If there was one big idea that captured the essence of independent India’s early thinking on the Middle East, it was the preference for modern secular nationalists in the region. Delhi was uncomfortable with traditionalist and religious forces in the Middle East. The region, however, did not evolve according to India’s preferences.
The division between secular republics and conservative monarchies was too simplistic to capture the regional complexities. Several developments in the Middle East since the late 1970s led to the rise of violent religious extremism and Islamic republicanism that today threaten both secular and conservative regimes.
Over the last few years, India has drawn closer to Arab moderates and Israel. This has been facilitated by the converging interests and expanding engagement between Arab moderates and Israel. They have become valuable partners for Delhi in countering religious extremism, accelerating India’s economic modernisation and expanding India’s security footprint in the region.
The horrific bloodletting in Southern Israel and Gaza over the last two weeks has cast a shadow over India’s recent gains in the Middle East. The challenge for Indian policy in the coming days is to prevent the current crisis from breaking up the emerging coalition of Arab moderates and Israel and limiting the rise of forces seeking regional chaos.
Three imperatives stand out for Indian policy. The first is to encourage greater moderation in Israel. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was right in expressing solidarity with Israel in the wake of the horrendous terror attack on Southern Israel on October 7. Although Israel will make its own choices and is unlikely to be compelled by anyone else on such a question of national security, Delhi must caution Tel Aviv against allowing its quest for retribution to overwhelm the need for a careful assessment of the consequences of its planned invasion of Gaza to “eliminate Hamas”.
It is unlikely that Hamas and the violent religious extremism it espouses can be defeated, let alone destroyed, through military means. In fact, the massive costs of Israel’s invasion will lend greater legitimacy to Hamas and weaken that of Tel Aviv. More immediately, it will invite Israel’s adversaries to open additional fronts, further isolate Israel in the international community, and undermine its moderate Arab partners. A Tel Aviv locked in a costly, unwinnable and extended urban counter-insurgency warfare in the densely populated Gaza strip is precisely where its adversaries want it to be.
Just a few weeks ago, Tel Aviv hoped to see several Muslim nations step forward to recognise Israel after the much-awaited normalisation of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Gaza war has compelled Saudi Arabia to suspend dialogue with Israel. Muslim countries — including Pakistan and Bangladesh — that were looking at engaging Israel are walking away from that idea. Despite being the victim of a barbarous terror attack, Israel has not drawn empathy in much of the Global South. A prolonged military campaign in the Gaza Strip will lose Israel more friends even in the developed North.
The unfolding violence is also sharpening the divisions within the Israeli polity. Although outrage and grief dominate the Israeli popular sentiment today, a significant part of the anger is directed at the appalling failure of the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu to prevent such a large-scale attack by Hamas. Sections of the political class are pointing to the extremist policies of Netanyahu that have brought Israel to such a terrible impasse. Netanyahu has been a great political survivor, but his prospects for enduring the present crisis in Israel appear remote. It would be a huge mistake for India to conflate the interests of Netanyahu and those of Israel.
That brings us to the second imperative: The need to strengthen the moderate voice of the Palestinian Authority against Hamas. In India, the widespread and enduring political support for the “Palestinian cause” is not matched by the recognition of the massive divergence between the PA and Hamas.
If the PA come from the tradition of ethnic nationalism and a modern outlook on state building, Hamas represents a religious nationalism and wants to impose Islamic law in Palestine.
The rise of Hamas, there is no doubt, is a consequence of Israel’s persistent effort to undermine the Palestinian Authority. A weakened PA lost to Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2007. Any strategy to counter Hamas today must necessarily restore the political salience of the PA; this, in turn, involves a serious effort to address its demands for full statehood.
The third imperative demands a recognition of the regional ambitions of Iran and Turkey — two non-Arab powers. Iran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah and Turkey’s support to the Muslim Brotherhood, although dressed up in the ideology of Islamic solidarity, is about gaining greater political sway over the Arab world.
In Jammu and Kashmir, India is at the receiving end of Turkey’s Islamic internationalism under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But neither the Indian policy nor its discourse on the Middle East engage with Iran’s disruptive role in the Arab world. Although Delhi has good reasons to develop a productive bilateral relationship with Tehran as a major regional power and an important neighbour, it can’t turn a blind eye to Iran’s destabilisation of its Arab neighbours.
India has much to lose if the current crisis in Gaza explodes into a wider regional war. The triumph of violent religious extremism and the weakening of moderate regimes will have security and political consequences for India. Strengthening moderates in Israel and Palestine, supporting reconciliation between them, and promoting a wider coalition of moderate states is critical for India’s long-term prospects in the Middle East.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, Delhi and a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express
