Why is the Sikh com­mu­nity not speak­ing out in clear terms about a peo­ple ren­dered home­less via Par­ti­tion in 1948? While the war in West Asia rages and Is­rael con­tin­ues to pound the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion of Gaza on the pre­text of fin­ish­ing off Hamas, it is sur­pris­ing that the Sikh com­mu­nity has pre­ferred to main­tain a rather stoic si­lence on the is­sue. The Naren­dra Modi-led right-wing In­dian gov­ern­men­t’s sup­port for Is­rael and dis­dain for Pales­tine dove­tails into and is an ex­ten­sion of its well-known ha­tred for Mus­lims. Why is the Sikh lead­er­ship un­able to see a great res­o­nance be­tween what hap­pened to Pun­jab in 1947 and to Pales­tini­ans in 1948, ar­gues se­nior jour­nal­ist SP Singh through a 2-se­ries de­bate tele­vised re­cently on the Daleel show.

The World Sikh News brings you to these two de­bates, both mod­er­ated by se­nior jour­nal­ist SP Singh, on West Asia. While the first one fea­tures a se­nior jour­nal­ist who cov­ered West Asia for many years and a scholar of his­tory who lived and stud­ied in Jerusalem, the sec­ond de­bate fo­cusses on the link­ages be­tween In­dian pol­i­tics and the West Asian con­flict. It fea­tures scholar-par-ex­cel­lence Prof Apoor­vanand, of­ten re­ferred to as the chron­i­cler of In­di­a’s lib­eral con­science, and Prof Mohd Khalid, a well-known po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor and ex­pert in In­dia-Is­rael re­la­tions.

You do not have to be an aca­d­e­mic ex­pert in sub-con­ti­nen­tal his­tory to know that the re­ced­ing colo­nial power in the heady days af­ter the Sec­ond World War left be­hind the tragedy of Par­ti­tion in two ter­ri­to­ries — the In­dian sub­con­ti­nent and Pales­tine – cre­at­ing in the process two states on the ba­sis of re­li­gion: Pak­istan and Is­rael.

The Pales­tini­ans suf­fered Naqba–geno­ci­dal killings – while Pun­jabis on both sides of the Rad­cliffe Line wit­nessed the most bar­baric and wide­spread mas­sacres along re­li­gious lines.

It should have come nat­u­rally to Sikhs, as also to all Pun­jabis and right-think­ing peo­ple any­where, that of the many other hu­man­i­tar­ian rea­sons to speak up, the prime one for them was the clear re­al­iza­tion that Pales­tini­ans are a colonised group of peo­ple liv­ing un­der a se­vere, bru­tal mil­i­tary oc­cu­pa­tion, fight­ing for gen­er­a­tions to get their home­land.

In­di­a’s ini­tial pol­icy to­wards Is­rael wit­nessed in 1947 was rather clear. At the time, the In­dian na­tional move­ment, rep­re­sented the Con­gress op­posed the par­ti­tion of Pales­tine and the cre­ation of the state of Is­rael.

The pol­icy of Mod­i’s po­lit­i­cal an­ces­tors was ex­tremely trou­ble­some. It is only too well known and doc­u­mented that V D Savarkar ad­mired Nazism, though Is­raelis may not like that now, no mat­ter how much­so­ever they ad­mire Modi and the BJP. Mr B.S Moonje, pres­i­dent of the Hindu Ma­hasabha (1927- 1937) even trav­elled to Italy, and met Mus­solini (See Va­j­payee: As­cent of the Hindu Right by Ab­hishek Choud­hary, page 20).

The saf­fron tra­di­tion con­tin­ues. While PM Modi was quick to jump into the Is­raeli side of the arena with his tweet, a poi­so­nous crea­ture like Yati­Nars­ing­hanand has even is­sued a video mes­sage, stat­ing his wish to set­tle down in Is­rael and fight the en­emy, claim­ing it is the same en­emy that In­dia faces. How dif­fi­cult is it to un­der­stand who is be­ing called an en­emy? (Hint: This man had served jail time for mak­ing speeches call­ing for the geno­cide of In­dian Mus­lims.)

Forces that stood with Hitler are to­day claim­ing to be stand­ing by Is­rael. Is­rael’s Con­sulate Gen­eral to Mum­bai Kobbi Shoshani has said that when lead­ers like PM Modi sup­port Is­rael, it gives Is­rael a lot of power.

