India fell under the rule of current Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014. After long periods of left-leaning rule by his main opponents in the National Congress Party, which dominated Indian politics for most of the time since independence at the hands of the Nehru-Gandhi family, Hindu ultra-nationalist Modi came to change his country's decades-long internal and external policies and priorities by forming his far-right-wing government. He rose to power thanks to largely demagogic rhetoric, hostile to foreigners and international organizations, and inflammatory to the national spirit in its primitive character, something close to blatant racism.

From a young age, Modi joined the anti-Muslim Hindu fascist groups. When he became governor of Gujarat in 2002, he allowed Hindu fanatics to commit horrific mass crimes (which amounted to burning neighborhoods, killing children and using knives) that claimed the lives of thousands of Muslim Indians, without the state authorities moving a finger. Then, Modi earned the title "Emperor of Hindu Hearts" among his supporters, who saw him as the savior of the Hindu nation.

When he reached the helm of power in New Delhi, he continued his crude racist policy against his fellow Muslims. In 2019, the Modi government enacted a new "citizenship law" that makes Indian citizenship religion-based, explicitly discriminating against Indian Muslims, several million of whom were at risk of losing their citizenship. In the past two years, observers have noticed that Modi increased the manifestations of his devout Hindu belief, unleashing his beard and appearing to wear distinctive Hindu turbans in his election gatherings - as happened in West Bengal last year.

That’s internally.

Modi’s close ties to Trump and Netanyahu

As for foreign policy, Modi has made India closer to America than it was in the past, especially during the Republicans’ times. The intimacy of the relationship between Modi and Trump was apparent in their mutual visits. Trump organized a public welcome festival in Texas for Modi under “Howdy Modi” slogan in 2017. Modi reciprocated with a “Namaste Trump” public gathering to welcome Trump in 2020 in Ahmedabad, both using local vernaculars in salutations. A lot in common between the two men, starting from “saving the country from bad politicians” idea ,,, all the way to handling the Corona epidemic!

And towards "Israel", too! Modi embarked on a new and intense relationship with the Hebrew state, ruled by the Zionist far-right. Benjamin Netanyahu was received very warmly in New Delhi, and Modi visited "Israel", where he took off his sandals on the seashore in a ridiculous joint pose with his Israeli counterpart. Netanyahu was obviously delighted with the first visit by an Indian prime minister in history.

India and the Palestinian Cause: since 1947

In his new policies, the Indian Prime Minister is turning against a long-standing political line that India had taken towards Arab issues in general, and the Palestinian Cause in particular. Since the first day of its emergence on the international scene after independence in 1947, India aligned itself with the Arab nations in their struggle for liberation from colonialism and with the just Palestinian cause. Barely three months after India's independence, the draft resolution to partition Palestine into two Arab and Jewish states was presented at the United Nations General Assembly in November 1947. On that day India voted with the Arab countries and against the resolution. On instructions from Gandhi and Nehru, India's representative said that his country opposes the establishment of a state on religious grounds, referring to the idea of founding the " Israel", that was on the agenda.

Actually, India had proposed the idea of solving the problem in Palestine on the basis of “one state for all its citizens of all religions”. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru explained his country's position before the Constituent Assembly in New Delhi, saying, " After a great deal of thought, we decided that this is the only real and fair solution of the problem". Next year, in 1949, India voted against "Israel's" accession to the United Nations.

During Nasser’s Era

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That was the beginnings of Indo-Arab relationship which grew and prospered, especially with the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt and his emergence as one of the symbols of anti-colonialism in the world. Relations between India and Egypt, the two countries newly emerging from British influence and colonialism, were strengthened in the fifties and sixties.

Within the framework of the Afro-Asian gathering in Bandung in April 1955, cooperation and understanding between the two parties led to the development of the policy of “positive neutrality” and “non-alignment”, a policy that reflected the desire of the newly independent countries to preserve their independence and freedom, and their right to shape their future away from subordination and domination, and their eagerness to work for international peace, the rejection of the policy of alliances and blocs, at the height of the Cold War at the time.

When the Organization of Non-Aligned Countries was founded in 1961, Nasser and Nehru were among its most important pillars and symbols. There was a kind of “feeling of unity” between the two sides, as authentic eastern peoples were colonized and exploited by arrogant Western powers. In 1956, Nehru described the British-French-Israeli attack on Egypt as a “dastardly action” and spoke of the "spirit of brotherliness" that binds him to Gamal Abdel Nasser. 

The religious issue was not raised in the relationship between them, and solidarity was based on a progressive humane basis. Nasser did not consider India as a Hindu country, and India, in turn, showed tolerance towards Islam and considered it one of the components of the Indian nation alongside Hinduism within a modern state governed by the principle of citizenship and secularism that it approved in its constitution.

