India’s unholy alliance with Israel and the death of solidarity

Defence affairs

“Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” was India’s grand slogan during its G20 presidency – the world is one family. But what does this philosophy mean when we actively arm a state committing genocide? When we criminalize peaceful protest against war crimes? When our government offers unwavering diplomatic support to a regime that bombs children seeking aid and obliterates entire hospitals? India, once a beacon of moral leadership in the Global South, has today become complicit in one of the gravest atrocities of our time.

The arms of hypocrisy

India’s military and strategic ties with Israel have skyrocketed over the past decade. In 2015, defence trade between India and Israel stood at a modest $5.6 million. Today, that figure has surged to over $185 million annually. India is now Israel’s largest arms customer, importing everything from drones and surveillance systems to precision-guided missiles.

These weapons are not produced in an ethical vacuum. Many of the technologies exported to India are “battle-tested”—a euphemism for weapons field-tested on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. In purchasing them, India effectively endorses the occupation, the apartheid wall, the home demolitions, and now, the unfolding genocide in Gaza.

A genocide in real time

What is happening in Gaza is no longer ambiguous. Over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023many of them women and children. Hospitals have been systematically targeted. Aid convoys bombed. Starvation is being used as a weapon of war.

Leading jurists, including Craig Mokhiber, former Director of the UN Human Rights Office in New York, have called this genocide “deliberate, methodical, and systematic.” In his resignation letter to the UN, Mokhiber wrote: “This is a textbook case of genocide. The US, UK, and much of Europe are wholly complicit. And so is India.”

India’s silence—and worse

India’s response has not been silence; it has been active support. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first global leaders to express solidarity with Israel after 7 October, even before any verified facts had emerged. The Indian government refused to condemn the indiscriminate bombing of civilians, and instead blocked pro-Palestine demonstrations, suspended student activists, and hounded academics and journalists who dared speak out.

Universities were told not to allow campus protests. Student unions faced disciplinary action for issuing solidarity statements. Even humanitarian vigils were denied police permission in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore. The crackdown bore eerie similarities to authoritarian regimes: silence the dissenters, criminalise compassion.

India, which once hosted Yasser Arafat with state honours and championed Palestinian freedom at the United Nations, now partners militarily with apartheid and turns its back on a people being ethnically cleansed in real time.

Suppressing the people’s voice

Civil society in India has not been silent. From Delhi to Kerala, independent groups, human rights defenders, and student bodies have bravely spoken out. Artists have painted for Gaza. Lawyers have written letters to the Supreme Court. Teachers have held teach-ins, and Muslims across the country have organised prayer vigils.

But they’ve faced state repression, digital surveillance, and media slander. News channels label them as “anti-national.” Police use the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) to harass or detain peaceful activists. Social media platforms are being monitored and often censored, especially in universities.

Resistance from the left

It is to the credit of India’s Communist and socialist parties that they have remained morally consistent. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has condemned the genocide unequivocally and demanded the restoration of the people’s right to protest.

In a recent statement, CPI(M) wrote: “We stand in unwavering solidarity with the people of Palestine in their struggle for justice, dignity, and liberation. The Government of India’s strategic embrace of Israel is a betrayal of our historic commitment to anti-colonialism and human rights.” The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, the umbrella body of protesting farmers, has also issued statements linking the struggle of Palestinians to the resistance of oppressed peoples everywhere.

These voices must not be sidelined. They remind us that India’s soul has not been entirely lost; that there are still moral anchors in our political life.