just “a geographic term” and “no more a united nation than the equator.” Its leaders, therefore, must respond to diverse pulls and pressures and keep in sync with the aspirations and demands of various ethnic and religious groups, especially on sensitive foreign-policy issues. A wanton disregard of any particular group or segment of the population would have challenged the very idea of India.
Thus various transborder ethnonational links play an important role in shaping India’s relations with its immediate neighbors. Its policy toward the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, for example, has been heavily influenced by the sentiments of the Tamil population in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. A similar role is played by the Bengali population regarding India’s policy toward Bangladesh, Punjabis vis-à-vis Pakistan, and conservative Hindus vis-à-vis Nepal.
The same is true for the Indian Muslims. Their interests in Middle Eastern developments are a function of history, theology, and faith. Even if one presents these through a secular paradigm or Marxist jargons, the sentimental response of the Indian Muslims to the Arab-Israeli conflict is real. As a gentile, kafir, infidel, and pagan, a secular Hindu might be indifferent to the contested claims over the Holy Land and might even consider the city of Jerusalem about as relevant as Alaska. This is not possible for a believer. For a Muslim, conservative or otherwise, Jerusalem is not, say, Berlin, which could be divided and then reunified due to political compulsions. Nor is the division of Palestine akin to the Korean Peninsula, which stands divided due to ideological animosity. Whether stated explicitly or camouflaged in secular jargon, religion plays an important role in shaping the views of Indian Muslims toward the Middle East. This is more palpable and pronounced toward Israel and Israel only. For example, the Turkish occupation of Cyprus, the prolonged Syrian presence in Lebanon, or the Iranian occupation of three islands belonging to the United Arab Emirates is largely ignored by Indian Muslims. Even the Iraqi invasion, occupation, and annexation of Kuwait did not receive universal condemnation of the community. The Kurdish struggle for self-determination rarely evokes their interest. Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians, in contrast, generates widespread attention, criticism, and condemnation from the Indian Muslims.
Thus no Indian government could ignore the strong Muslim sentiments regarding the Middle East without undermining India’s democratic credentials. While the extent to which a particular government is prepared to go varies, Muslim sentiments figure prominently in India’s Israel policy. At the same time, political compulsions prevented the Indian leaders from openly admitting to the “Muslim factor” to explain the prolonged absence of diplomatic relations. Such an admission was seen as “communal” and nonsecular. But in their private conversations with Israeli leaders, many, including Prime Minister Nehru, admitted that domestic compulsions over Muslims prevented normalization.
This duality was true for the mainstream Indian intelligentsia. Many have no problem in attributing the pro-Israeli sentiments of the right-wing groups, parties, and individuals to their animosity toward Muslims and Islam. It is widely argued that the Hindu right is pro-Israeli because it is anti-Muslim. The converse argument, however, remains anathema to mainstream scholars. Any suggestion that the Congress Party was unfriendly toward Zionism and Israel because of pro-Muslim political calculations is vehemently denied, dismissed, and even vilified as a conspiracy. That the Israel policy could be a function of domestic Muslim politics continues to be absent from mainstream political debate within the country. As a result, Maulana Azad became Nehru’s adviser on “Arab” and not Muslim affairs, India’s gatecrashing at the Rabat Islamic summit in September 1969 had to be given a national-interest slant, and even the Middle East policy of the Hindu nationalists have to be painted in secular colors.
Do the Indian Muslims play a role akin to the Jews of the United States with respect to the Middle East? Such suggestions are generally unpopular in India. Arguments that Indian Muslims influence and shape India’s Israel policy remain controversial, “not kosher,” and marginal. There are a number of differences between the two communities. U.S. President Harry S. Truman could openly attribute his pro-Israeli policy to the absence of “one hundred thousand Arabs” among his constituency. Indian leaders, on the contrary, are far more cautious in admitting any link between the domestic Muslim population and the nation’s Middle East policy. This cautious approach dates back to the immediate aftermath of the Khilafat struggle, when the secularization of the Middle East policy became the prime agenda of the Congress Party. If the Muslim League (later on, Pakistan) used Islam to rationalize its support for the Palestinians, the Congress Party (later on, India) placed its pro-Arab policies within a secular framework. If the driving forces before 1947 were anticolonialism and anti-imperialism, after 1947 it was support for Arab nationalism and righteousness of the Palestinian cause. The Islamic dimension was rarely admitted as a factor in India’s prolonged unfriendliness toward Israel.
