Sonia Gandhi, in a penned article, panned the Narendra Modi government’s handling of the Israel-Palestine conflict, accusing it of abandoning India’s historic positions on justice and human rights and maintaining “profound silence.”
Sonia’s article ‘India’s Muted Voice, Its Detachment with Palestine’ published in The Hindu’s Thursday edition, says New Delhi’s stance was shaped by Narendra Modi’s personal ties with Israel President Benjamin Netanyahu rather than India’s constitutional values and strategic interests.
“This style of personalised diplomacy is never tenable and cannot be the guiding compass of India’s foreign policy. Attempts to do the same in other parts of the world, most notably in the United States, have come undone in the most painful and humiliating ways in recent months,” Sonia said.
She warned that India’s global standing “cannot be wrapped up into the personal glory-seeking ways of one individual, nor can it rest on its historical laurels. It demands persistent courage and a sense of historical continuity.”
The Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson confronted Israel’s response to the October 2023 Hamas attacks, calling it “nothing less than genocidal.”
Earlier this week France, the UK, Canada, Portugal and Australia recognised Palestine.
Sonia contrasted today’s silence with India’s earlier assertiveness: recognition of Palestinian statehood in 1988, opposition to Apartheid South Africa even before 1947, backing Algeria’s struggle for freedom, and the intervention in 1971 to prevent genocide in then East Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh.
She hit out at the government for strengthening ties with Israel even amid the Gaza war.
“It is appalling that just two weeks ago, India not only signed a bilateral investment agreement with Israel, in New Delhi, but also hosted its highly controversial far-right finance minister who has invited global condemnation for his repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank,” Sonia wrote.
Calling the Palestine issue a test of India’s ethical inheritance, the Rajya Sabha MP wrote: “India must not approach the issue of Palestine as merely a matter of foreign policy but as a test of India’s ethical and civilisational heritage.”
Sonia drew a parallel with India’s colonial past: “Their plight echoes the struggles that India faced during the colonial era -- a people deprived of their sovereignty, denied nationhood, exploited for their resources, and stripped of all rights and security.”