Beyond The Lines – By Kuldip Nayar

Beyond The Lines – By Kuldip Nayar is an account of the seventy year history of India from an honest journalist’s perspective. He had been a vocal critic of the Congress ever since Indira’s rise and has not been very kind towards BJP. Many of the views presented are unpalatable to leftist intelligentsia in India. 

Here are excerpts from the chapter- THE NEHRU YEARS The Road to Partition

On Cabinet Mission

To the Mission’s surprise, Nehru spoke about a plebiscite in the border districts as if his party had already accepted the idea of division. Jinnah also mentioned partition, and told a Punjab Hindu delegation that in his scheme of things Ambala would not form part of Pakistan. Azad, still the Congress president, was on a different wavelength. He ruled out both Partition and a unitary structure. His thesis, which Gandhi had approved, was that a federal constitution would give full autonomy to the provinces and transfer all subjects to them except defence, foreign affairs, and communications.

I believe Patel’s suspicion was that Azad and Nehru were in league and would bypass him. Even during the Cripps Mission in 1942, he was tormented by similar thoughts. C.P. Ramaswami Iyer, a distinguished scholar from south India, with whom I briefly worked on a committee on Hindu temples to ensure their proper administration, told me that Patel ‘interpreted the Cripps Mission as an organized stunt by Nehru to get himself into the forefront so that he could become the prime minister of India’.

Azad’s meeting with the Cabinet Mission was discussed threadbare by the Congress Working Committee (CWC) when it met on 12 April 1946. Members voiced their doubts over the federal structure. Gandhi came to Azad’s rescue and silenced the critics by saying that a federal solution alone could work in a country of India’s size and diversities. When Patel said that subjects like currency and finance should be in the hands of the Centre, Gandhi intervened to say that it would be in the interest of the provinces to have a unified policy in such matters but it was not necessary to include such subjects in a compulsory central list. 

Jinnah reacted sharply and blamed Nehru for repudiating the grouping of provinces and the limited Centre, the ‘basic form’ on which the scheme rested. He made the All-India Council of the Muslim League change its earlier resolution by rejecting the proposal. He accused the Mission of ‘bad faith’ and the Congress of a ‘pettifogging and haggling attitude’. When I met Azad many years later, he held Nehru responsible for Jinnah’s reversal. In chaste Urdu, Azad said: ‘Woh tala jo kabhi khul nahin sakta tha Nehru ne uski chabi Jinnah ke hath main de di [Nehru gave to Jinnah the key of the lock which could not be opened].’

Jinnah gave a call for Direct Action, not against the British but as a show of strength on the part of Muslims as the Congress had treated their demand with ‘defiance and contempt’. He argued the Congress was not willing to accept even the proposal conceding only a ‘limited Pakistan’. This was false propaganda because the Congress had come round to accepting the Cabinet Mission plan, but after raising doubts that made Jinnah wary. That might have been why, when Mountbatten offered a partition proposal a year later and asked Jinnah whether he would accept some links with India, he said: ‘I do not trust them now.’

When asked whether Direct Action would be violent or non-violent, Jinnah said: ‘I am not going to discuss ethics.’ Direct Action was undertaken only in Calcutta and that too merely for a day (16 August 1946). The Muslim League government in Bengal declared a public holiday on that day, despite warnings and protests by the Opposition. The League organized a ‘grand rally’ over which Chief Minister Shaheed Suhrawardy himself presided. Bands of Muslim League National Guards forced their way into Hindu areas and asked for subscriptions, sometimes as much as Rs 1,000. Returning from the rally, the League’s National Guards began looting Hindu shops for not paying subscriptions or not responding to the League’s call for a hartal on that day. Hindus and Sikhs were attacked and the entire event appeared to have been pre-planned. 

Soon Calcutta was engulfed in a communal riot, with Hindus and Sikhs retaliating against Muslims. Parts of the city were reduced to rubble. Over 5,000 people lost their lives in less than three days in what came to be known as the ‘great Calcutta killing’, a phrase coined by the Statesman, the influential British-owned newspaper. Jinnah laid the blame on the Cabinet Mission, the Congress, and Gandhi. Surprisingly, Jinnah found no fault with his National Guards who had pledged themselves before the carnage ‘to strive for the achievement of Pakistan and glory of the Muslim nation’. The Statesman laid the blame on the British governor and Chief Minister Suhrawardy. ‘Arson, looting, murder, abduction of women, forced conversions and forced marriages are everywhere and by every investigator spoken of as the characteristics of lawlessness.’ 

