This article is borne out of a simple question: Why did India, which once championed the rights of Palestinian autonomy, gradually recalibrate its stance to cultivate one of its closest strategic partnerships with Israel? What unfolds is a complex story of ideals meeting geopolitical pragmatism, of moral postures negotiating with strategic necessities, and of a nation navigating its own internal and external transformations in the decades following independence.
Step onto any street in India in 1947 and mention that today its youth are among the most fervent amplifiers of the Zionist project, and you would likely be met with incredulity. Yet, that is exactly the world we live in. Since Israel began bombing Gaza in “retaliation” for the Hamas attacks on 7 October, networks of Hindu nationalists have mobilised online, and sometimes in the streets, advertising their solidarity with Israel as if it were a moral and civilisational duty. This was far from India’s first stance. What we see today marks a rupture with the ideas that shaped India’s early engagement with this subject.
“Palestine is essentially an Arab country and must remain so, and the Arabs must not be crushed and suppressed in their own homelands.” Nehru declared in 1938. At the time, Palestine was in the throes of a revolt against British rule and endless Jewish migration from fascist and anti-Semitic Europe.
This stance aligned itself ideologically with Indian National Congress’ broader anti-colonial worldview. They had engaged with liberation movements in Syria, Iraq and Egypt which indeed were the seeds of the ties between the Arab world and India. Ariel Glucklich notes that Indian intellectuals viewed Zionism less as a liberation movement and more as an extension of Western colonialism.
This refusal to support the creation of a Jewish state was also motivated by a desire to mediate tensions between the Hindu-dominated Congress Party, which advocated for a strong and ostensibly secular central government, and the emerging group of Muslim leaders, who, wary of their minority status, sought greater autonomy within a more federal structure for India.
Following independence, India’s foreign policy under Nehru maintained its pro-Arab and anti-colonial posture, emphasising solidarity with Palestine while carefully navigating relations with Israel. In 1947, India, along with newly created Pakistan and Arab bloc, voted against the partition of Palestine at the United Nations. As the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961, India became attached to its self-image as a buffer against Western imperialism.
At the same time, India had to contend with the realities of regional geopolitics, particularly its rivalry with Pakistan, which used Islamic solidarity as a diplomatic tool to gain influence in the Middle East. Supporting Palestine became both a moral stance and a strategic necessity, helping India secure backing in the Arab world on issues like Kashmir. For all its moral stance, India’s domestic politics with respect to Kashmir and North-East revealed a gap in its professed commitment to self-determination and anti-colonial solidarity. Also, India’s significant energy needs and trade routes through the Suez Canal made strong relations with Arab countries crucial.
Yet beneath this public pro-Arab posture, India’s foreign policy operated a careful shadow game. India engaged in significant backdoor military trades and intelligence cooperation with Israel from the 1960s onwards, driven by urgent security needs. During the 1962 Sino-Indian War, Nehru discreetly requested and received heavy mortars and ammunition from Israel, despite objections from Egypt. Publicly, however, India doubled down on its stance and became the first non-Arab country to recognise the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).
The traces of any real shift in policy were witnessed under Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s. Representing the growing bourgeois middle class, he moved the Congress Party away from its strictly socialist posture toward economic liberalisation. This shift coincided with a recalibration of India’s foreign relations: while the government maintained its public pro-Palestinian stance to honour commitments and preserve ties with Arab states, it increasingly pursued pragmatic engagement with Israel behind the scenes.
In 1992, following the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the American unipolar moment, India formally exchanged diplomatic missions with Israel, more than four decades after first recognising the Jewish state. As India ventured into the global market economy, it had to represent, according to Azad Essa, an “evolution” of the Indian state from a purported outsider to an “insider” in the neo-liberal international order. Thus began a series of increasingly overt engagements with Israel, spanning trade, technology, and defence, progressively shedding the cloak of secrecy that had defined much of the Cold War-era relationship. Arab participation in the Middle East Peace Conference also gave India space to normalise relations with Israel.
Subsequently, we see an unprecedented acceleration in the India-Israel relationship, particularly in the BJP-led state. Members of RSS had long idealised the Zionist project. V D Savarkar, the ideological father of Hindutva, wrote that “if Palestine became a Jewish state, it would gladden us almost as much as our Jewish friends.” It is hard not to notice, if nothing else, a similar pattern of right-wing ethno-nationalist states states employing a rhetoric of historical victimhood to justify military aggression and consolidate domestic majoritarian politics.
Yet ideological unity is not enough to understand the subject. A key aspect of this evolution was India’s ability to decouple its bilateral interests from its public stance on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, enabling rapid expansion in military and security cooperation. This included defence modernisation, joint research, and significant purchases of Israeli technology and collaboration in counter-terrorism and border management. Economic ties deepened as well, with bilateral trade extending to agriculture, technology, water management, and arms sales, later reinforced by initiatives like the “I2U2” grouping and the acquisition of Haifa Port by Adani. Even Congress under Manmohan Singh pushed for improving ties with Israel in the form of joint missile development. Today, the relationship is best described by Naor Gilon, the Israeli Ambassador to India as “very deep, very emotional, and truly unique.”
What then are we to make of this complex entanglement? To me, the convoluted, multilayered story of the India–Israel relationship reveals a longer and deeper story of our postcolonial nation. Noam Chomsky once remarked that “today’s Israel and Modi’s India are natural partners.”Hopefully, this reflection makes us question whether it is just an ideological alignment driving the partnership, or if it has become an enduring feature of India’s identity.
Caption: 1981 stamp issued by the Government of India in support of the Palestinian people.
Source: brownhistory on instagram
Yashika Jain