India was keen to refute the Pakistani propaganda against it, which is based on religious fanaticism, attempting to rally Muslims in the world to its side by presenting the dispute between the two countries as if it was a war between Islam and Hinduism. India saw Egypt, the important Muslim country, as a gateway to the larger Arab and Islamic world. It attached great importance to the relationship with Egypt, especially since the Nasser regime was in no way religious or sectarian. Nasser’s Egypt’s position on the crisis between India and Pakistan was closer to the Indian side and looked negatively at Pakistan’s falling into the arms of the United States and Britain and its involvement in political and military alliances under their auspices, such as the Southeast Asia Treaty (based in the Philippines) in 1954 and the Baghdad Pact in 1955. Egypt signed a "friendship treaty" with India in 1955. Nehru visited Egypt for the first time in 1954, when General Muhammad Naguib was in the position of President.

In 1960, Nehru made another visit to Cairo, during which President Nasser welcomed him warmly. Nasser, in turn, visit India later that year, where he was met with a historic official and popular reception. In 1966 he returned to India accompanied by Yugoslav President Tito, to hold a meeting with the new Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter. On that visit, Gandhi fell into tears when Nasser talked about her father’s visit to Egypt in 1960. In October 1967, Indira Gandhi made an important visit to Egypt. It was a strong move to show solidarity with Egypt, especially as it came during the difficult period in the wake of Egypt’s loss in the war with "Israel". In October 1970, Indira Gandhi returned to Egypt to pay her respects at Nasser’s tomb and to show support to his successor, Anwar Sadat.

In the post-Nasser period, India continued to support Arab causes and always voted in favor of the Palestinian cause at the United Nations. When the Palestine Liberation Organization emerged on the political scene in the early seventies, India was one of the first non-Arab countries in the world to sympathize with it and recognized it as the representative of the Palestinian people. India also voted in 1975 in favor of the United Nations resolution deeming Zionism a form of racism.

Cold Relations: Role of Sadat

It started from the Arab side. Sadat's coup and revoking of Nasser's legacy and policies was reflected in the relationship with India. Sadat threw Egypt into the arms of America, which he considered, in his words, “the holder of 99% of the cards”, and moved in the direction of a separate peace with "Israel". He distanced Egypt from the countries of Africa and Asia (the so-called third world countries), the Soviet Union, the socialist camp, and the non-aligned states, including India. 

No public criticism came from India to Sadat’s Camp David Accords with "Israel", which was considered an Egyptian sovereign choice. India took a neutral position on the developments, but it was neutrality closer to silent opposition.

India was not pleased with the escalating Egyptian (i.e. Sadistic) relations with Pakistan, especially in the wake of the Soviet invasion and Sadat's involvement in the program to support the "Afghan Mujahideen" which was sponsored and supervised by the United States, with the active participation of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Sadat received a delegation of the "Afghan Mujahideen" and said to them: We will stand with you with all the power of Islam! He actually sent weapons and missiles to them. 

Sadat's Egypt rapprochement with Pakistan's war-obsessed General, of Indian origin, Zia ul-Haq, was in India's eyes a sort of betrayal of the long history of positive relations between the two countries. 

India did not officially recognize "Israel" until 1992, when it exchanged exchange embassies with it. That’s fourteen years after the peace treaty between Egypt and "Israel" at Camp David! Only after the Madrid peace conference of 1992, when a peace deal was looming between "Israel" and the Palestine Liberation Organization, India took that decision.

The Arab Absence

In the twenty years that followed, and until 2014, the year Modi came to power, the Arabs left India politically almost completely. The nineties were characterized by the Arabs' preoccupation with intense negotiations with "Israel", the Oslo Accords, Wadi Araba, and the marathon meetings of Arafat - Barak - Clinton. The second millennium witnessed the invasion of Iraq, the retreat of Egypt, and the rise of Salafi and Jihadist Muslim movements in the region, until the time of the “Arab Spring” starting in 2011. During all that period, political relations between the Arab world and India were minimal. India’s relations with the world the Arab world became limited to the Indian workers in the Gulf states and the Arab oil that India buys.

India’s gates were wide open for Israeli activity. Relations with "Israel" began to increase, albeit slowly, even under the Congress Party (Nehru and Gandhi's party). When Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, he unleashed a new policy that looks positively at "Israel" and its role in the middle east region, without paying much attention to the weight of history. Wide-ranging economic cooperation and strong commercial relations, developed with "Israel", in addition to military and security cooperation and increasing political coordination that reflected on India's positions in the United Nations and international bodies. India no longer consistently votes in support of Arab initiatives in the UN.

Palestine and its cause aren’t on India’s political agenda anymore. And with the decline of Egypt’s role and the internal troubles in Syria and Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE became the focus of India’s Arab policy today, which revolves around oil, investments and employment.

Arab inaction, and the absence of a far-sighted leadership, led to this great loss for the Arab nation. Until the Congress party returns to power, there is no hope of changing the compass course of the current government in India.