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href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/whereas-india-once-called-zionism-racist-today-it-moves-replicate-it?fbclid=IwAR1SrKstkmV8cnboaV1EchwWciSE6rYlZ93BoPU8vI2C6qtOgwLrzSUo7mI">https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/whereas-india-once-called-zionism-racist-today-it-moves-replicate-it?fbclid=IwAR1SrKstkmV8cnboaV1EchwWciSE6rYlZ93BoPU8vI2C6qtOgwLrzSUo7mI</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">India once called Zionism racist. Today
it moves to replicate it</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Azad Essa - 5 September 2019<br>
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<p dir="ltr">In the winter of 1975, the United Nations
passed <a
href="https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/761C1063530766A7052566A2005B74D1"
target="_blank">resolution 3379</a> stating that
"Zonism is a form of racism and racial discrimination".</p>
<p>UN resolution 3379 made reference to a resolution
adopted three months earlier by the Organization of
African Unity (now the African Union), that drew
comparisons between the racist and colonial projects in
South Africa and Israel. </p>
<p>"The racist regime in occupied Palestine and the racist
regime in Zimbabwe and South Africa have a common
imperialist origin, forming a whole and having the same
racist structure and being organically linked in their
policy aimed at repression of the dignity and integrity
of the human being,"<a
href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/decisions/9591-council_en_23_february_1_march_1976_council_ministers_twenty_sixth_ordinary_session.pdf"
target="_blank"> the OAU resolution 77</a> (XII)
read. </p>
<h3>A landmark resolution</h3>
<p>India was one of 72 nations, mostly former colonies,
that brought life to a landmark resolution that found
Zionism to be a fundamentally exclusionist ideology,
responsible for the demarcation of Palestinians as
second-class citizens. </p>
<p>At the time, India was part of the <a
href="https://mea.gov.in/in-focus-article.htm?20349/History+and+Evolution+of+NonAligned+Movement"
target="_blank">Non-Aligned Movement</a> during the
Cold War, playing a trailblazing role in the isolation
of Israel’s close collaborator, South Africa. </p>
<p>Sixteen years later, the Cold War would be over, and
the world was a different place. </p>
<p>In 1991, Israel made the revocation
of Zionism-as-racism a precondition for its
participation at the <a
href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1644149_1644147_1644124,00.html"
target="_blank">Madrid Peace Conference</a> held the
same year, thus forcing the UN to hold a new vote.
Resolution 3379 was <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/17/world/un-repeals-its-75-resolution-equating-zionism-with-racism.html"
target="_blank">repealed</a>. India voted for its
revocation, too.</p>
<p>The establishment of full diplomatic relations between
India and Israel followed in 1992. The liberalisation of
India's economy led to shifts in its foreign policy and
a rewiring of its priorities on the global stage.</p>
<p>India also began pursuing closer ties with Israel, <a
href="https://www.meforum.org/3494/india-israel-ties"
target="_blank">independent</a> of their commitment to
the Palestinian peace process, while New Delhi's <a
href="https://thewire.in/diplomacy/india-highly-publicised-june-6-vote-israel-palestine-un"
target="_blank">voting patterns </a>on the peace
process remained unchanged at the UN. </p>
<p>But whereas it had once considered Zionism, the
ideology that underpins the establishment of the state
of Israel, as a type of racism, the further alignment of
India and Israel's defence concerns, especially in lieu
of the US "war on terror," saw its solidarity with the
Palestinians in the 2000s gradually dilute to one of lip
service and a politics of respectability. </p>
<p>And then came Narendra Modi.</p>
<h3>The rise of Hindutva</h3>
<p dir="ltr">In 2014, the Hindu-nationalist
politician became India's new prime minister. </p>
<p>As a life-long member of the right-wing Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) group, which had
long-held ambitions to turn India into a <a
href="https://thewire.in/politics/hindutva-muslims-rss-hindu-rashtra"
target="_blank">Hindu Rashtra</a>, or a Hindu state,
Modi has brought the process of reshaping India in the
image of its majority right to the highest level of the
state.</p>
<p>It is the RSS which gave birth to Hindutva, the Hindu
nationalistic agenda at the heart of Modi's
India. Hindutva has <a
href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/hindutva-is-not-the-same-as-hinduism-said-savarkar/cid/1699550"
target="_blank">little to do</a> with the practices or
beliefs of Hinduism itself.</p>
<p>And though the RSS found its <a
href="https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-india-envoy-visits-nazi-inspired-hindu-group/a-49682304"
target="_blank">inspiration in Adolf Hiter</a> and the
"cultural nationalism" and "race pride" of Nazism, Modi
and Netanyahu quickly bonded in 2014 over their zealous
objective to consolidate total and absolute power over
their territories. </p>
<p>They also recognised in each other the similarity of
their ambitions to build <a
href="https://thewire.in/politics/hindutva-muslims-rss-hindu-rashtra"
target="_blank">supremacist democratic states</a> with
a single culture, a single race and a single nation. </p>
<p>The relationship immediately <a
href="https://www.newsclick.in/covert-overt-changing-nature-india-israel-strategic-tie"
target="_blank">translated </a>into technological and
agricultural exchange and new partnerships. Though India
has been purchasing arms from Israel for close to two
decades, under Modi, India purchased 46 percent of all
arms sold by Israel. Israel is now India's largest arms
supplier, with an estimated $1bn worth of <a
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-israel/israels-netanyahu-eyes-trade-defense-ties-on-india-trip-idUSKBN1F11SD"