There are other differences between the political role played by the American Jews and the Indian Muslims. Even though domestic politics led to swift U.S. recognition of Israel, for long the Jewish factor remained dormant. It was only after the spectacular Israeli military victory in the June 1967 war that the ethnonational factor became prominent in U.S. policies and politics. From then onward, for the Democrats and Republicans alike, criticizing Israel is not a sensible political option. Despite occasional differences, mainstream American politicians viewed Israel as pivotal to U.S. interests in the ever-turbulent Middle East. The Indian situation is somewhat different. The domestic Muslim factor has always been a consistent feature of the political scene, though with varying degrees of influence. When they were in power, even the pronouncedly pro-Israeli parties such as the Jan Sangh (later on, the Bharatiya Janata Party) could not ignore the domestic dimension.
Likewise, the emergence of the nascent pro-Arab lobby to counter the perceived pro-Israeli bias in U.S. Middle East policy is a recent phenomenon. In India, however, a powerful segment has been highly critical of the pro-Arab slant of its Middle East policy. Since the days of Nehru, the opposition castigated his unfriendliness toward Israel, depicting the government as the “attorney for the Arab League,”23 “chaprasi,”24 or the “fourteenth Arab state.”25 While there is a substantial support for India’s pro-Arab policy, there has always been a vocal opposition. Until recently, this has not been the case in the United States.
Despite these differences and obvious limitations, it is possible to draw a parallel between the roles played by American Jews and Indian Muslims. In terms of their Organization, lobbying skills, and political involvement, they are poles apart. At the same time, both these communities share certain distinct traits that are relevant to the understanding of India’s Israel policy. Both have strong ethnonational linkages and attachments to the Middle East, and their foreign-policy involvement is more visible here than toward any other parts of the world. The democratic environment in the United States and India enables both communities to articulate their concerns. For the Jews, a pro-Israeli policy serves U.S. interests, and for the Muslims a pro-Arab policy promotes Indian interests. Both American Jews and Indian Muslims argue that their respective foreign-policy choices are not parochial but are reflective of their respective national ethos and values. If the former harps on the democratic credentials of Israel, the latter highlights the justice of the Palestinian cause. The political influence of both these communities is acutely recognized during elections and other domestic political battles. American leaders do not hesitate to attend important events organized by various Jewish groups; likewise, no Indian politician skips Iftar parties,26 even if they are hosted by bitter political rivals. For U.S. presidents and Indian prime ministers alike, they are high-value political events and not solemn religious occasions.
There is, however, a catch. The role played by the Jews in influencing U.S. Middle East policy is a hotly debated and even contested issue in the United States. Establishing a similar link between the domestic factor and India’s Israel policy is a herculean task. India remains the only democratic state that does not declassify official papers. The Right to Information Act introduced in 2005 does not cover the foreign-policy domain, and much of the documentation pertaining to the Nehru era (1947–1964) remains classified. Sifting through the limited archival materials currently available in New Delhi, acrimonious debates in the Indian parliament, and declassified materials in Israel, one can reasonably conclude that the domestic factor played an important role in India’s understanding of Jewish history and its policy regarding Israel. Behind the official secular discourse lies a deeply seated domestic, democratic, and demographic rationale: Indian Muslims.
