As the President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, arrives in India for a week-long visit, media assessments vary on how long India can maintain this fine balance between rapidly widening and deepening strategic partnership with Israel and its traditional pro-Palestine policies.
It is pertinent to note that till January 1992, India did not even recognise the Jewish State. The two nations established formal diplomatic ties during Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s regime which witnessed major recalibration of India’s post-Cold War foreign policy.
Since then, the evolution of India’s Israel policy can be viewed in four phases: (a) Indian national movement opposing partition of Palestine and negating Jewish state, (b) normalising of relations with Israel as part of India’s post-Soviet foreign policy of multi alignments, (c) seeking de-hyphenation from Arab-Israel conflict as also domestic Muslim constituencies, and (d) Modi now projecting Israel not just the third largest supplier but also as model for Indian armed forces. Critics highlight how even a simple de-hyphenation may negatively impact India’s image with the Arab world, especially the 56-nation Organisation of Islamic Countries that is often critical of India’s Kashmir policies.
Arab support remains critical for India’s aspirations to join various technology control regimes as also other global governance structures, including becoming a permanent veto wielding member of the UN Security Council. Domestically as well, any sharp pro-Israel drift is expected to negatively impact Modi’s Muslim constituencies, egged on by Modi’s political adversaries. But Modi is seen as a man-inhurry.
And, since 2002, Japan and Israel were the only two states amongst which carefully cultivated then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, at a time when all others carried out a vehement decade-long anti-Modi campaign in the name of human rights.
Today, there is no doubt that Prime Minister Modi has been the leading force in boosting India’s diplomatic ties with both Tokyo and Tel Aviv. In little over four months from taking over as prime minister, Modi set up his first meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Netanyahu extended a formal invitation to Modi to visit Israel, which is now expected to take place in January 2017 to mark 25 years of India-Israel diplomatic ties. The most dramatic change in Modi’s Israel policy was marked by Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s November 2014 visit to Israel only.
All high-level visits before that — Home Minister L K Advani and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh in 2000 and later External Affairs Minister S M Krishna in 2012 — had always been combined to include Jordan and Palestine. India had been a strong votary of relations with Israel being dependent upon progress made in Israel-Palestine conflict. Naturally, this attempt at de-hyphenation saw an uproar both in the Indian parliament and outside, forcing a quick course correction thus finessing and slowing this apparent tilt. In October 2015, President Pranab Mukherjee visited Jordan, Palestine and Israel.
Apart from being the first foreign head of state to spend a night in Ramallah city, he was also the first Indian head of state to visit Israel, and his address to a special session of the Knesset attracted much media scrutiny, particularly after Netanyahu’s remark that “I speak to my dear friend Modi quite often. When we met once, he told me ‘India wants Israel’ and that I see a paragon of fraternity between our two countries.”
This was followed by Sushma Swaraj visiting Jordan, Palestine and Israel in January this year, and several ministerial visits are likely to follow as a part of the preparations for Modi’s visit. Luckily for India, the Iran nuclear deal and rise of Islamic State has shifted the world’s attention away from the burgeoning relationship with Israel. India has been successful in balancing its engagement with Saudi Arabia and Iran, two important Islamic powers which do not see eye-to-eye.
This gives India a window of opportunity to engage Israel without worrying too much about negative consequences. In April this year India had voted in favour of a UNESCO pro- Palestine resolution questioning Israel’s claim and criticising it for excavations inside the walled city, yet it chose to abstain from a similar resolution last month. Then, to balance this abstention and President Rivlin’s visit, Minister of State M J Akbar visited Palestine last week for the first ever Joint Commission meeting.
The focus of President Rivlin’s visit is likely to be aimed at expanding India-Israel ties beyond buyer-seller relationship of two militaries, though they may also sign agreements on procuring spike anti-tank guided missiles, target equipment, bombs and other weapons systems like radars worth $3-4 billion dollars. In the past decade, Israel has sold military supplies worth $12 billion to India.
But it is important to note that India-Israel relationship has moved beyond just transfers to joint research and development, and Israel is a pioneer in building partnerships under Modi’s ‘Make in India’ drive. Meanwhile bilateral trade, which witnessed a steady increase from a mere $ 200 million 1992 to $5.61 billion in 2014 fell to $4.91 billion last year.
The two have a target of pushing it to $10 billion, but this seems difficult, given that talks on a Free Trade Agreement which began in 2010 are yet to bear fruit. But ties have improved dramatically, and as President Rivlin said soon after his arrival in Delhi, the friendship between India and Israel is at work “day in, day out” and it is not a relationship “we should be hiding.”