Why pro-Israel hashtags are trending in India

Thousands of people have died in India in the virulent second COVID-19 wave diverting the nation’s attention inward and on ways to control the runaway outbreak. This has brought all politics and political activities in the country to a halt. But not the deep communal polarization under the rule of Narendra Modi, a deeply divisive political figure under whose watch in 2002 as chief minister of the state of Gujarat over 1000 Muslims were killed by Hindu mobs.  A stark reflection of this polarization is the support that was being expressed across a large section of the Indian population for Israel’s bombing of Gaza until the 11 day war came to an end on May 22. Several hashtags were trending that hailed Israel’s action against “Hamas terrorists”. And tweeting in support of Tel Aviv were not only common people, the professed supporters of Modi, but also some lawmakers of the ruling party, the BJP or Indian People’s Party. 

One of them is the BJP Member of Parliament Tejasvi Surya, known for his rabid anti-Muslim rhetoric. On May 12, he tweeted: “We are with you. stay strong, Israel.”

The tweet was liked around 49,000 times and retweeted nearly 12,000 times. 

Similarly Gaurav Goel, BJP spokesman from the northern Indian city of Chandigarh, was regularly tweeting in support of Israel and all his posts were being liked and retweeted in large numbers.

“Today, tomorrow and always in “future” we stand with Israel and its citizens against terrorism [sic],” Goel posted on Twitter.

In another tweet he called on Israel “to show no mercy”. 

“I support Israel, not terrorist groups like Hamas. I request Israel not to show any mercy towards the terrorists”. 

BJP leaders and activists were the reason that the hashtags such as #ISupportIsrael, #IndiaWithIsrael, #IndiaStandsWithIsrael and #IsrealUnderFire were trending in the country over the last week. 

Though there was a hashtag #IndiastandswithPalestine too, the support for it was subdued. In the Muslim-majority, Indian-administered territory Kashmir, the government detained pro-Palestine protesters, including a religious leader who prayed for Palestine during Friday congregation and a graffiti artist who painted a mural scrawled with words ‘We are Palestine’.

The pro-Israel slant was visible in major sections of India’s largely pro-government media.  Sudarshan, a rightwing television channel known for no-holds-barred anti-Muslim programming, aired a graphic depiction of missile attack on Masjid an-Nabawi – one of the holiest houses of prayer for Muslims located in Madina in Saudi Arabia – in its show ‘Bindas Bol (Telling it as it is)’ on May 15 hosted by its rabble-rousing editor Suresh Chavhanke.

Sudarshan channel enjoys a wide following among India’s large rightwing constituency that forms the base of Prime Minister Modi. This base is fundamentally responsible for Modi’s continuing political invincibility, something that appears to withstand even the mayhem unleashed by ongoing pandemic. And it is this constituency that is at the forefront of the support for Israel. So much so that when on May 15, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his gratitude to foreign governments for supporting his country in the ongoing clashes with Hamas and included emojis of flags of 25 countries except India, this upset India’s social media users, many of whom pleaded with him on Twitter to include India’s flag too in appreciation of their solidarity with Israel. 

What explains this phenomenon?

A complex set of reasons is responsible for this outpouring of support for Israel: India’s rightward drift over the past seven years underpinned in large part by hatred for Muslims. A sense of identity between Zionism, the Jewish nationalist ideology, and Hindutva, the political philosophy of the ruling party in India. And, of course, India’s close ties to the “Jewish state,” which have been further strengthened during Modi’s rule.

As for the ties, India and Israel now enjoy one of the best phases of their relationship. The reasons for it are both practical and ideological, with the latter adding a spirit of deep bonding between the two. One of the conspicuous commonalities of Zionism and Hindutva is their antagonism towards Muslims. In the Hindutva worldview, Muslims are seen as outsiders in India, the invaders who came from central Asia and ruled India for one thousand years, in the process converting a large number of Hindus. 

The partition in 1947 of undivided India into Hindu-majority India (Muslims constitute 14 percent of India’s population) and Muslim-dominated Pakistan has added to the resonance of Hindutva, albeit prospectively. Until the early nineties, Hindutva was on the margins of a largely-secular India, ruled for the most part by the Congress party. 

Though India recognized Israel in 1950, full diplomatic ties were only established in 1992. Since then, India’s relations with Israel grew almost commensurately with the rise of the BJP in the country. And with Modi’s election in 2014, this friendship has only further deepened. In July 2017, Modi became the first-ever Indian prime minister to visit Israel. 

“India’s policy on the longest running conflict in the world has gone from being unequivocally pro-Palestine for the first four decades, to a tense balancing act with its three-decade-old friendly ties with Israel. In recent years, India’s position has also been perceived as pro-Israel,” wrote the senior Indian journalist Nirupama Subramanian recently in Indian daily The Indian Express. 

Bringing large number of Indians further mentally closer to Israel is India’s longstanding problem of  Kashmir, a disputed Muslim majority region fighting against New Delhi’s rule over the past three decades. The situation in the region, also claimed by Pakistan in its entirety, mirrors in some aspects that of Palestine – more so after India’s withdrawal of the area’s constitutionally-guaranteed political autonomy in August 2019 and the government’s pressing ahead with moves to alter its demographic profile. This has turned a once political problem into an identity issue, much like that of Palestine. India calls the separatist resistance in Kashmir terrorism just as Israel does the struggle  in Palestine. So, for a large section of India’s pro-Hindutva followers, the idea that both India and Israel are at daggers drawn with what are seen as “terrorist” Muslims struggles draws them ever closer to the other. 

Over the recent years also, a new political narrative has emerged in India justifying the country’s support for Israel– Israel’s support during periods of war and confrontation with neighbouring Pakistan.

“Leave geopolitics, Middle East politics and India’s foreign policy aside. When we desperately needed some country to help us, be it in 1971, in Kargil, at Balakot, Israel stood by us, even going against its own friends,” said  Major Gaurav Arya, a former Army officer turned strategic expert and a vocal Israeli supporter, in a recent interview to a Youtube channel.   “Buying weapons and buying oil are two different things. Israel gave us weapons secretly even when we had no diplomatic relations with the country and when America had put sanctions on us.”