Iran-Israel War: We need to rediscover our nationalism

It needs no emphasis that India's response to the Iran-Israel-US war has been timid. The government is at its time-tested gimmickry. The changed ideological stance of India as a nation may not allow us to view the Iran-Israel-US war rationally. Nations survive on their values.

England, America, and most of the West have long been associated with the so-called civilizing mission, the white man’s burden. The colonial deception garbed in this slogan frees them from the guilt of looting and murdering people across the world.

The anti-colonial movements across the world exposed and demolished the well-crafted deception of the West.

The Indian independence struggle under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi is unique in that it built an alternative narrative that effectively challenges dominant colonial paradigms.

The Indian struggle is grounded in the great values of nonviolence, equality, and compassion. The RSS and its Hindutva have been antithetical to the ideology of the Indian Freedom Movement.

The philosophy of Hindutva is a poor imitation of the colonial theories of nation-states and superiority of race, religion or community over others.

But the force that drives Hindutva is its allegiance to the dominant sections of society: the moneyed class, the dominant castes.

We should wonder why the Hindutva forces allied with the colonial masters. The latter were the protectors of Zamindars, Moneylenders, and capitalists. It was natural for the Hindutva forces to ally with them.

The above understanding enables us to articulate the current crisis in a proper context. During the crisis, Prime Minister Modi has refrained from invoking religion and has limited himself to the rhetoric of the well-being of the people.

He is aware of the risk of a religion-based narrative in the context of the Iran war. The rhetoric works in neighboring countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Here it will not work.

However, the RSS machinery is putting all its energy into supporting the Islamophobia of Israel. However, Modi is contradictory in his stand. On the one hand, he denies an energy crisis in India and accuses the opposition parties of spreading rumours.

On the other hand, he says that every war affects the global supply chain, which in turn affects us. He deliberately refers to the Ukraine war and asserts that it affected the price of urea. Apparently, the reference to the Ukraine war is meant to placate the Americans.

This is an assertion of a pro-US stance. Is this another example of the alleged surrender of Modi to Trump? The Modi government was a co-sponsor of the UNSC resolution to condemn Iranian attacks on Gulf States. His visit to Israel just before the Israel-US attack on Iran was an open declaration of the joining of the Israel-US nexus.

Refraining from condemning the aggression on Iran, the killing of 15 schoolgirls, and the killing of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, were confirmations of a new policy.

Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders diagnosed the crisis differently and accused the PM of causing it. They say the Indian interests are not guiding our foreign policy. It has its roots in Modi’s surrender to US President Trump. The articulation has limitations.

The alleged effects of the Epstein files and the resultant blackmail might be the immediate reasons, the basic guiding principles have their origin in the philosophy of Hindutva. The philosophy supports dominance and inequality in the domestic sphere and allies with hegemonic and xenophobic forces at the international level.

They have been doing it since the colonial days. India can pursue an independent foreign policy only if it adheres to an anti-hegemonic stance in world affairs. The Epstein files have exposed the course of the rightward drift of Indian foreign policy.

It reveals how leadership was desperately seeking an alliance with the Trump regime. It also exposes how willing it was to join the Israeli nexus. Israel is a military state and hardly cares for international laws. The genocide in Gaza has exposed its real face.

The Israeli Defence Force targeted hospitals, schools, refugee camps and food distribution centers. The International Criminal Court has declared Netanyahu an accused of crimes against humanity.

The Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Israel hours before the latter attacked Iran dragged us into the Iran-Israel war. The optics of Netanyahu and Modi embracing need not be appreciated.

Prime Minister Nehru and others, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, respected the ideology of the freedom struggle. This is the reason why they adhered to the policy of Non-Alignment. The policy opposed the violation of sovereignty, opposed racism and shunned the arms race. It supported a just world order.

Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress had a clear vision of it. It stood against the war and never sided with the aggressor. The classic case is of the Second World War. The INC was opposed to Fascism. It also sympathised with the Allied Powers. But it boycotted the war efforts of the British.

It declared that an independent India would fight against the Fascist forces of Japan and Germany. It would not fight as a subservient state of the British Empire. The party stood for the sovereignty and independence of the Indian nation.

The Hindutva forces sympathised with Fascism, yet supported the British war efforts. The dichotomy should not surprise us. The Hindutva did not have any respect for the sovereignty of the Indian nation. Their position favoured the dominant class in India. The war efforts benefited industrialists.

A close look reveals that a pro-Israel stance benefits business corporations. We know the people who are benefiting from our relationship with Israel.

The energy crisis is causing hardships to common people, but the Modi regime is interested in benefiting a section of Indian industrialists. This is the core of Modi’s nationalism. We need to rediscover our nationalism.

(The author is a senior journalist. He has experience of working with leading newspapers and electronic media including Deccan Herald, Sunday Guardian, Navbharat Times and Dainik Bhaskar. He writes on politics, society, environment and economy)