India’s abstaining from voting on a United Nations General Assembly resolution for immediate ceasefire in Gaza is not only an inhuman act in the midst of the ongoing genocide there but also one that goes against the past thrust of India’s foreign policy on the issue of Palestine. India had voted against the original UN Resolution 181 adopted in 1947 for the formation of two states, Israel and Palestine. Following the Nakba, India had avoided having full diplomatic relations with Israel for a long time. In fact, when I got my first passport in the late Sixties, on it was stamped: “Valid for all countries except South Africa and Israel.”
Apartheid South Africa has become a political democracy since then; but Israel’s genocidal drive for ethnic cleansing has become even more pronounced. It now openly flouts, on the question of the establishment of a Palestinian State, the very UN Resolution 181 that had brought it into existence. Ironically, however, India, which had always stood with the Palestinian people, the innocent victims of Israeli settler colonialism, is now not even voting for an end to the genocide being perpetrated upon the hapless inhabitants of Gaza.
The General Assembly resolution had the support of 149 countries and was opposed by 12 countries, including Israel, the United States of America, Argentina, Hungary and some other fascist regimes. Very few countries of the Global South either voted against or abstained; in fact, in the whole of Asia, the only other country that abstained apart from India was Timor-Leste. Even countries like the United Kingdom, France, Australia, and Japan, which normally side with the US, voted for an immediate ceasefire. This shows the complete isolation of India within the Global South.
Israel has become a pariah within the Global South because, in total disregard for any humanity, not to mention the letter and spirit of the UN charter, it is engaged, in alliance with the US, in imperialism and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population. By supporting it, India is rapidly emerging as a satellite of this pariah of the Global South, and of its mentor, the US.
The problem with being a satellite is that it is not only the world at large that loses its respect for you but also the country whose satellite you have become which then begins to take you for granted. You become an entity not deserving of honour by any country; and this happens notwithstanding how many hugs the prime minister bestows on heads of government of other countries. It is not surprising in this context that India was so completely isolated in terms of support among countries of the world on its anti-terrorist strikes under Operation Sindoor. Even the all-party delegations of parliamentarians sent abroad to explain India’s stand appear to have failed to garner much support as several members of such delegations have themselves admitted recently.
Besides, India’s vote on the Palestine resolution raises a deeper question. For a very long period, India pursued a foreign policy that had more or less unanimous support among all national political parties. No matter how much they differed among themselves on domestic policy issues, they spoke with one voice on international issues. In presenting India’s position on some international issue before the world, they spoke unanimously; this fact, together with the fact that the position itself was generally a principled one, which, after all, is why it enjoyed such a consensus among political parties, carried conviction before the world.
On the Palestine issue, which is by far the most burning issue before the world today, this consensus among Indian political parties has broken down; this, however, is symptomatic of a more general breakdown of consensus on foreign policy as a whole. To ask Opposition political parties to send their members as government delegates to various countries to explain the government’s action against terror, to which they responded positively (which shows their graciousness), is unfair to them, especially when they do not get a hearing on foreign policy issues generally. True, on the specific issue on which they were asked to mobilise support abroad, there was general agreement among all political parties. But the world’s response on this issue cannot be detached from its overall attitude towards India’s position with regard to other burning issues of the time.
The world no doubt would be aghast at the brutal action of the Pahalgam terrorists; but in judging our government’s response to this brutal attack, its views would doubtless be influenced by our government’s attitude to the genocide in Gaza. And when Opposition political parties are themselves critical of this attitude, to want them just to explain Operation Sindoor is not being fair to them at all. It places them in a false position where, if they are asked by foreign interlocutors about the Israeli action against Palestinians, they would either have to pretend a unanimity that does not exist or speak in different voices on foreign soil, and that is embarrassing.
If the government intends to send on occasion such delegations abroad, then it must bring Indian foreign policy back to a state where there is a consensus among major national political parties. To pursue a foreign policy that only a satellite of the US-Israel alliance would follow, which most political parties reject and which marks a departure from our traditional policy, and then to expect all parties included in the delegation to speak with one voice on one particular issue on hand, no matter how worthy that issue itself may be, neither carries credibility, nor is it fair to Opposition parties.
Prabhat Patnaik is Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi