Mahendra Pandey National Office Secretary, BJP
By paraphrasing history, it also repeats as rhapsody and farce. The latest affirmation of the intellectual divide between resurgent nationalists and the farcical Neo-Left is the latter’s fury against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Israel policy. Critics of Modi and the Bharat narrative condemned his Israel visit as sabotage of the Indo-Arab relationship.
However, sectarian interests do not dictate pragmatic foreign policy to score domestic points. Followers of lapsed Nehruvian doctrine—that peace in the Levant region cannot be achieved without primacy of Palestine—ignore the change in geopolitical reality of meeting terrorism as the biggest global challenge. Israel, with its long history of fighting terror, is India’s natural ally. The long-festering Palestine issue is too complex to be resolved merely by a global leader’s visit. However, India’s Leftist intellectual class, haunted by the ghost of Non-Alignment policy, prefers status quo in diplomacy.
The government’s stance towards Israel and Palestine is largely guided by the UN General Assembly, which resolved on May 15, 1947, that a Special Committee be created ‘to prepare for consideration at the next regular session of the Assembly a report on the question of Palestine’. In its final report of September 3, 1947, seven members in Chapter VI ‘expressed themselves, by recorded vote, in support of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union’. The plan proposed ‘an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem’.
On November 29, 1947, the Assembly recommended its adoption and implementation. The vote itself, which required a two-third majority, was a dramatic affair. It led to celebrations on the streets of Israel, but was rejected by the Arab Palestinians and the Arab League. India’s Socialist intellectual class treats Israel as an illegitimate nation, though they claim to be torchbearers of world peace. If only the Modi initiative had been adopted in the Nehruvian era, it would have given more time to resolve the Palestinian question—impossible without an active role for the Jewish state.
The historical hypocrisy of the secular Left distorts Indian perspective towards West Asia by politicising the Holocaust without acknowledging its victims. It is obvious Wahhabis had guided India’s policy in the region until the BJP came to power. Before, P V Narasimha Rao, despite fierce opposition in the Congress, established a complete diplomatic relationship with Israel. The Indo-Israeli coordination in defence and strategic dialogue in the Vajpayee era strengthened the framework. India’s position in West Asia could adopt the American policy of equidistance even with rogue nations for tactical balance—a policy India could have adopted in West Asia until now.
However, Modi has ended Israel’s pariah status in the subcontinent. Surely, he was aware of the thoughts of former RSS chief, the late Bhaurao Deoras, who had consistently persuaded the BJP to open dialogue with Israel. Hence, the Prime Minister’s acknowledgment of the relevance of Indian Jewry in Israel’s progress heralds the emergence of a new combined force in the West Asian theatre of the War on Terror.
pandey.bjp@gmail.com