When we think of Mahatma Gandhi what immediately strikes to
mind is: his grandeur of soul and its moral authority, steadfast purity of
purpose and service, and his life of sacrifice for the cause he had chosen. For
every Indian, Mahatma Gandhi, “a unique phenomenon” that had lead this ancient
country to freedom, is the father of the nation. And who can say that the life,
the work and the thoughts of Gandhi are for the passing hour, or the fleeting
moment?
His thoughts indeed constituted the very signposts of
post-independent India. One such guiding post is his opinion on the Jewish-Arab
conflict in Palestine. In the context of The League of Nations conferring on
Britain a mandate to administer Palestine and to assist in the creation thereof
a Jewish homeland, Gandhi favoured a consensus in Palestine. He categorically
stated in his article of 1938 in Harijan that “the cry for the national home for the
Jews does not make much appeal to me.” Instead, he wanted a consensus not on
the partition of Palestine but on a common citizenship and political compromise
in an undivided Palestine, for he believed that “Palestine
belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or
France to the French”.
This view of Gandhi on Palestine conflict that emerged in
the intervening period of two World Wars is one aspect of his political
philosophy that has somehow not attracted much attention from the current crop
of commentators on international affairs.
There is, of course, a strong opinion among those concerned
with the issue that Gandhi had reasons of his own for favouring consensus on Palestine
issue. According to this school of thought, one compelling reason for Gandhi to
air such an opinion could have been the mounting domestic challenge of creating
harmony and concord among the two major Indian communities, Hindus and Muslims,
which was a must for Gandhi during India’s freedom-movement. Another reason
that often came into light is the request of Indian Muslims to the Indian
Congress to extend support to Ottoman Caliph, who at the end of First World War
lost temporal jurisdiction on Palestine.
This struggle of Gandhi to build unity among the major
communities and thereby withstand the bitter contest emanating from Jinnah and
his Muslim league (Simone Painter-Brick, 2009) to remain as the sole spokesman
of India’s freedom-movement appeared to have compelled him to favour a consensus in Palestine.
There is yet another opinion which was of course not that
frequently heard of: Kumaraswamy (2017) wondered if the pursuit of galvanizing the
Hindu-Muslim unity and the “oversensitivity towards the religious minority” deprived
Gandhi the analytical clarity over the Palestine issue. According to him, Gandhi,
though said that “his sympathies are with the Jews” harboured antipathy
to the Zionist cause, perhaps, more out of his political compulsions rather than any ethical
or moral dictates of his political philosophy.
Irrespective of these arguments, the fact remains that it is
Gandhi’s opinion which had defined independent India’s foreign policy—its
principled solidarity with the Palestine cause had not allowed Israeli embassy
to come up in New Delhi for the first 45 years after the independence. But once
diplomatic ties were established, India’s relations with Israel had undergone
significant transition. In the recent past, this relationship has indeed
appeared to be on a positive trajectory.
With the recent visit of Israeli President to India and the
visit of India’s Prime minister for the first time to Israel has further
consolidated defence ties, technological relations and political links between
the two. This growing proximity of India
towards Israel, particularly, India’s deepening military and strategic
engagement subtly points out that Indian foreign policy is slowly turning out
to be dictated by its geopolitical concerns rather than meekly submitting to
one leader’s dictum. Indeed, Indo-Israel relations have reached a new high under the present government, for it has de-hyphenated India's relationship with Israel from Palestine. Today, India has become a top customer of Israel's defense industry with an annual bill of $ 1 bn.
The ongoing transition in Indo-Israel relationship reveals the
fact of India trying to balance its relationship with Israel with its
historical support to the Palestine cause. The recent high-level official
visits between the two countries though reveals growing strategic military and
economic cooperation between India and Israel, one must admit that India is
still taking all the precautions not to antagonize Arab countries. In short
this balancing act merely indicates that there is no reversal in its
relationship policies with Israel but only managing the relationship cautiously,
of course, with a focus on India’s geopolitical interests. A new dawn!
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