Forces that stood with Hitler are to­day claim­ing to be stand­ing by Is­rael. Is­rael’s Con­sulate Gen­eral to Mum­bai Kobbi Shoshani has said that when lead­ers like PM Modi sup­port Is­rael, it gives Is­rael a lot of power.

In­dia, clearly, has changed its stance un­der the in­flu­ence of saf­fron. It was re­luc­tant to recog­nise Is­rael and did so only af­ter Iran and Turkey did. It did not back Is­rael dur­ing the 1956 Suez cri­sis or the Six-Day War with Pales­tine in 1967 or the 1973 Yom Kip­pur War, or the 2006 Lebanon War.

All that changed af­ter 2014. In 2015 and 2016, In­dia ab­stained from the UN vote that would have forced Is­rael to face charges of war crimes at the In­ter­na­tional Crim­i­nal Court. (Sig­nif­i­cantly, In­dia had voted against Is­rael and in favour of the UNHRC res­o­lu­tion in July 2014 that had in­sti­tuted this very in­quiry re­port into the Gaza vi­o­lence in which more than 2,300 had been killed in Is­raeli airstrikes on Gaza.)

In 2017, PM Modi be­came the first In­dian PM to ever visit Is­rael, thus un­der­lin­ing the ide­o­log­i­cal align­ment of BJP with Ne­tanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party and its al­liance with ul­tra­na­tion­al­ist groups.

To­day, the West Asian con­flict is pan­ning out in the In­dian po­lit­i­cal are­nas and mind­space. It is be­ing seen as a war launched by Is­rael on Mus­lims. 

To­day, the West Asian con­flict is pan­ning out in the In­dian po­lit­i­cal are­nas and mind­space. It is be­ing seen as a war launched by Is­rael on Mus­lims. Talk about Is­rael ver­sus Hamas is per­me­at­ing into the elec­tion cam­paign and is be­com­ing part of the same di­vi­sive frame­work that in­cites mobs to tar­get mi­nori­ties and in­dulge in lynch­ings.

It is time re­gional par­ties spoke out against In­di­a’s stance, ques­tioned Is­rael’s at­tacks on the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion of Gaza, and backed the Pales­tini­ans’ le­git­i­mate as­pi­ra­tions to have their home­land where they can en­joy free­dom and self-rule.

It is time re­gional par­ties spoke out against In­di­a’s stance, ques­tioned Is­rael’s at­tacks on the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion of Gaza, and backed the Pales­tini­ans’ le­git­i­mate as­pi­ra­tions to have their home­land where they can en­joy free­dom and self-rule.

A com­mu­nity want­ing and ad­vo­cat­ing the same rights for it­self can­not re­main silent about what Pales­tini­ans are go­ing through to­day, not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank. Pun­jab needs to ed­u­cate the rest of In­dia that his­tory did not be­gin on Oc­to­ber 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its sur­prise at­tack on Is­rael. The his­tory of push­ing an en­tire na­tion against the wall goes much, much deeper.

The Sikh com­mu­nity want­ing and ad­vo­cat­ing the same rights for it­self can­not re­main silent about what Pales­tini­ans are go­ing through to­day, not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank.

Si­lence will be col­lu­sion, and not ques­tion­ing our own politi­cians in Pun­jab, par­tic­u­larly those claim­ing to rep­re­sent the Sikh com­mu­nity, will be crim­i­nal neg­li­gence.

Rivers of Blood in the Land of Ten Com­mand­ments!
Talk­ing Is­rael & Hamas – The War In Gaza & the Emerg­ing Sit­u­a­tion in West Asia

1. Dr Harsh Dob­hal, For­mer West Asia Cor­re­spon­dent, PTI & scholar at He­brew Uni­ver­sity of Jerusalem; Me­dia ex­pert
2. Dr Vikas­Rathee, His­to­rian; for­merly Post-Doc­toral Fel­low at He­brew Uni­ver­sity of Jerusalem
3. Prof Man­jit Singh, So­ci­ol­o­gist & Ac­tivist; ex­pert on Ex­clu­sion of the Mar­gin­alised from Power Struc­tures

The war in West Asia and the bat­tle for In­di­a’s soul & In­di­ans’ votes –
The crim­i­nal si­lence of In­di­a’s po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship over fram­ing the con­flict as part of di­vi­sive pol­i­tics of hate.

In con­ver­sa­tion with Prof Apoor­vanand and Prof Mohd Khalid.

We live in test­ing times and such times re­quire us to stand up to in­jus­tice un­equiv­o­cally!