India's Israel Policy

P. R. Kumaraswamy

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2010
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9780231525480
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

India's foreign policy toward Israel is a subject of deep dispute. Throughout the twentieth century arguments have raged over the Palestinian problem and the future of bilateral relations. Yet no text comprehensively looks at the attitudes and policies of India toward Israel, especially their development in conjunction with history.

P. R. Kumaraswamy is the first to account for India's Israel policy, revealing surprising inconsistencies in positions taken by the country's leaders, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, and tracing the crackling tensions between its professed values and realpolitik. Kumaraswamy's findings debunk the belief that India possesses a homogenous policy toward the Middle East. In fact, since the early days of independence, many within India have supported and pursued relations with Israel.

Using material derived from archives in both India and Israel, Kumaraswamy investigates the factors that have hindered relations between these two countries despite their numerous commonalities. He also considers how India destabilized relations, the actions that were necessary for normalization to occur, and the directions bilateral relations may take in the future. In his most provocative argument, Kumaraswamy underscores the disproportionate affect of anticolonial sentiments and the Muslim minority on shaping Indian policy.

The good things in life are like the birth of a child. Ninety percent waiting.

—James Michener

1 Introduction

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, i...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents 
• Acknowledgments
• 1: Introduction
• 2: Mahatma Gandhi and the Jewish National Home
• 3: The Congress Party and the Yishuv
• 4: The Islamic Prism: The INC Versus the Muslim League
• 5: India, UNSCOP, and the Partition of Palestine
• 6: Recognition Without Relations
• 7: Domestic Politics
• 8: International Factors
• 9: Nehru and the Era of Deterioration, 1947–1964
• 10: The Years of Hardened Hostility, 1964–1984
• 11: Prelude to Normalization
• 12: Normalization and After
• 13: Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index