India-Israel relationship has the potential of becoming an enduring strategic partnership
On July 4, Narendra Damodardas Modi became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel, a visit exemplified with tremendous symbolism.
India and Israel are the only stable democracies in a region stretching from Morocco to Myanmar. India and Israel also share historic civilisational ties symbolised through a synagogue dating back to the 16th century and docks in Mumbai named after Baghdadi Jews who sought refuge in the 19th century.
Modern India formally recognised Israel on September 17, 1950, but it was only in 1992, forty-two later, that the two countries established full diplomatic relations. Today, the two countries view each other as strategic partners. Israel is one of India’s top defence suppliers with annual defence trade of $1 billion and an annual economic trade that stands at around $4.5 billion.
India established relations with Israel in 1950, but the Cold War and Palestine conflict shaped India’s ties with Israel for the next four decades.
India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s policy of non-alignment sought to keep India out of the Cold War and away from military alliances with either of the two blocs.Championing non-alignment helped India build ties with countries in Asia, West Asia and Africa just emerging from colonial rule, and before which India projected herself as a potential role model and example to fellow former colonies.
Many of India’s founding generation perceived the West Asia conflict as another case of partition induced by a colonial power and they sympathised with the Arab Muslims even though the Jews claimed their ancient right to that land.
Israel, as an American ally, moreover was viewed as part of the Western camp. Palestinian leaders, on the other hand, were welcomed to the Non-Aligned Movement, an organisation founded by India, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia and Yugoslavia. Ties with Muslim West Asian countries were also important so India could counter Pakistan’s attempts to portray India, a country with a large Muslim minority, as being anti-Muslim.
There was a domestic dimension as well. Indian leaders feared that Indian Muslims, who had long championed Pan Islamism and Muslim causes during the colonial era, would resent any government perceived as abandoning the Palestinian cause. For decades, Indian leaders viewed Israel-Palestine conflict as a zero-sum game. Even today, there are those who argue India should not let its ties with Israel affect its relations with Palestine.
In 1958, at a press conference, when asked why India did not have any diplomatic relations with Israel, Nehru’s replied that the only way India could “best serve and be helpful in that area” was if the “problem between Israel and the Arab countries” was “settled peacefully".
India’s policy of diplomatically recognising Israel, but not exchanging diplomatic personnel reflected this policy.
As I write in my book, From Chanakya to Modi: The Evolution of India’s Foreign Policy, during the 1950s-60s, the opposition and right-of-centre, Swatantra party, offered a sharp contrast to Nehruvianism. The Swatantra party championed "alignment" or building regional alliances with Western countries and other non-communist countries like Israel. It is interesting that the foreign policy initiatives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi since his election in 2014 embrace some of the ideas championed by the Swatantra Party during the 1950s and 1960s.
After decades of continuing with a foreign policy paradigm established at independence, with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, India started building closer ties with western powers, especially the United States. Economics and commerce now became major drivers of Indian foreign policy. India also realised the need to modernise its military and, therefore, defence needs naturally came to the forefront.
High-tech Israel, a leader in defence, agriculture and other fields, was now perceived as a country with which India needed to restore relations.
While India restored diplomatic relations with Israel under Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao (1991-96), relations with Israel received a big boost during the first BJP-led government of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
In 2003, the then prime minister Ariel Sharon was the first Israeli premier to visit India. In 2015, President Pranab Mukherjee became the first Indian President to visit Israel.
India’s ties with Israel are multi-dimensional, akin to its ties with the United States. There are around 80,000 Jews of Indian origin living in Israel and around 10,000 Indian citizens working and studying in Israel. India is a popular tourist destination for young Israelis with over 35,000 Israelis visiting India annually and over 40,000 Indians visit Israel.
Since relations expanded, the areas of cooperation also grew. Today the key areas of collaboration are defence, agriculture, science and technology and water management. Israel is one of India’s top defence partners with defence trade, close counter-terrorism cooperation, regular exchanges between armed force personnel and visits by top defence officials.
Israel is India’s third largest source of arms (after USA and Russia) while India is Israel's top destination for arms exports, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
In a few decades, Israel has succeeded in becoming one of India’s top defence and strategic partners because Tel Aviv grasped New Delhi’s desire for self-sufficiency. India has always sought to build its domestic manufacturing base both in the economic arena as well as in defence.
The Soviet Union understood this and built close ties with India that Russia inherited. Israel comprehended this early on and Israeli companies have always offered to share state-of-the-art technology and manufacture locally.
Closer India-US defence ties have made it easier over the years for Israel to share technology with India. In April 2017, Israel Aerospace was awarded a $1.6 billion contract to manufacture missiles and defence systems for the Indian Army and Indian aircraft carriers. Indian naval ships now routinely visit Israeli ports and since 2005 the militaries of both countries have participated in annual military exercises.
In addition to close defence cooperation, the two countries have also deepened ties in internal security, especially border management, police modernisation and organisational capacity-building. There are regular exchanges between law and enforcement personnel with Indian Police Service (IPS) officer trainees being sent to Israel as part of their foreign exposure.
Agriculture and water management are other leading areas of India-Israel cooperation with India benefitting from Israeli expertise and technology in water conservation, horticulture, drip-irrigation and dairy farming. In 2006, the two countries signed an agreement for agricultural cooperation that later became the Indo-Israel Agriculture Project under which the two countries cooperate to boost crop diversity, productivity and resource efficiency.
As part of this project 26 centres of excellence in agriculture are being set up across India to showcase latest technology to local farmers. During Modi’s trip, the two countries agreed to establish a strategic partnership in water and agriculture.
India’s ties with Israel have come a long way since 1992. Just as the United States de-hyphenated India-Pakistan relations, New Delhi has learnt that it needs to do the same with respect to Israel and Palestine.
The India-US relationship has been referred to as the defining partnership of the 21st century. The India-Israel relationship has the potential of becoming an enduring strategic partnership.