Military, Colonial, and Ideological Tactics Unite India and Israel
In 1974, India became the first non Arab country to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Six years later, it voted for a UN resolution recognizing Zionism as a form of racism. India sanctimoniously embraced a policy of non-alignment for decades as it attempted to become a leader of the Third World. But these selective gestures of solidarity with colonized peoples do not erase the foundational role of settler colonialism in Indian statehood. India's occupation of Kashmir makes it a longtime peer of "Israel" - an entity with whom it has always shared political goals and military tactics.
India's historic displays of solidarity with Palestine have concealed decades of backdoor military ties with the "Israeli" state. As the global economy expanded in the 1980s, and as pressure built amongst Indian elites to privatize and deregulate the economy, India looked to "Israel" as a conduit through which to build closer ties with the United States. Over the last three decades, India has liberalized its economy, ramped up its violent wars against resistance groups in Kashmir and in Central and Northeast India, and drew diplomatically closer to the U.S. In turn, India has established a powerful tripartite relationship with "Israel" and the U.S. in defense, intelligence, and business.
Military Collaboration
The Indian government began collaborating with "Israel" long before Narendra Modi's rise to power. When India found itself ill-equipped to fight in the high altitudes of the Himalayas during war with China in 1962, then-Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru reached out to David Ben-Gurion for assistance, requesting he send military aid to India in unmarked ships. Ben-Gurion, known as "Israel's" founding father, insisted that the ships fly the "Israeli" flag and India accepted, precipitating a long-term transactional relationship between the two warmongers. "Whereas the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula are Hindus whose hearts have been full of hatred towards Muslims, India is the most important base for us to work there from against Pakistan," Ben-Gurion said in 1967. "It is essential that we exploit this base and strike and crush Pakistanis, enemies of Jews and Zionism, by all disguised and secret plans." Only a year later, Indira Gandhi created the Indian intelligence agency RAW - and instructed her spies to make friends with the "Israeli" Mossad
More than two decades of joint "Israeli" Occupation Forces-Indian Army training exercises and transfers of weaponry and surveillance equipment from "Israel" to India have further cemented a strong defense relationship. Since 1999, when "Israel" supplied India's offensive against Pakistan with mortars and laser-guided missiles, the relationship has ballooned into annual purchases worth $\$ 1$ billion in weapons from "Israel," including "Israeli" sensors, Heron drones, and assault rifles that are used to target and silence Kashmiris. Since 2014, India has been the largest purchaser of "Israeli" weapons on the planet. India exports its population, too, sending workers to "Israeli" construction and care sectors.
Amid the ongoing genocide, "Israel" is looking for new partners to counter pressures on Western universities to sever ties with "Israel." India has in turn been a willing and reliable partner for "Israeli" universities and weapons companies. Emerging relationships between universities and weapons manufacturers have bloomed into new hubs of defense and technology research for both state projects.
Settler Colonialism
The Zionist state has long inspired and materially supported India's settler-colonial occupation of Kashmir. During the Kashmiri armed insurgency in the 1990s, the "Israeli"-trained Indian Army used "Israeli" weapons and counterinsurgency tactics against the people of Kashmir - including large-scale massacres, torture, sexual violence, preventive detention, extrajudicial killings, and home demolitions, wherein the Indian Army destroyed entire neighborhoods and villages in a brutal attempt to crush dissent. The Indian military has continued to seize, occupy, and enclose vast stretches of land in the region for military operations and training without approval from civilian governing bodies (now an estimated $>50,000$ hectares), making Kashmir the most militarized region on earth. This laid the groundwork for India's "Israel"-inspired settler colonialism, seizing "abandoned" or "absentee" Kashmiri land as public in order to later turn it over to settlers.
India's oppression hit a fever pitch in 2019, when the ethno-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government withdrew what few protections existed for Kashmiris and granted Indian citizens from the mainland rights to own land, conduct business, and settle in Kashmir - initiating a new phase of Indian occupation. The New Delhi government then embarked on a process to change land acquisition rules, facilitating state and corporate land grabs while continuing to open up land for settlement by Indians. These new settlers will likely be housed in "Israellike" guarded enclaves, as Indian government officials begin building explicitly Hindu-only settlements in Kashmir.
Several Indian leaders, including diplomats, aspirationally praise "Israeli" tactics in Palestine. These tactics are expanding beyond Kashmir, with India's usage of "Israeli" drones to fire teargas on protesting farmers in Haryana, its drone surveillance of Maoist insurgents in Chhattisgarh, and its targeted demolition of anti-fascist activists' homes across several states.
Hindutva-Zionism
Hindutva, the dominant fascist ideology in contemporary India, has found common civilizational cause with Zionism. Ethnonationalism unites the "Israeli" and Indian projects - both were inspired by European fascism and race science, both necessitating the oppression of an internal "enemy," namely Muslims. Though distinct in their histories, they share an imaginary of a religious homeland, a passion for racial purity, and a myth of belonging to some "age-old" civilizations.
For the RSS, a paramilitary volunteer-based organization that cultivates the foot soldiers of Hindutva and is a prime inspiration for the BJP, "Israel" has long been viewed as the ideal. Beginning in the 1940s, membership in organizations affiliated with the RSS grew across the U.S. The Hindu right modeled itself on the Zionist lobby, borrowing strategies such as the harassment of students and academics, frequent lawsuits, media disinformation campaigns, and a facade of progressive values weaponized to accuse critics of bigotry.
American affiliates of the RSS have grown and more regularly collaborate with Zionist organizations - conducting joint advocacy, co-hosting events, arranging diplomatic visits, and often even sharing personnel. In short, the rise of the Hindu right in India has ushered in a new phase of the India"Israel" relationship: one in which India is a key global partner in manufacturing both material military equipment and consent for the genocide against the Palestinian people.