A Total Economic Embrace
A Total Economic Embrace An Allyship in Apartheid, Occupation, and Genocide
Ruthless in its conniving balance of imperial ambitions and hollow anti-colonial rhetoric, India is a craven ally of "Israeli" occupation. Behind the spectacle of Narendra Modi giving Benjamin Netanyahu a bear hug are the Indian capitalists whose material support fuels India's zealous partnership with the Zionist entity.
Indian corporations commit vast amounts of capital to critical components of "Israel's" genocidal campaign, facilitating the manufacture of everything from rockets, explosives, drones, weapons, and armored vehicles to cloud computing and banking services. Major Indian conglomerates, including Tata, Reliance, Adani, Infosys, Mahindra, Wipro, and many others, have collectively invested billions of dollars in the Zionist entity's architecture of occupation. These investments span the sectors of agriculture, pharmaceuticals, military, and technology - a total economic embrace.
The United States, of course, plays a decisive role in the maintenance of Zionism and the Zionist entity. To secure its own hegemony and imperial interests, the U.S. has long served as the hosting grounds for Zionist functionaries to build relationships with international right-wing forces, including Hindu nationalists. The U.S. oversees a nexus of international trade and finance through austerity-enforcing imperialist institutions, like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which pressure and incentivize countries to engage favorably with the U.S. and its allies, including the apartheid state of "Israel."
As in other parts of the world, these forces of austerity pushed large swaths of the Indian population into a constant state of exploitation, while also nurturing a capitalist class that does the bidding of the American empire. Rewarded with subsidies and protections, private capital has repeatedly positioned itself as fascism's most reliable friend.
The surge in support for supremacist ideologies - namely, Islamophobia, Brahminism/casteism, and regional dominance - has made pro-Palestinian lip service less necessary for India's political leaders. Meanwhile, the West continues to invest in the IndiaMiddle East-Europe Economic Corridor, embracing India as both a bulwark against China and a strategic market for weapons and green energy. As a friendly West makes concessions that India has sought for decades and presents "Israel" as a strategic alternative to Moscow for arms and energy needs, a pro-"Israel" stance is only logical for India's unscrupulous, self-interested leaders. As the second-largest trading partner in Asia, and seventh-largest globally, India has emerged as an im- portant economic partner for "Israel" and vice versa. Bilateral trade (excluding defense) between India and "Israel" grew significantly from $132 million in 1990 to $10.7 billion in 2023 , with a diversified portfolio including diamonds, petroleum products, chemicals, electronic machinery, and high-tech products.
India has always relied on private corporations as conduits of foreign investments in order to fulfill its ambitions of growth. In 2022, the Adani Group, one of India's most politically powerful conglomerates, acquired the largest port in "Israel," the Port of Haifa, a key stop for the trillion tons of weapons deployed against the resistance and civilians in Palestine. Adani manufactures weapons and drones directly for the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF); in partnership with Elbit Systems, they operate the only Hermes 900 drone manufacturing facility outside "Israel." Similarly, Indian conglomerates Infosys, WIPRO, and Mahindra Group have significant ties to "Israel's" defense and technology sectors - some of which are mediated by the U.S. government. Infosys supports "Israel's" apartheid infrastructure and U.S. arms manufacturers with strong connections through its IT subsidiary Panaya. WIPRO, through its subsidiary Wipro-Givon, supplies aerospace parts for Lockheed Martin's F-35 jets (often sent to the IOF) and has a plant in the United States. Mahindra Group collaborates with Israeli Aerospace Industries on cybersecurity tools, expanding their use in India and reselling them to "Israel."
In return for their fidelity, Indian capitalists enjoy state support without facing state control. The arrangement grants the Indian business elite substantial power to expropriate surplus capital and exert boundless influence over nearly every dimension of social life. A primary example is Tata, a preindependence company founded with the blessings of the British Raj, colloquially known as the 'salt to software conglomerate.' Tata is often credited with laying the very foundations for Indian capitalism. Indeed, by masquerading as a philanthropic force while abusing control over essential public goods to build infrastructures of death and destruction, Tata exemplifies Indian capitalism.
The infrastructures of death built by Indian capitalists - both at home in India and abroad in states like Israel - are not only roadmaps of complicity. They are also roadmaps for action detailed instruction manuals for where and how to strike at the facilitators of settler colonialism and genocide.