Tag Archives: Narendra Modi

Does India Have An Israel Policy?

10 Wed Jan 2018

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There will be nothing but bonhomie for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is expected to arrive in India in a couple of days for a three-day state visit. The Israeli delegation will begin their visit from Ahmedabad, visit Sabarmati Ashram and hold a roadshow in Gujarat, and perhaps visit Agra and Bombay. While in India’s financial capital, Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the Chabad House which was targeted by Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists in a horrific attack in November 2008. The diplomatic agenda, predictably, will revolve around agriculture, water management, cyber security, innovation, and defence.

While there is no question about the Indian public’s warmth for Israel, there have been some whispers of doubt recently about its government’s intentions. Indians, by and large, admire much about the Jewish state and even those who do not are indifferent rather than hostile. Israeli diplomats do not have to waste their time countering anti-Semitism or Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions sort of political movements in the South Asian country. That said, India’s recent vote in the United Nations General Assembly essentially condemning the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel followed by its sudden cancellation of a $500 million deal to purchase Spike anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) from the Israeli firm Rafael Advanced Defence Systems has raised eyebrows in Jerusalem and among observers. The deal is apparently moving forward, according to latest media reports. Are good relations between India and Israel to be limited to Modi’s occasional charming tweets to his Israeli counterpart?

Such misgivings from Jerusalem are not only perfectly understandable but justified; yet the compulsions of India’s own domestic political chaos are also an important set of inputs to policy and must at least be understood if not tolerated for a fuller picture of the intentions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party administration.

When Modi swept into office in 2014 in an election that was just short of a landslide, policy wonks warned his euphoric supporters that the nature of government policies is continuity and incremental change rather than the desired abrupt departure from the “idea of India” espoused by the Indian National Congress. This warning has been borne out to some extent – the economy, which Modi has correctly prioritised, has seen several small yet critical positive reforms but many of the more emotive (and less dry) issues that Modi’s core supporters care about such as education and culture have so far received short shrift; other matters such as terrorism and defence have seen some movement but will take a longer time to reveal the lasting impact of the new regime in Delhi.

Foreign policy, in so far as it does not pertain to the economy, appears to have been largely relegated to the boondocks. The immediate reason for this is the global experience of democracies that there are few votes in foreign affairs. India has yet to cultivate a large and vibrant foreign policy circle as might be observed older and more developed democracies and the community as it exists now has several foci and plenty of challenges regarding access to decision makers, policy documentation, a bureaucratic hostility to transparency, career opportunities, and funds. India’s foreign ministry has rarely been blessed with the sort of polymath ideal for the job, either in its politicians or its bureaucrats, even when the portfolio has remained with the prime minister. With insufficient attention from elected officials, governance slips into maintenance mode administered by the civil service and the policies of earlier decades continue unabated.

This is visible from India’s insistence on clinging to expired motifs such as strategic autonomy, a fancy 21st century upgraded phrase for non-alignment. For example, India recently courted Australia, Japan, and the United States in a security quadrilateral (Quad) that observers understand is designed to balance an increasingly aggressive China and in the same week participated in a trilateral forum with Russia and China. Similarly, India’s approach to the Palestinian question is based on Mohandas Gandhi’s fundamental ignorance of Jewish history that was supplemented by Jawaharlal Nehru’s own political inclinations; the policy was maintained as a hagiographic monument to the two men well after it had proven to be detrimental to Indian national interests.

It is no secret that India’s foreign ministry is understaffed, and the same is true of the ruling political party when it comes to policy formulation. Besides the core issues its supporters would like addressed, foreign policy remains a step-child of the BJP’s internal thinkers. The party seems to have forgotten that to replace an ideology, an alternative is needed. In essence, the BJP has tinkered with the edifice of the Nehruvian state and such incomplete measures occasionally fall short of the hopes of not just the citizens but even the party’s own lofty rhetoric.

