10) PRESIDENT OF INDIA FACES DEMONSTRATORS IN PALESTINE
By B. Prasant, PV correspondent in India
The recent demonstrations that Indian President Pranab Mukherjee had to face exposed the country’s foreign policy for what it is worth. Mukherjee had gone to East Jerusalem on October 13 to inaugurate the India-Palestine Centre for Excellence in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) at the Al-Quds University. Earlier, the government of Israel had “privileged” the President of India with the honorific of “knight of peace.” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was present on the occasion.
As soon as Mukherjee had climbed the dais and approached the decorated podium at the Al-Quds University, several hundred placard-waving students started to raise slogans, calling upon Mukherjee to ‘go back.’
The students also questioned him about the political intent of Indian foreign policy, pointing out that India was now openly siding with Israel, especially on the issue of the latest clashes taking place in areas of East Jerusalem.
The students asked Mukherjee to compel the Indian government to condemn the killing of Palestinians at the behest of Israel. Slogans were also raised against Zionism and the brutalities perpetrated by Israeli forces on the Palestinians.
Al-Quds University is situated right beside the stretch of illegal construction work that Israel has undertaken for some years. The present right-wing Indian government, which has warm relations with Israel, has remained silent on all issues affecting the Palestinian cause.
In criticising India for its pro-Israel foreign policy, the students were also critical of the Palestinian government for its lack of direction and proper leadership. They were also critical of the political outlook of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazin).
Subsequently, all Mukherjee’s programs were cancelled, including the inauguration of a secondary school in East Jerusalem. Elsewhere, Israel chose to confiscate the quartet of “communication devices” that the Indian President wanted to gift to the ICT. The reason given was that the devices operated at a frequency not to the liking of the Mossad and the Israeli defence ministry.
The picture was never this bleak earlier. During the post-independence Cold War decades, as a leading nation of the non-aligned movement, India had always condemned Zionism and supported the Palestinian cause, having been one of the first nations to recognise the Palestinian state in 1988. Much earlier, in 1974, India recognised the Palestine Liberation Organisation as the sole representative of the people of Palestine. In 1996, India set up an office of its permanent representative at Ramallah in the Palestinian West Bank.
The bend in Indian foreign policy towards the Middle East came when a hard Hindu right government of the BJP (backed by its ideological core of Hindutva in the form of the Rashtriya Swayyam Sevak Sangh or the RSS) came to office for several tenures in the last decade before Modi’s sweep to office in 2014. At that point, the BJP government chose to simply look away from the struggles of the Palestinian people and started to back, to the hilt in the international fora, Israel and its policies, with appropriate adjustments made to bi-lateral dynamics.
Subsequent to his visit to east Jerusalem, on his return to India, Pranab Mukherjee noted with some bitterness that while he was unable to enunciate political viewpoints during his present incumbency, he would nonetheless issue a warning that if India was allowed to be misled, Indian civilisation itself would be in grave danger.
(The above article is from the November 1-15, 2015, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)