Compulsions
Despite the obvious handicaps, it is possible to reconstruct some of the key developments regarding Israel. The most critical development regarding normalization happened in early 1952. In March of that year, Prime Minister Nehru made a commitment to normalization when Walter Eytan, the senior-most Israeli diplomat, came to New Delhi to expedite the process of establishing formal relations. A vast majority of Indian leaders and diplomats left a favorable impression upon Eytan regarding the establishment of diplomatic relations. Nehru, who was concurrently serving as India’s foreign minister, even instructed his officials to prepare the budget for a resident Indian mission in Tel Aviv. The Israeli visitor was informed that a formal decision would be taken by the Indian cabinet “within the next few weeks,” following the first Lok Sabha elections. This did not happen—or rather, it only happened four decades later.
By all accounts, both Indian and Israeli ones, the veteran Muslim leader Maulana Abul Kalam Azad stood in the way of normalization. The Congress Party president during World War II, he was a cabinet colleague and close confidant of Prime Minister Nehru. Often portrayed as Nehru’s “adviser on Arab affairs,” he was held responsible for the absence of relations. Citing opposition from the domestic Muslim population and possible “mischief” by Pakistan in the Middle East, Azad persuaded the prime minister to defer normalization. Nehru, who had unquestionable sway over India’s foreign policy both before and after India became independent, bowed to the wishes of the senior-most Muslim leader within the government and Congress Party. Apparently, this policy shift and postponement was not communicated to Israel. An indirect hesitation regarding Israel came in 1955, when India reluctantly bowed to the Arab veto over Israel’s participation at the Bandung Afro-Asian Conference. A more pronounced statement regarding normalization came during the Suez crisis of 1956, when Nehru observed that the time was not ripe for relations with Israel. This subsequently became the standard Indian refrain on normalization.
Interestingly, the two reasons given for Azad’s stance—the domestic Muslim factor and Pakistan’s diplomatic maneuvers—were actually valid when Prime Minister Narasimha Rao normalized relations with Israel in January 1992. How could a politically weak prime minister such as Rao ignore these compulsions when a more powerful and dominating personality—Nehru—had been unable to? What helped Rao but worked against Nehru? Why was Rao successful? Three closely linked factors worked against normalization during Nehru’s time. As discussed earlier, the pro-Arab policy enjoyed strong domestic support from Indian Muslims. Two, both the international climate and India’s foreign-policy calculations did not favor a pro-Israeli policy. And finally, despite his towering personality—or because of it—Nehru remained a prisoner of his ideological worldview, which prevented him from understanding the nationalist aspirations of the Jewish people.
During the struggle for Indian freedom, the nationalists identified themselves with other peoples resisting foreign rule. They felt that India’s struggle against the British was also a part of the wider struggle against colonialism. This brought them into contact with leaders of various nationalist movements in Asia and Africa and formed the basis for the post-1947 Indian policy toward these countries. Decolonization and anti-imperialism became the hallmark of India’s foreign policy. Nehru also visualized a leadership role for India among the newly independent countries. As highlighted by the Asian Relations Conference held in New Delhi a few months before Indian independence, forging closer ties with the decolonizing countries became an important foreign-policy priority. Through the formation of an Afro-Asian bloc of independent countries, Nehru also sought to distance and in the process quarantine India and other countries from cold-war politics. Maintaining political autonomy through a nonaligned foreign policy became the key to maintaining and consolidating the newly won political freedom.
The opposition to imperialism, solidarity with the newly independent countries, and the emergence of nonalignment as its principal foreign-policy instrument naturally affected India’s Israel policy. In continuation of the pre-1947 position, India and its leaders took anti-imperialist logic and Afro-Asian solidarity to mean a greater accommodation of Arab views regarding Israel. The growing Arab world weighed heavily in Indian political calculations. As Nehru’s friendship with Gamal Abdul Nasser grew, India became less friendly toward Israel. At Bandung, Nehru accepted the Arab veto over Israeli participation and a year later formally ruled out diplomatic ties after witnessing Israel joining hands with the old imperial powers against a fellow member of the Afro-Asian world.