It is often argued that India’s policy towards Israel must be tempered by the strategic considerations of its relations with other countries that may be hostile to the Jewish state. Domestic calculations regarding India’s large Muslim minority must also influence how close India can drift towards Israel. The problem with this argument is two-fold: first, it implicitly suspects all Indian Muslims of treason in that they would put the well-being of Palestine and Islam above Indian interests. Second, it cannot explain the tacit Arab acceptance of not just Israel in the face of a rising Iranian threat but even Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state: there were few protests in Arab streets after Donald Trump’s recognition of the Holy City as the capital of Israel. This flimsy argument, in addition to the bogey of seven million Indians returning from the Persian Gulf and the loss of $35 billion in remittances as Arab retaliation against India’s warming ties with Israel, are unfortunately treated as gospel by an intellectually anaemic coterie in the BJP and outside. While India may not strive to become Israel’s closest ally, there is plenty of room for it to move closer to the Middle Eastern democracy if it so wishes.

To repeat dozens of articles already, there are plenty of reasons for Delhi to desire closer ties. Beyond transactional considerations of trade and security, it is also important to remember that the tiny country has been among the more reliable suppliers of know-how and equipment. After the nuclear tests at Pokhran II when no one was willing to supply arms to India, Israel remained one of the very few markets still open. Similarly, the important role Israel played during Kargil is also undisputed.

Optimistic assessments of India’s recent uptick in relations with Israel opine that a change in policy cannot be abrupt, especially when drastic. This is simply not true: in one of the greatest about-turns in recent diplomatic history, the United States de-recognised Taiwan and recognised Communist China in its stead in 1979. The entire process took seven years from Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in February 1972 until the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations in January 1979. Such events are admittedly rare and challenging but pursuing a wrong policy for the sake of continuity is insanity. As mentioned earlier, the lack of political interest or vision within the BJP coupled with an understaffed foreign service does not allow for a nimble policy environment capable of quickly and thoroughly assessing the ramification of ideas on allies, security, economics, and international obligations.

A clear-eyed view of friends, enemies, and interests has the immediate benefit of signalling to partners that you are worth investing in; a bonus is that it gives others confidence in your national purpose and dependability in forging trade and security alliances. India’s waffling – sorry, strategic autonomy – will only ensure that it trails behind its rivals and fights its battles alone. France, despite being a member of NATO, has a far better track record of strategic autonomy than India ever had as a perennial “leading member” of the have-nots.

Nowadays, scholars hesitate to describe foreign systems or people as irrational. This is partly to avoid imposing the observer’s perspective and values on the subject and to allow for a potential alien framework in which things might make perfect sense. However, Indian foreign policy has long veered dangerously towards that word which must not be spoken. American leadership is defined in schools of thought – Jeffersonian, Hamiltonian, Jacksonian, and Wilsonian; in India, there is only the cult of Congress and no opposition party, despite the political cacophony, has come remotely close to offering a complete and alternate weltanshauung comprising economic, security, social, and cultural programmes. Diplomacy suffers the same fate. The real question is not if India has an Israel policy but if the BJP actually has a foreign policy.

Heartburn over Hugs and Hummus

10 Mon Jul 2017

Posted by in India, Israel, Middle East, Opinion and Response, South Asia

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Indo-Israeli relations have been all hugs and hummus of late, a point that neither Jerusalem nor Delhi seem to be tired of reiterating. Narendra Modi’s trip to Israel without even a perfunctory drop-in at Ramallah has been portrayed as historic by most observers, although there have been some doubts about how much of a departure this really is from India’s previous policy given the three-day visit by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas just a couple of weeks earlier.

Whether there really is a shift in Indian policy or not, the perception certainly exists that there has been one and this has caused much heartburn among the ossified grand daddies of entrenched interests. The crux of a string of critiques that have appeared in the Indian press is that the Modi government has made the morally odious choice of abandoning Palestine and in doing so descended into the realm of ordinary states, and that this desertion is but another manifestation of the prime minister’s anti-Muslim Hindu nationalism that has found resonance in Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s equally anti-Islamic Zionism.

In Foreign Affairs, Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch and Manjari Chatterjee Miller argue that “India’s and Israel’s historic perceptions of colonial ideology and religious nationalism are at the root of their longstanding divergence.” According to them, India’s experience as a colony and of bloody Partition created in Indian leaders an aversion to colonialism and religious nationalism; Jewish ambitions in the Levant was, therefore, anathema to them on both counts.

