THE current Israel-Palestine (Hamas) conflict has highlighted more pronouncedly the paradigm shift in India’s foreign policy over the past few years. When Prime Minister Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu phoned Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi -- in the thick of war -- to give him updates, the Indian leader assured his “friend” that India stood firmly with Israel in this time of crisis. This open assertion, second in four days, from India underlines the positive change in India’s foreign policy handling in Middle-East very precisely. This change indicates a changed paradigm, a changed perception of India’s need in the international arena. More importantly, this changed need points less to a political expediency and more to an altered core philosophical construct that propels New Delhi to recognise the historical similarities in the personae of India and Israel. From any and every angle, this paradigm shift is most welcome. As said earlier, the shift has been taking place in the past some years when Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi started the process of drawing Israeli leadership closer, picking up from the work in this area initiated by Prime Minister Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee. It was that initiative due to which India could get an immediate supply of weapons and ammunition from Israel at the peak of Kargil conflict towards the closing years of the last century.

 

Mr. Modi picked up the thread and started working more closely on the idea and built a wonderful relationship with Tel Aviv. But the importance of this development can be understood only against the background of the relations -- or their lack -- India had with Israel in the first fifty years of the formation of Israel (which almost coincided with Independence of India). The Indian leadership was surprisingly shy about building stronger and closer bonds with Israel on the suspicion that the Islamic-Arab countries would not like India’s cozying up with the newly-founded Jewish State and that would impact the opinion of the minority Muslim community in India. Thus, curvaceously, the Indian leadership did not want to let go of the advantage of the Muslim votebank in domestic politics. That was the reason why India did not initiate proper diplomatic relations with Israel for decades on end. That process started moving only in later years -- particularly pushed by Prime Minister Mr. Vajpayee and his close associate Mr. Lal Krishna Advani. Mr. Narendra Modi is only consolidating that bond, indicating the clear shift in foreign policy paradigm.

 

Of course, such a shift needed courage -- which Mr. Modi has in abundance. For, once, he flew to Tel Aviv for an official visit (thus becoming first Indian leader) and then flew straight to Palestine for the later part of his State visits to the two Middle-Eastern countries at loggerhead with each other. Nobody -- that is Israel or Palestine -- took any objection. Instead, both the countries respected Mr. Modi’s sense of independence of choice of policy decisions. The watchers of international relations were actually and happily surprised at Mr Narendra Modi’s brand of diplomacy. As Israel got pushed into the current conflict, thanks to the attack of Hamas militants, Mr. Narendra Modi expressed the country’s clear stand on its relations with different Middle-Eastern countries. By so doing, the Prime Minister once again surprised the world (which still was under a state of confusion about India’s stand in the Russia-Ukraine conflict). But each of these Indian stands point to a clear truth -- that India makes no compromises on its options.