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Tuesday, April 16, 2024

How India and Israel are ideologically identical

Over the last seven years, India-Israel relations have warmed up faster than in the six preceding decades, thanks to a propitious mix of ideology, pragmatism and geopolitical realignments. Under the BJP government, India's ties with Israel have moved beyond economic interests to far-right ideological synergy.

India is a Hindu majority area whereas Israel is a Jewish majority area. They have good diplomatic ties and have the same goals as expanding territories and increasing military cooperation. Muslims are the main confronted target of both states. In the case of India, it uses violence against the innocent Kashmiris and imposes a curfew in Indian disputed territories since 2019, whereas Israel uses violence against Muslims in Palestine and claims the territories.

Israel follows Zionism in which the state expands territorially. One of the main objectives is to demolish the Aqsa Mosque and form the Suleiman Temple. India used force against the Kashmiris to impose a curfew in 2019 and changed the status of Kashmir to revoke Articles 370 and 35A. Both the states use violence and force against Muslims and are ideologically similar. They pursue realist ideology and are the largest importers of arms and military technology. In contemporary times, both are in the U.S block.

Read more: Op-ed: the India-Israel nexus and its implications for Pakistan

Understanding the matter better

India claims to be the biggest democracy in the world. Nehru had a soft and left-wing policy and portrayed a soft image of India, but now, Modi has shifted India to the right-wing and has moved toward power projection by adopting a realist policy. India pursues the Hindutva policy and uses the slogan “Great India” while it also claims that the territories from Afghanistan to Indonesia are a part of Hindustan.

There is a use of force against the Muslims in India, government amended Citizen Act in 2019 according to which, Muslims of Assam have to prove their citizenship as per NPR rule. Interior minister Amit shah stated that after Assam, this process shall start in Bengal. There are 1400 Mosques in India that BJP wants to demolish and build new Mandirs instead. Babri Mosque was demolished in 1992 and the construction of Ram Mandir started. Under the Modi regime, Muslims in India face trouble and face fascist policies of the Modi regime.

In 2019, India revoked Articles 370 and 35A and changed the status of Kashmir. Hindu nationalists centralized support and said that the special status was not permanent. The status could only have been changed if a two-thirds majority of the Kashmir assembly passed a resolution, but Modi bypassed the Kashmir assembly and changed the status via the governor’s ordinance.

The basic purpose of India is to effect demographic changes and turn the Muslim majority into a minority. After the revocation of these two articles, every Indian purchased land in India and got a domicile in Kashmir. According to the foreign office of Pakistan, in only one month, India issued approximately twenty-five thousand domiciles in Kashmir. It’s just like following the policy of Israel’s settlement policy in Jerusalem to change Muslims into a minority and get dominance.

Read more: Similarities between India’s Kashmir and Israel’s Palestine

Israel follows a Zionist policy

The objective of Israel is to increase its military power and expand towards the Muslim states of Egypt, Jordon, and Palestine.

There are two basic aspects of territorial expansion policy. One is territories being purchased before the 1967 war and the second is territorial occupation. In this regard, the Jordan valley on the west bank was occupied in the 1967 war, and the Sanai region of Syria was captured in 1967 and 1968. Israel captured the Golan Heights border area between Israel and Syria in 1867 and the second part in 1887. After the 1967 war, the majority of the land was occupied by Israel. Israel’s strategy is to evacuate Muslims from the Muslim majority areas and settle Jews in their colonies. Israel uses violence against the Muslims in Palestine as well as in Kashmir.

So, in a nutshell, Israel and India are allied states and in the same block as the U.S. Both sought to expand their territories, are the largest importers of arms from the United States, and have hawkish policies toward Muslims, employing violence against Muslims in Kashmir and Palestine. So that India’s policy changed in the Modi regime to follow Zionism and pursue a left-wing policy.

Read more: Pakistan-India standoff: The role of Israel, US and Beyond – Part-II

 

The writer is a student at National Defense University, Islamabad. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.