Although Hirsch and Miller are correct in how the Congress leadership viewed Israel and this view did shape Indian policy towards the Jewish state for decades, their article does not grapple with the fact that this was a highly ignorant and erroneous held by Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. To denounce Zionism as a “child of British imperialism” as Nehru did is laughable, and Gandhi admitted to some of his interlocutors sent by the Jewish Agency to inform and persuade the Indian leader of their worthiness of their cause that he did not know enough about Jewish history. Gandhi thought that Israel was being created “under the shadow of the British gun,” a sentiment difficult to arrive at despite the infamous Balfour Declaration of 1917. His simplification of “Palestine for the Arabs” also indicates a severe lack of understanding of the convoluted history of the Levant.

Today, whatever else may motivate the Bharatiya Janata Party’s course correction, it also reflects an acknowledgement of these mistaken views. Old dilemmata over identity will not, contrary to what the article argues, hinder relations but more mundane aspects of economics, regulations, and logistics take time to be streamlined. Additionally, the focus on non-defence matters was a deliberate move by both governments to highlight the civilisation-to-civilisation connections being fostered rather than a purely transactional one – which has been blooming on the sidelines, too.

A churlish piece by Manini Chatterjee in The Telegraph betrays ignorance of Israeli culture as well as any deep engagement with European history or political philosophy. Playing on the tired trope of ethnonationalism, Chatterjee wants to draw attention to the “fusion of religious and cultural identity with a ‘holy’ geographical entity common to both Hindutva and Zionism.” This has, in fact, spared the world of the limitless expansion of more universalist (imperialist) creeds. Chatterjee also takes a swipe at MS Golwalkar for his racial weltanshauung. However, it bears note that Golwalker’s understanding of race was substantially different from the European definition and that Zionism did grow as a response to the liberal European project that sought to dilute and destroy Jewish identity. Instead, Chatterjee prefers to further the myth – as the Dreyfus Affair proved – of civic nationalism.

Rajeesh Kumar’s plea that foreign policy be based on principles rather than on interests (though he sees the two as coterminous) in Outlook is naive at best. His attempt to rescue Nehruvian thinking on Israel, however, is an exceptional attempt at fiction writing. His claim that “India’s support to the Palestinian cause was not determined by the policy of appeasing the Muslim minority population at home” falls flat simply by virtue of Nehru’s own words to the effect that he did not wish to vex Indian Muslims so soon after Partition by cosying up to the Jewish state. Kumar does not explain how Indian policy was pragmatic and not idealistic as he claims but goes on to make another incredulous argument that Israel must be seen as India’s junior partner because of its desire to help the South Asian nation despite being rebuked so often. While Kumar’s point raises an interesting point for further research into Israeli attitudes and thinking towards India, the casting of the receiver of aid as the senior partner is bewildering.

There is no denying of the benefits of better relations with Israel for Kumar, though he warns that this should not mean that India should give Tel Aviv (?) a blank cheque. Kumar’s solution is to extract benefits from Israel via trade and scientific cooperation yet continue to condemn it as has been India’s hypocritical custom in the past. Given Indo-Israeli history, Kumar’s suggestion might work but it will not foster warmer relations.

Finally, he appeals to dharma as a guiding principle of Indian culture and policy. That dharma is not constant but depends on place, time, and situation is entirely lost on Kumar. In a specific circumstance, Krishna advises the Pandavas to go to war even against their own kith and kin. Additionally, Kumar’s appeal to ethics, while noble, has served no purpose in the past. India’s bid to join the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation as a country with one of the highest Muslim populations was rejected and Arab states have historically sided with Pakistan politically as well as economically and militarily in its conflict with India.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi tries to resurrect the flawed Indian historical understanding of yesteryear in his article in The Wire. Amusingly, he states that “India’s position has been appreciated, respected by all for its honesty and integrity,” probably referring to only Arab states and the coterie of non-aligned irrelevants. He clings to the old custom of Indian prime ministers abstaining from visiting Israel on principle without addressing the errors of the past or the changes since in the geopolitical climate. Ignoring his preposterous claims of a Palestinian genocide in 1948 for the moment, Gandhi fails to explain why Palestine ought to matter more to Delhi than its own interests. In his selective history, he omits the Egyptian wall along its border with Gaza or the Jordanian action against Palestinians during Black September, not to mention the occupation of “Palestine” by Jordan and Egypt prior to the stunning Israeli victory in the Six-Day War in 1967.

