Critically examine the continuity and change in India’s Palestine policy in the wake of the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. (2024, 20 Marks)
India’s Palestine policy predates the Republic. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi held in Harijan (November 1938) that Palestine was as much the Arabs’ as England was the Englishmen’s, and India voted against partition in 1947. The war that followed Hamas’s attack of 7 October 2023 tested whether it could survive three decades of partnership with Israel. The record shows continuity of content and change of emphasis, sequence and tone.
The inherited position
- Anti-colonial framing: Jawaharlal Nehru treated the Mandate as an imperial bargain made over the heads of its inhabitants; India proposed a federal Palestine at UNSCOP and voted against Resolution 181.
- Recognition without relations: Israel was recognised in 1950, but embassies came only in 1992, after the Soviet collapse and the Madrid Conference; non-alignment, Arab goodwill and Gulf oil explain the gap.
- Institutional support: India was the first non-Arab state to recognise the PLO (1974), recognised the State of Palestine in 1988, keeps a mission in Ramallah and funds UNRWA. Narendra Modi’s Ramallah visit of February 2018 was the first by an Indian Prime Minister.
- After 2014 this became de-hyphenation: two separate files, neither held hostage to the other.
Continuity since October 2023
- The formula: a negotiated two-State solution with a sovereign, independent and viable Palestine within secure and recognised borders, restated on 12 October 2023; support for Palestine remains officially integral to Indian policy.
- The voting arithmetic: the MEA told Parliament in December 2024 that India had voted for 54 and abstained on 8 Israel–Palestine texts in five years, and opposed none; of 13 since October 2023 it backed 10.
- The humanitarian track: about US$12.5 million to UNRWA and some 135 tonnes of relief; a hospital and limb-fitment centre announced in July 2026.
Change since October 2023
- Framing: the Prime Minister’s first statement called 7 October terrorism and omitted occupation and statehood; the two-State line came five days later.
- Selective abstention on texts assigning legal responsibility to Israel: October 2023 (while backing the amendment naming Hamas), September 2024 on ending the occupation after the ICJ advisory opinion, and June 2025 on a permanent ceasefire.
- The pivot: India voted for the New York Declaration on 12 September 2025 (142-10-12), after Israel struck Doha amid mounting Gaza casualties.
- Distance from the US-led settlement: a junior minister attended the Sharm el-Sheikh summit (13 October 2025); India skipped the Board of Peace signing at Davos in January 2026, which Pakistan joined, and attended its first meeting only as an observer (19 February 2026).
- Elevation during war: the February 2026 visit created a Special Strategic Partnership with Israel. “East Jerusalem as its capital” has been absent from official language since 2017.
A critical assessment
- Realist reading: C. Raja Mohan and Harsh V. Pant see calibrated interest. Israel supplies niche defence technology (third supplier, about 15% of imports in 2021–25 on SIPRI data) while Gulf trade is nearly fifty times larger; backing humanitarian texts and abstaining on accountability texts protects both.
- Normative critique: Talmiz Ahmad reads de-hyphenation as quiet abandonment of a position built over decades; Global South critics ask how India can lead the formerly colonised while abstaining on occupation.
- Counter-evidence: the voting arithmetic and the September 2025 vote show the old commitment still binds. P. R. Kumaraswamy called the 2017 shift a redefinition, and Nicolas Blarel a recalibration, not a reversal.
Conclusion
India’s Palestine policy has been demoted from a cause to a commitment, not abandoned. Recognition, formula, mission and money survive; leadership and moral voice have receded. De-hyphenation survived the war, but the war exposed its limit: it lasts only while the extended neighbourhood does not force India to choose.