September 10, 2020, 5:02 AM
A video showing the Indian Consul-General in New York, Sandeep Chakravorty, suggesting to a gathering of Kashmiri Hindus that India should adopt the Israeli model and create settlements in the Kashmir Valley to secure the return of Hindus sparked significant controversy in late November 2019. His apparent support for Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory astounded Kashmiri activists and journalists. But this is just one of many recent examples of India and Israel’s growing political love affair.
The two countries’ relations haven’t always been that cordial. The Indian National Congress passed a resolution in October 1937, a decade before India gained independence from British rule, declaring its support for the Palestinian national movement. It assured, “the Arabs of the Indian People’s solidarity with them in their fight for national freedom.” The “cry for the national home for the Jews” in Palestine, Mahatma Gandhi wrote a year later, had little appeal for him. “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same way that England belongs to the English and France belongs to the French,” he continued.
