Brig Muhammad Asif (R)
IMMEDIATELY after the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel”, adding that “We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour”.
To those who know Modi, his reaction was quite expected in view of the commonalities of policies and outlook of both Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the national and international issues. Both leaders are extreme right-wing politicians known for their anti-Muslim outlook and policies. Modi is a Hindu superracist and Netanyahu is a Jewish superracist. Both are involved in the ethnic cleansing of Muslims to lay the foundations for a political order based on anti-pluralist fascist ideology that entails the denial of political and civic rights to the religious/racial/ethnic minorities.
India and Pakistan came close to full-scale conflict following the April 22, 2025 attack in Pahalgam, in the Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJ&K), which killed 26 tourists. India immediately blamed Pakistan-based elements for the assault without any investigation or evidence, leading to military strikes on May 6–7 that escalated into one of the deadliest clashes between the neighbours in decades. Dozens lost their lives before diplomacy managed to de-escalate the situation. During the confrontation, China, Turkiye and Azerbaijan supported Pakistan, while the US, Gulf states and Western countries largely remained neutral. Israel stood out as the only country providing both military and diplomatic support to India. In a recent interview, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Israel and India as natural allies, citing shared anti-Muslim policies. According to Christophe Jaffrelot, the only difference between the two is that Jewish supremacy is enshrined in Israel’s constitution, while India is moving toward codifying Hindutva, a majoritarian ideology that undermines equal rights for minorities.
The ideological and political transformation India has undergone from the late 1980s onwards is fraught with grave consequences for the world, especially for nearly two billion people of South Asia. The majority of the Indian National Congress leaders, like Mahatma Gandhi and Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, were known for their commitment to secularism and democratic culture and norms. Nehru and the rest of the Congress party leadership were confident that a political culture based on pluralism and tolerance would become the foundations of the new society. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the most popular and well organized Hindu nationalist movement, founded by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, called Doctor-ji by his supporters, (1889–1940) in 1925, has contested secular ideology most fiercely since its emergence and rise as a political force. RSS maintains that any ideology that advocates Indian national identity sans Hinduism would make Hindustan a land or physical entity without soul. Hindutva, political-cum-religious ideology upheld by RSS, asserts that Hinduism and Hindu ethos are the basis of Indian civilization and the soul of the Indian nation.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which gradually displaced the Nehru Dynasty from the 1980s, officially adopted Hindutva as its ideology in 1989. Following the horrific 2002 Gujarat carnage, few could have imagined that Narendra Modi, a lifelong RSS member implicated in orchestrating the massacre of Muslims as Chief Minister, would rise to become India’s Prime Minister in May 2014. Since Modi’s election, radical Hindu nationalist groups have intensified attacks on religious minorities, aiming to intimidate and subdue them. According to a leading Christian rights organization, at least 600 such attacks occurred between 2014 and August 2017, many organized by RSS-affiliated groups like the Bajrang Dal. Lynchings of Muslims are often filmed and circulated on social media to create a chilling effect and spread fear. Critics argue that the US, Western nations and even Muslim countries have largely remained silent on these atrocities, driven by economic interests and strategic policies, including leveraging India in a “China Containment Drive.” Christophe Jaffrelot notes that the lack of international response has emboldened radical groups, enabling the sustained targeting of minorities and signaling the growing normalization of Hindutva-driven violence under Modi’s leadership.
Notwithstanding the savagery and brutalities the Indian Muslims have been subjected to by the BJP government, India under Modi has been able to forge robust multifaceted relations with the Muslim states India enjoys very cordial relations with most of the Islamic countries, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), which is revered as the leader of the Muslim Ummah. The UAE is a key trading partner and India is working on expanding trade and investment further. India’s participation in the I2U2 (a strategic partnership between India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor highlights its growing strategic engagement in the Gulf region. The opening of a Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi symbolizes the strengthening of cultural ties.
Intimate personal relations of Modi with the rulers of the Middle East Islamic states, besides being a cause of concern and anguish for Indian Muslims, have conveyed a wrong message to the Hindu nationalist groups active against Muslims in India. Without compromising on their economic interests linked to their broad base partnership with India, countries like KSA (using their influence and clout) can exert pressure on India to take necessary measures for the security and protection of the Indian Muslims. The moral and material support extended to the Indian Muslim will consolidate the position of KSA as the spiritual leader of the Muslim world. If the world, especially the Middle East Muslim states don’t act to check Modi’s fascist policies, the world may witness dreadful holocaust in the shape of large scale ethnic cleansing of Indian Muslims, leading to an armed conflict between India and Pakistan, the two nuclear capable traditional South Asian archenemies.
—The writer occasionally contributes to the national press.