Gradually, India’s foreign policy acquired a distinct pro-Soviet bias, and this in turn affected Israel’s fortunes. Nehru was vehemently critical of the Suez crisis but treated the Soviet invasion of Hungary a few days later as an “internal” affair of the Eastern European bloc. Indian reactions to the Czech crisis of 1968 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 were also muted. While such a policy might have served India’s vital interests, there was a secondary effect. Before long, the Soviet Union became the “natural ally” of the nonaligned movement, and this in turn contributed to the growing isolation of Israel in the Third World. While the Soviet Union was not a factor in the formulation of India’s policy, it offered, especially after the June war, an ideological rationale. For many Third World countries, opposition to Israel became a sign of “progressiveness.”
The international situation had an additional dimension: Arab usefulness over Kashmir. Having taken the Kashmir question to the United Nations, Prime Minister Nehru and his successors needed all the international support they could muster. The pro-Pakistani sentiments in some Western capitals and Pakistani membership in the U.S.-sponsored anti-Soviet military blocs complicated the situation for India. Although India’s closer friendship with the Soviet Union garnered Soviet veto power in the UN Security Council, Pakistan became India’s major concern in the Middle East. It sought to minimize and if possible counter Pakistani influence through its pro-Arab policy.
Third, Nehru’s ideological worldview also worked against Israel. From the early 1920s he influenced, guided, and eventually directed the foreign-policy pronouncements of the Indian nationalists and subsequently of the free India. His understanding of Jewish aspirations in Palestine naturally became crucial to the formulation of his Israel policy. At one level, he recognized the Jewish people as an ancient religious group that had endured great suffering and subjugation. At another level, he refused to recognize them as a nation. Nehru’s endorsement of the right of subjugated people to freedom was never extended to the Jewish people. If the Jews are not a nation, then he could not endorse their homeland project in the Middle East. Thus ignoring the particular historic circumstances, Nehru dwelled on the Zionist’s reliance on the British for their political goals in Palestine. The marginal improvement following India’s recognition of Israel was jolted in 1956, when Israel allied with the imperial powers and attacked Egypt. India’s leaders soon reverted to their pre-1947 position and identified Israel with imperialism. So overwhelming was Nehru’s influence that even his death in 1964 did not alter these basic tenets.
In 1962, Nehru’s utopian worldview crumbled along the Himalayas. His failure to safeguard India’s vital interests forced him to settle for a more realistic foreign policy, and he revisited some of the issues over which he had held strong reservations in the past. His seeking of military aid from Israel, however, was only temporary, and the post-Nehru Indian leadership again was unfriendly, critical, and at times hostile toward the Jewish state. What Nehru could not do his successors could not even dream of. The Soviet Union’s decision to terminate relations with Israel following the June war added an ideological dimension.
This raises another question. Why did Nehru and his successors fail to distinguish between the normalization of relations and India’s differences with Israel over other issues? Why did bilateral relations become hostage to Israel’s policy toward the Arabs? Why did India allow third parties to undermine its bilateral relations with Israel when it had no problems or disputes with the Jewish state?
A possible explanation has to be located in India’s limited political leverage and economic dependence on the outside world. During much of the cold war, it remained a marginal player. The political and diplomatic clout it enjoyed in the early years came to an abrupt end following the 1962 Sino-Indian war. During the cold war, a strong political stand on various issues remained the principal method by which India could make its presence felt. India’s pro-Soviet foreign-policy slant gradually eroded its moral high ground. Its tolerance of the Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan episodes dented the moral component of its foreign policy. Furthermore, the political role India visualized for itself was not accompanied by any corresponding economic component. It had long depended on the outside world for various forms of economic aid, assistance, and even largesse. Its early economic growth rested on massive aid from the United States in the form of PL-480 and support for a green revolution in agriculture. From the mid-1950s, the Soviet Union was a key player in its industrialization, and it provided the backbone of the Indian military. India also was dependent on the Middle East and during the cold war, its economic leverage in the region was negligible. The first oil crisis of 1973 exposed its vulnerability to supply disruptions and price escalations.