target="_blank">military </a>sales per year.</p>
<p>Apoorva PG, South Asia coordinator for the Boycott
Divestment and Sanctions Campaign (BDS), told Middle
East Eye that India was now deeply "complicit in
Israel's regime of military occupation, settler
colonialism, and apartheid".</p>
<p>Modi's visit to Israel in 2017, the first by a sitting
Indian PM, put to rest any lingering doubts about his
commitment to Israel. Netanyahu <a
href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/wall-falls-friends-hug-at-last/cid/1501354"
target="_blank">described</a> the visit as "tearing
down the final walls dividing our countries". </p>
<p>Since then, the connection between Hindutva and Zionism
as kindred spirits has taken on a life of its own. For
one, just as criticism of Israel and Zionism is
conflated with antisemitism, proponents of Hindutva
allege Hindu-phobia in the face of critique or
condemnation of its ideology.</p>
<h3>Gandhi and Israel</h3>
<p>At an event on 26 August, and easily one of the first
of its kind, organised by the Israeli consul-general in
Mumbai in conjunction with the Indo-Israel Friendship
Association, <a
href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/hinduism-and-judaism-should-come-together/article29263943.ece"
target="_blank">two ideologues</a> celebrated the <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/167739709937608/posts/2689430281101859/"
target="_blank">closeness </a>between Hindutva and
Zionism.</p>
<p>Whereas noted Zionist historian Gadi Taub, from the
Hebrew University, regaled the crowd on the <a
href="https://frontline.thehindu.com/dispatches/article29288744.ece"
target="_blank">failures of multiculturalism</a> and
the need for a single national identity, Subramaniam
Swamy, an MP with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP), invoked Samuel Huntington’s "Clash of
Civilisations" in explaining the need for Zionism and
Hindutva to work against a common enemy. </p>
<p> "Zion is today under attack from Islamic extremists,
and therefore both of us should come together to fight
the Islamic terror forces," Swamy <a
href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/hinduism-and-judaism-should-come-together/article29263943.ece"
target="_blank">said. </a></p>
<p>The closest Taub ventured into India's earlier politics
- when the RSS was banned - was to say that "there is a
lot to admire about [Mahatma] Gandhi and many Israelis
do, but he was not a supporter of Zionism".</p>
<p>That Taub would casually raise Gandhi - conveniently
glazing over the fact he was <a
href="https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/opinion/2494-india-s-hindu-nationalists-celebrate-gandhi-assassination"
target="_blank">killed </a>by a Hindu nationalist
from the RSS for refusing to adopt the very supremacist
philosophies they had adopted from Nazism and today from
Zionism - is itself an historical absurdity.</p>
<p>But what is fascism besides the blunting of reason?</p>
<p>Taub is certainly well aware that his country's tiered
citizenship has become the example Hindu nationalists
wish to replicate. Just as non-Jews are scapegoated and
treated as <a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-curriculum-palestinians-nation-state-law"
target="_blank">second-class citizens</a> in Israel,
and Palestinian history is appropriated and written out
of text books, much of the same is underway in India. </p>
<h3>Kashmir and Palestine</h3>
<p dir="ltr">In India, despite talk of equal citizenship,
Muslims and Christians cannot belong to "the Hindu race"
and so they are under constant pressure to prove their
"loyalty" to the Hindu state. Their history, too, is
shameful and an aberration to Hindu India, <a
href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/12/06/indias-dangerous-new-curriculum/"
target="_blank">culminating in changes</a> to school
text books and curriculums. </p>
<p>The historical revisionism, as many have pointed out,
only advances <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/06/01/indias-new-textbooks-are-promoting-the-prime-ministers-favorite-policies-critics-allege/%C2%A0"
target="_blank">the interests</a> of the ruling party.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Even the <a
href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/indias-annexation-kashmir-straight-out-israeli-playbook"
target="_blank">annexation of Kashmir</a> in early
August is part of a promise made by the RSS to unify all
of Hindu civilisation that, according to Hindutva, was
quashed under the boots of outsiders, ie Muslims. </p>
<p>As Kapil Komireddi <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-kashmir-crisis-isnt-about-territory-its-about-a-hindu-victory-over-islam/2019/08/16/ab84ffe2-bf79-11e9-a5c6-1e74f7ec4a93_story.html"
target="_blank">writes </a>in The Washington Post,
Modi's action in Kashmir was a message to all that "no
one is exempt from the Hindu-power paradise he wants to
build on the subcontinent. Kashmir is both a warning and
a template: any state that deviates from this vision can
be brought under Delhi's thumb in the name of 'unity'."</p>
<p>And those deemed to be "imposters" can be ruled as
anti-nationals or simply erased. Last week, more than
1.9 million people, mainly Muslims, were<a
href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49520593"
target="_blank"> stripped of the citizenship</a> in
the north-east state of Assam. In a flash, they became
stateless.</p>
<p>Under Modi, India - a country that once held Zionism to
be racism - no longer has an interest in keeping up the
facade of solidarity with the Palestinians. India is now
led by a man and an organisation that fantasise of
turning the country into Israel. </p>
<p><em>The views expressed in this article belong to the
author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial
policy of Middle East Eye.</em></p>
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