I remember reading a report in 2009 about the countries having the greatest sympathy towards the state and cause of Israel. India was ranked as the top country with 58% support, with the U.S. coming second with 52%.
Ironically, the traditional Cold War allies Britain, France and Spain were lowest around with an average of 25%. This is ironic, but not really astounding, given the recent tectonic shifts in global geo-political scenarios in the last decade and a half.
The Europeans countries, with large growing numbers of Muslim immigrants, had a demographic shift in the last two decades. India, however, became a traditional military ally of Israel – Israel topped the military hardware export-to-India chart, with Russia and the U.S. fighting for a close second spot in recent years – and is the only country in the world whose experience with militant Islamism can be compared to Israel.
What is baffling however, to many analysts outside the Indian sub-continent is the apparent balancing act which India continues to do with Iran, a self-proclaimed arch enemy of the Jewish state whose cornerstone goal of foreign policy is the destruction of Israel.
Before going into details, let’s just explore the historical perspectives a bit deeper:
Indo-Israeli diplomatic relations started in the 1950s. The then-openly socialist and pro-Moscow Indian government, with a declared support for Palestine state, however, allowed Israel to open a consulate in the city of Mumbai. Though it was not a full servicing embassy, it looked after Indo-Israeli trade, primarily diamonds, which bloomed after globalisation in the 1990s and with the formal opening of Israeli embassy.
Starting the 1970s, with the Zia ul Haq government in Pakistan, and Pakistan’s transformation from a relatively liberal, pro-western capitalist state, to an Islamic pseudo-emirate with growing interference in Kashmir, the interactions between the external intelligence agencies of both India and Israel changed dramatically.
The peak of relations with Israel’s military-diplomatic establishment was reached during the time of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government (1996-2002) when India was then, for the first time, being termed as an ally in the global war against terror by U.S. President George W. Bush.
The complexity of the situation between between India and Iran lies in the fact that Persians and Indians have been trading and dealing with each other for a few millennia before our modern nation states ever existed. But in our modern days…
Iran slowly changed over the time in relation to it’s foreign policy of South Asia. Initially, Iran, Russia and India all supported the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan against the Pakistan-backed, Taliban. But after 9/11, even though Pakistan officially moved away from the Taliban, Iran started to covertly support them in engaging the increasingly belligerent U.S. in the region.
Iran itself is facing the threat of the Sunni Jundullah terrorist group with its base in Pakistan, but it chose to overlook this challenge and threat in its eastern border region, for the greater enemies of Israel and the U.S.
It also changed its perspective on other Sunni groups, including Hamas in Palestine and the Lashkar e Toiba in Kahsmir. The expression of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Kameinei’s open sympathy and support for the “oppressed” people of Kashmir last year came as pretty shocking to the Indian establishment.
India’s needs also changed in the last few years. The massive amount of crude oil demand for its increasingly growing industrialised domestic market and growing urbanization and renewed competition with China for Asian dominance, and lets not fail to mention the Mumbai terror attacks of 2008, made it’s warm up to the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Israel necessary.
The inevitable setback came with India voting against Iran’s nuclear ambitions in the United Nations twice, and India quitting from the Indo-Iranian-Pakistani gas pipeline, because, Iran alleged, of the negotiations of the civilian nuclear deal with the U.S.
The visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Saudi Arabia, the first time for an Indian head of state to visit after 1982, mostly for it’s fuel needs, also deteriorated the matter further. And the final nail was the recent denial from the Reserve Bank of India to pay for Iranian oils, which is thought in Iran to have occurred under pressure from the U.S.
Now, frankly, the Indian payment for Iranian oil was to stop sooner or later. Currently Iran is the second largest suppliar of crude oil to India after the Saudis, but under the UN sanctions, if Indian Rupees keep on going to enrich Iranian nukes, then Indian cridibility as a responsible nuclear power takes a beating.
Clouding this situation are the upcoming Indian state-level elections, including the most populated of Indian states, Uttar Pradesh, (The Northern Province), whose Muslim population consists of Shia primarily and which is vote rich for the ruling left-of-center Congress party coalition government.
And therein lies the spinelessness of the current Congress led government.
While distinctly acknowledging the grave threat to the world a nuclear Iran poses, the government of India is not being able to take any real concrete, credible and clear steps to ensure the world that it is serious and responsible in its role as an emerging geo-political player.
Not to mention India’s horrible lack of finess to engage Israel after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, with the latter’s willingness to get involved more, coupled with the socialist melting pots of pro-Palestinian student activists in some of the universities of India, and generally bad PR on the part of the Israeli government about its handling of the Gaza aid flotillas, added to the problem.
The actions against the last flotilla to Gaza had an overwhelming majority of Indian Muslim and student activists angered, which is astonishing given the general psychological support the Jewish state gets here, evident in various social-media websites like Twitter. Then we have lack of initiative or creativity, from both the governments to engage in social sectors, employment and student exchange programmes, too, is a factor.
Sure, some things are being done: like better intelligence sharing, military cooperations, diamond trade and Israeli tourism for Goa being a few most know; but much more needs to be done.
The most important of them being a defined policy on Iran, which might be a major thorn for India in the coming years the way the volatile Middle East situation is moving.
Otherwise the relation between the natural allies against an islamist terrorism, India, Israel, and now the United States, which consolidated during the last decade, will slowly decline again.
