Online Desk: Following Israeli airstrikes on Gaza in October 2023, Israeli Ambassador to India NaorGilon remarked: “Everyone is telling me, ‘I want to volunteer, I want to fight for Israel’.” He claimed the response from Indians was so overwhelming that he could raise another Israeli army comprising Indians alone.
Though startling, Gilon’s comment underscored a growing reality — that Israel and India, under Netanyahu and Modi, are more than strategic partners. They are increasingly becoming ideological allies, pursuing parallel paths of ethno-nationalism.
In recent years, the alliance between Zionist Israel and Hindutva-led India has extended beyond arms deals and intelligence sharing. Both states are reshaping their political and legal orders to benefit religious majorities — Jews in Israel, and Hindus in India — while marginalising minority populations.
As mentioned earlier, India was once a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause. However, that moral clarity has eroded, particularly since the rise of the BJP. While it was a Congress-led government that initiated full diplomatic ties with Israel, Modi’s tenure since 2014 has seen India become an ardent supporter of Israeli policies.
Israel has, in turn, become a model for India — militarily, ideologically, and procedurally. In Occupied Kashmir, Israeli-style tactics have been adopted: fencing, drones, surveillance systems, “surgical strikes”, and the rhetoric of counterinsurgency.
Following the 2019 abrogation of Occupied Kashmir’s limited autonomy, an Indian diplomat openly advocated for Israeli-style settlements in the region: “We already have a model. If the Israeli people can do it, we can also do it.”
At the heart of this deepening alliance lies a shared ideological vision. Zionism, in its current form, seeks to define Israel exclusively as a homeland for the Jewish people. The 2018 Jewish Nation-State Law codified this principle, stating that “the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people”, effectively denying Palestinians equal status.
In India, ideologues within the BJP, RashtriyaSwayamsevakSangh (RSS), and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) have long expressed a desire to transform secular India into a Hindu Rashtra (or state). As early as 1923, Hindutva ideologue VinayakDamodarSavarkar praised Zionism as a model, writing: “If the Zionists’ dreams are ever realised — it will gladden us almost as much as our Jewish friends.”
The admiration is both strategic and ideological. For India’s Hindu nationalists, Israel’s methods of demographic control, settlement expansion, and legal apartheid offer a template for dealing with Indian Muslims, particularly in Occupied Kashmir.
