The Hindu says ‘Israel is upset
with India’s ties with Palestine’.
Deccan Herald says ‘Palestinians
are wary of India-Israel bond’.
Well, the two extremes that may
or may not echo in India’s domestic politics.
India’s has around 17 crore
Muslims and that makes Palestine a sensitive issue, but then we also need to
consider this that the ‘Palestinian cause’ doesn’t reflect to that level in our
day to day politics to make a domestically sensitive issue, at least at the visible
level.
Israel is critical for India’s
defence needs and can supply some of the most advanced defence tech,
irrespective of what the world community says and is certainly on Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s radar.
And India tries to do that, at
least in dealings at international level, in international politics – for principles
– for compulsions. It tries to stem concerns of the Muslim community back home
and the larger Arab world, the traditional anti-Israel block.
President Pranab Mukherjee just concluded
his historical visit to Palestine and Israel before Narendra Modi’s planned
Israel visit later. And though it will be a milestone since any Indian prime
minister is visiting Israel for the first time, there are already concerns and
debates on the line that whether Narendra Modi would include Palestine in his itinerary.
But none of that reverberates
much in our domestic politics. Unless and until something massive happens with
Palestine and Israel is the root cause of that, Palestine is not going to be an
issue in our routine domestic politics.
Now, whether that is in Modi’s
mind or not - we need to wait and watch – for his official itinerary.
So, when I saw this poster during
a random excursion trip, in a place inhabited by many media outfits of the
country, I felt amused – for obvious reasons.
It might have been an exercise,
placing it there, to catch some eyeballs, something that didn't work. And
anyway, such routine exercises by these so-called outfits didn't go out of
conference halls where the event is held. And we all know why such events are
held.
Yes, solidarity with Palestine is
a principled stand that India has always taken, and has taken rightly, and the
country will find it hard to balance the Israel-Palestine ‘hyphenation’ in the
days to come.
But the same is not expected to
bring upheavals in our domestic politics and the society it is aimed at.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
