India’s governing right-wing (known as Hindutva, much like Zionism) has gained notoriety over the past few years for relentless public rallies, YouTube chats, and Twitter spam of the hashtag #IndiaStandsWithIsrael. Reddit’s Indian communities (like r/India and r/Bakchodi) support only pro-Israel voices. There’s a general idea that India has picked the pro-Israel camp.
India’s pro-Israel stance is as confounding as it is hypocritical. The two share no religious, linguistic, or social values. Zionists’ hypocrisy at least makes sense given their dream to colonise the entire Levant. Hindutva’s new obsession with Israel makes no sense, for an ideology infamous for glorifying Hitler and Nazis.
Funnier still, the Zionists treat Indians like unwanted wedding crashers, often with deeply racist insults. This is the head-scratching, one-sided love affair of Hindutva with Zionism.
Related: Parallels between Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Britain’s Imperialism in Colonial India.
Full Sapport Sar!
In December 2022, the Bajrang Dal (a CIA-designated Hindutva militant group, priorly banned in India as a terrorist outfit) organised a public worship event in Rajasthan, India in which its leaders gave pro-Nazi speeches that idolised Hitler’s holocaust of Jews in Europe, and celebrated a mysterious ‘breeding program’ between Germany and India, where German women were sent to India to breed with Hindu men, because apparently it was Hitler’s belief that Hindu genes would turn his men into “superior warriors”.
You’d think that a militant Hindu group that views Christians and Muslims with hatred, and idolises Hitler, would also be against Judaism. But there’s some unexplainable love affair with (somehow) both Israel and Holocaust in India’s right-wing.
Business students in India purchase Hitler’s Mein Kampf in their curriculum to become management gurus. India has seen Nazi-themed clothing stores, Hitler-themed restaurants, and toileteries. In 2017, Israel’s Haaretz reported a Hitler-themed pool parlour in India named ‘Hitler’s Den’. I’m not talking about the oft-confused swastika. The examples are literal pro-Nazi support.
Ireland has drawn the ire of Britain and Israel for its pro-Palestine support. An argument can be made that there is an ideological connection between the independence movements of Ireland and Palestine. It makes sense. You cannot make Hindutva’s obsession with Zionism make sense, as the two movements share nothing except for their Islamophobic and racist hatred towards Arabs.
Or is hatred their common ground? Deeply racist and Islamophobic expressions have been endorsed by the Western world and this way both ideologies can express themselves freely without bad press.
Related: Animals, Cockroaches, Sand Nig-: Western & Israeli Hate for Arabs
Notice that the last Twitter profile is quite ‘suspect’ – that’s because Hindutva groups run fake Twitter accounts using Jewish names and Israeli flags, to fabricate the idea that ordinary Israelis love India. There are millions upon millions of these low-effort posts under the Twitter tag #IndiaStandsWithIsrael, many with clearly fake profiles.
Most of India’s Twitter spam goes unheeded and unnoticed by Israel’s Twitter base. In fact, Zionists’ replies to Hindutva’s pro-Israel come in the form of extremely racist insults. Some examples are shared below:
Yikes. Zionism wants nothing to do with Hindutva. Of course, no lessons were learnt by Indians when Zionists publicly lynched an Indian national with stones in Kiryat Shmona, Occupied Palestine in October 2022.
Zionists have no love for Jews of non-White (or the wrong) descent. The Hindutva has no love for any non-Brahman Hindu, so this poor lad’s death went largely unnoticed. A fish out of water, caught between two stools.
Interestingly, there are many videos showing how Indians are mistreated as inferiors in Israel. One prominent example is of a pro-Israel Indian vlogger being rejected from all nightclubs they went to. The Indian Express published a report documenting the racism and discrimination that Indian-origin Jews face in Israel.
Related: Israel Used a £4 Writer to Rattle US-coup in Pakistan, But She Used ChatGPT & QAnon
Physically, this one-sided love affair manifests itself as a crackdown on pro-Palestine voices. India allows for pro-Israel demonstrations and rallies, but any pro-Palestine voice is suppressed. The Indian Police arrests people for the crime of having ‘I stand with Palestine‘ as their WhatsApp profile photo.
Arming Israel with Bombs
India’s support for Israel is not only in words and rallies. The Supreme Court of India in September 2024 dismissed pleas to stop India’s government from supplying bombs, munitions, and military resources to Israel. The plea was entered in light of findings from the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC) of a ‘plausible‘ genocide in Gaza.
Despite mounting evidence of a genocide, famine, and humanitarian crisis, India has resisted international calls to stop arming Israel. India’s support for Israel drew global attention when Spain refused to let a cargo ship carrying explosives from India to Israel dock in the Cartagena port.
More reading: Israel’s import infrastructure is crumbling from the war
Dilemma of the Arab Money
Despite controlling the Lok Sabha (India’s Parliament), and despite the pro-Israel rhetoric from India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, there has been remarkably little shift in Indian’s foreign policy on the Palestine issue. India was the first non-Arab country in the world to recognise the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1974. Since then, India has somewhat consistently voted pro-Palestine at the United Nations, including Palestine’s bid for full membership in 2024.
Before being overtaken by Hindutva groups in 2014 with Modi’s Prime Ministership, India was fostering the reputation of a ‘neutral’ soft power. In 2012, India’s External Affairs Minister chastised Israel’s disproportionate invasion of the Gaza strip. The past decade has seen a considerable rise in right-wing Hindutva extremism in India, including lynchings and mass-killings of minorities akin to Zionist settlers in Palestine.
But declaring full support of Israel would not work in favour of the Hindutva-controlled government, because it would put India at direct odds with the Arab world. While VHP leaders use anti-Arab language in their local speeches (e.g., the Arabs are funding Indian Muslims and their lavish ‘marbled’ mosques while we poor Hindus suffer), there is a recognition that millions of low- and unskilled workers from India in Gulf countries send a record $124bn back to India, forming a crucial part of the national economy.
Not wanting to upset their financial interest in Muslim countries, but wanting to deeply hurt and hate Muslim minorities in their own lands, the Hindutva groups are facing a tough dilemma. So starting a cringy, one-sided love affair with Zionism is only an outlet to vent their frustrations.
Or maybe the Hindutva folks are afraid that Palestine’s freedom will lead to Kashmir’s freedom as well?
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