Modi’s visit, according Gandhi, gives legitimacy to the “occupation and brutal suppression” of Palestinians by Israel. This conveniently overlooks the Indian statement of support for the Palestinian cause just two weeks ahead of Modi’s trip to Israel. Gandhi goes on to argue that India’s policy now is “wholly political, ideological,” implying, one only assumes from the tone, what his cohort has expressed more explicitly about the BJP being anti-Muslim. This ever-ready, lazy label may have some superficial truth to it but ignores a strong undercurrent of historical grievances and political minoritarian discrimination that has now run its fuse.

It is not so much that the caviling is premised on faulty understandings of Hindutva, Zionism, and the Palestinian Question – sometimes by Gandhi or Nehru – but its ornery nature that makes any genuine debate moot. Nehru’s fundamental failure was that he, as a modern Liberal, approached society – India – as tabula rasa upon which he could put down his doodles. Communities, however, do not work like that – they are a brown field project with all its attendant baggage. More importantly, the debate never moves forward because opponents of Israel in India never tire of repeating their worn out and fallacious mantras rather than responding to a counter that has been put forward decades ago. In this climate, there is no argument – only an attempt to overpower the public sphere by sheer volume.

The Next Ten Years

27 Tue Jun 2017

Posted by in India, Israel, Middle East, Opinion and Response, South Asia

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As Narendra Modi embarks on his trip to Israel, many await the outcome of this historic trip. Modi will be the first Indian prime minister to ever visit Israel and symbolically, the Indian prime minister will not stop to visit the Palestinian Authority while in Jerusalem. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is rumoured to share a good personal chemistry with Modi and has tweeted warmly, welcoming the Indian leader to Israel. Netanyahu has cleared his schedule for the two days Modi is in Jerusalem and plans to spend the entire time in discussions with him.

Ahead of Modi’s visit, the Israeli cabinet has proposed several measures to strengthen relations with India. They include a joint fund to encourage Indo-Israeli business cooperation, an expansion of cooperation in water management and agriculture, and the promotion of tourism. There is already some speculation about the several arms deals the Indian prime minister will also be signing during his trip.

There is no question that relations between India and Israel have been on an upward trajectory for at least the past decade and have achieved an even steeper gradient since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014. Trade has increased as has cooperation in the realm of security and neither show any signs of slowing down in the near future. As Israel’s ambassador to India, Daniel Carmon, prophesied about his country’s ties with India, the best is yet to come.

However, the ambassador also made a perceptive point in an interview with the Indian media: for relations to become truly strategic or special, they must move beyond the purely transactional sphere. Towards this end, Carmon pointed to the cooperation between his country and his host country in agriculture and water management. Such interactions bring what Israel has to offer to the doorstep of every Indian. Nonetheless, there is yet tremendous scope for the blossoming of Indo-Israeli relations at the non-governmental level.

The truly special relationship between two states in the modern era must be the United States and Britain. Srdjan Vucetic, a professor at the University of Ottawa, makes a compelling case that this relationship was based, at least initially and for a substantial period, on racial affinity than a congruence of interests and values. India does not share any racial kinship with Israel or the Jewish people. Regardless, the Anglosphere is a good example of what harmonious relations should look like. Despite their differences, the five countries – America, Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand – have supported each other diplomatically on the international stage; Australia has even provided soldiers for every major conflict the United States has found itself in.

Not bound by race or even a shared history, India and Israel can nonetheless base their bond over the fact that the former remains one of the few, perhaps the only, major country that has never had anti-Semitism in its history. This, combined with the obvious strategic imperative and economic opportunities should serve to foster people-to-people relations between Indians and Israelis. While political pressures will motivate strategic cooperation and economic realities will propel trade on their own, both governments must take an effort to encourage cultural connections. This is best done through education, tourism, and the arts.

India may not have too many universities that Israeli students might be interested in but it still has a few good medical and engineering colleges, at least at the undergraduate level. Scholarships should be created for Israelis wishing to study at these institutes, with opportunities for work-study and internships. There is no substitute for living in a country for four years or more to become familiar with its work ethic, politics, and culture. Similarly, avenues should be created to facilitate Indian students who wish to study at Israeli universities or intern at their think tanks. Already, hundreds of thousands of Indians seek intellectual enrichment in the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia; there is no reason Israel cannot be a destination for Indian scholars, especially given its reputation in information technology, trauma medicine, artificial intelligence, and robotics.

University exchange programmes – for lecturers as well as students – may well serve in improving Indian education. An inflow of foreign students could increase pressure to update curricula, spark off research programmes, improve university governance, and ameliorate financial woes. The power of educational exchanges must not be underestimated – the role played by the British Rhodes scholarship and the American Fulbright Programme in influencing young minds world over in the Anglo-American way of thinking comes to mind.

Another important industry that is open to more than just young scholars is tourism. Both Israel and India are ancient cultures with histories that go back at least five millennia. Several historical sites in both countries are even dated several millennia earlier. More than for just history buffs, India also offers a bewildering array of cuisines and terrain that will excite and entrall tourists. Israel’s beaches and adventure sports are similarly a powerful draw for visitors. While Israel has already started to entice Indians to tour its treasures, there is much for India to do on this front. Cleanliness, adequate bathroom facilities, and protection of the monuments from the picnicking masses would be a start; accurate information in multiple languages available online and multilingual tour guides would be another measure to bring Indian tourism to even basic standards. On the larger scale, lodging and transportation need to be improved to tourist destinations.

About 40,000 Israelis visit India every year. Most of them are young people who have just finished their mandatory military service, have financial constraints as they are yet to start working, and prefer the peace and quiet of remote towns in the foothills of the Himalayas than Ellora, Khajuraho, or the Taj Mahal, at least initially. Better connectivity and infrastructure in these areas might not only persuade more Israelis to visit India (rather than South America, the other favourite destination after military service), but entice them to stay longer. Better upkeep of tourist destinations may not immediately interest this crowd but it will attract their parents – who may have spent six to twelve months of their youth in India too – to make a second trip to India. More importantly, development of tourist places is not an Israel-specific project but will make India’s attractions bearable for people all around the world.

Towards bettering tourism traffic, both countries could take several steps in making travel easier. First, visas can be made easier to apply for via an online application process that accepts scanned documents as well as the application form. Two, criteria for tourist visas can be relaxed. Three, keeping in mind the nature of Israeli tourism to India, the period of e-tourist visas can be extended to a year. All these steps would be towards the eventual goal of eliminating the requirement for visas for tourist travel between the two countries. Admittedly, some of these measures have been partially put in place. However, there remains much progress to be made.

Additionally, connectivity between India and Israel stands to be substantially improved. There is only one carrier that flies directly between Israel and India – that is the Israeli airline El Al, with two weekly flights between Tel Aviv and Bombay. Such things are largely commercially influenced but it is not inconceivable that additional carriers operating at least weekly from India’s IT hub, Bangalore, and Delhi might find passengers.

On the cultural front, Delhi and Jerusalem must do more to promote their music, art, literature, and language in each other’s countries. There is some very intelligent Israeli cinema and theatre that have not made it to India except, perhaps, on torrents, because of the language barrier. Sponsoring tours by theatre groups and promoting foreign language films can be a great way to expose Indians and Israelis to each other’s societies. As the French have their Alliance Française and the Germans their Goethe-Institut, Israel could promote Hebrew via its literature and philosophy. Stronger business and educational ties will spur an interest in learning Hebrew among Indians. Similarly, India can promote Sanskrit and Indian philosophy in Israel, which, for some odd reason, seems to have a fair number of people interested in Indian thought and literature.

It must be remembered that culture is by its very nature an elite preoccupation and will not have too many takers. However, the rewards will be ample from those who do take advantage of the new options and become ambassadors of their culture to the other. What makes it worse is that unlike defence or economics, culture remains ambiguous both in its promotion and reception. It is not possible to have clear metrics of investments to results, it is perfectly possible that some visitors either to India or to Israel had some personal experiences that left them with a bitter taste of the other’s culture. One only hopes that familiarity breeds brotherhood.

Over the next decade of Indo-Israeli ties, both Delhi and Jerusalem must indeed strengthen defence cooperation in terms of sales, joint ventures, and manufacturing. On the economic front, the free trade agreement that has been languishing in the doldrums since 2004 would be a welcome catalyst to increasing trade. However, the absolute numbers will not be much – Israel is only slightly larger than Nagaland with the population of Bangalore – but the value will be in the reliability of the relationship. It is the people-to-people connections that will ultimately be the bedrock of ties and give meaning beyond the mundane. Unlike security and trade, culture needs support, encouragement, and nurture. This should be the next focus in both capitals.