Devoid of other avenues, India under Nehru sought to pursue its interests in the Middle East via the Palestinian issue. The problem of Palestine was never a bilateral issue for India, either before or after its independence. It was always part of a larger policy. During the freedom struggle, it was an instrument for the Congress Party to lure Indian Muslims from the Muslim League and its demands for Pakistan. After 1947, the Congress Party’s support for the Arabs of British Mandate Palestine and the absence of diplomatic relations with Israel emerged as India’s principal foreign-policy instruments in the Middle East. By highlighting its historic support for the Palestinians and trumpeting its anti-Israeli track record, India sought to establish its pro-Arab credentials and further its interests in the Arab world. In the absence of any meaningful economic leverage, support for Palestinians emerged as India’s principal political instrument in promoting its interests in the Middle East. Devoid of political or economic leverage commensurate with its leadership aspirations, India failed to make a distinction between normalization as a bilateral agenda and support for the Arabs’ cause as a multilateral agenda. The Israel policy was subsumed under support for the Arabs.
Rao was luckier than Nehru. He was able to reverse the four-decade-old policy primarily because the Palestinian factor proved to be a political liability following the 1990–1991 Kuwait crisis. When the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat identified himself and his people with the Iraqi aggressor, the Palestinian factor was no longer useful. As prominent Arab countries in the Persian Gulf turned against the PLO, India could no longer use its pro-Palestinian credentials to further its interests in the Middle East. The Palestinian factor had to be decoupled from India’s bilateral relations with the Middle East. It was the severing of this link that enabled New Delhi to reverse its traditional policy regarding Israel.
The setback suffered by the PLO and the subsequent willingness of the Arab mainstream to endorse a political settlement with the Jewish state had an effect upon India’s domestic Muslim population. Given that countries such as Saudi Arabia were prepared to endorse a negotiated settlement with Israel, opposition to India normalizing relations lost steam. Not everyone was satisfied, but opposition to normalization became hollow. In addition, the Madrid conference and the recognition of Israel by the Soviet Union and China influenced the Indian communists.
In discussing this broad picture, this book looks for answers to some widely ranging, critical, and disturbing questions. Why did India pursue a domestically controversial policy toward Israel? What were the roots of India’s Israel policy? How relevant has the role played by the domestic Muslim population been? Why did India wait for far-reaching international changes before modifying its policy? Is there a pattern in India’s newly found friendship with Israel?
Largely adopting a chronological path, this book traces the Indian policy within four broad timeframes. The first phase coincides with the nationalist struggle, when the Indian leaders were unfavorably disposed toward Jewish political aspirations in Palestine. The second phase spans the formation of Israel in May 1948 and Nehru’s assurances in March 1952 in favor of normalization. This phase marked some improvements and was accompanied by an Indian desire to reexamine its earlier stance regarding Israel. This period also witnessed some meaningful interactions between the two sides and raised hopes for a new and productive relationship.
The third phase roughly begins in early 1952, when Education Minister Azad persuaded Nehru to defer normalization. In 1956, India ruled out diplomatic ties, and for the next four decades, the Indian attitude gradually hardened. If relations remained cool during the Nehru years, they rapidly deteriorated and reached their nadir in November 1975, when India joined with the Arab and Islamic countries in denouncing Zionism as racism. Minor improvements in the late 1970s when the opposition Janata Party was in power were nullified when Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980 and anti-Israeli rhetoric resumed.
The fourth and final phase began in January 1992, when Prime Minister Rao reversed the traditional policy and established full diplomatic relations with Israel. Because of the paucity of discussion, this work primarily focuses on the pre-1992 developments. Indeed, from early 1920, when the roots of the Israeli policy were planted, until relations were established seven decades later, the absence of formal relations remained the hallmark of the Indian policy. This was both unprecedented and deeply divisive. Indeed, the nonrelations were as colorful as the post-normalization developments.
A serious discussion of India’s Israel policy would have to begin at the beginning: Mahatma Gandhi. He was not the architect of India’s Israel policy, but for a vast majority of Indians he symbolized not only India’s struggle for freedom but also its political aspirations. His personal integrity and humility made him one of the most revered figures of the twentieth century. But what exactly were his attitudes toward Jews, Israel, and the Middle East?