At this juncture Suhrawardy sought Gandhi’s intervention. The latter’s reply was that the future of Bengal could only be decided by the joint will of the Hindus and Muslims in the state. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, a Hindu Mahasabha leader from Bengal, who joined the central cabinet after Independence, met Gandhi to oppose the whole idea of a sovereign Bengal state. Even then the Congress and the League in Bengal came to a tentative agreement that if and when a Greater Bengal came into being, ‘every act of its Government must carry with it the support of at least two-thirds of the Hindu minority in the executive and the legislature’. This was intended to allay the fears of Hindus who would be in a minority in a United Bengal. 

Punjab, which was also partitioned, saw no similar move to unite the state. One reason was that the state had neither a Rabindranath Tagore nor a Nazrul Islam to bind the people through poetry, culture, or language. There was nothing like Punjabi nationalism to string together Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. In comparison, Punjab’s great poet, Iqbal, was himself the author of the idea of Partition. The Punjabi language, even though spoken by the people as a whole, was written differently by the three communities: in Arabic (Urdu) script by the Muslims, in Devnagri (Hindi) by the Hindus, and in Gurmukhi (Punjabi) by the Sikhs. The only culture attributed to Punjab was ‘agriculture’, a disparaging remark that still is thrown at Punjabis. 

Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Tribute to Porus

Michael Madhusudan Dutt is one of the greatest poets in Bengali literature. A polyglot, he picked and mastered many languages like English, Greek, Latin, Persian, Sanskrit as well as Bengali.

I came across his poem on King Porus; written in 1843. This poem describes the historical incident when Alexandar attacked king Porus, the scenes of battle field and patriotism of King Porus. The poem glorifies King Porus as a hero of Indian past and implores all to uphold this glorious tradition of patriotism.

Here is the poem in full:

Loudly the midnight tempest sang,

Ah! it was thy dirge, fair Liberty!

And clouds in thundering accents roar'd

Unheeded warning from on high;

The rain in darksome torrents fell,

Hydaspes' waves did onward sweep,

Like fiery passio's heandlong flow,

To meet th' awaken'd calling deep;

The lighting flashed bright- dazzling,like

Fair women's glance from 'neath her veil;'

And on the heaving, troubled air,

There was a moaning sound of wail

But, Ind! thy unsuspecting sons

Did heedless slumber,- while the foe

Came in stealthy step of death,-

Came as the tiger, noiseless, slow,

To close at once its victim's breath!

Alas! they knew not ‘midst this gloom’

This war of elements was burst,-

Like to an earthquake in the womb

Of a volcano,- deep and lowAdeadlier

storm-on them to burst!

‘I was morn’the Lord of Day

From gold Sumero's palace bright,

Look'd his own sweet clime,

But lo! the glorious flag,

To which the world in awe once bow'd,

There in defiance waved

On India's gales- triumphant-proud!-

Then, rose the dreadful yell,-

Then lion-king, each warrior brave

Rushed on the coming foe,

To strike for freedom-or the grave!

Oh Death! upon thy gory altar

What blood-libations freely flow'd!

Oh Earth! on that bright morn, what , thousands

Rendered to thee the dust they ow'd!

But ‘fore the Macedonians driven’

Fell India's hardy sons,-

Proud mountain oaks by thunders riven,-

That for their country's freedom bledAnd

made on gore their glorious bed!

But dauntlessly there stood

King Porus, towering ‘midst the foe’

Like a Himala-peak

With its eternal crown of snow:

And on his brow did shine

The jewell'd regal diadem.

His milk-white elephant

Was deck'd with many a brilliant gem.

He reck'd not of the phalanx

That ‘round him closed-but nobly fought’

And like the angry winds that blow

And lofty mountain pines lay low,

Amidst them dreadful havoc wrought,

And thinn'd his crown and country's foe!

The hardiest warriors, at his deeds,

Awe-struck quail'd like wind-shaken reeds:

They dared not look upon his face,

They shrank before his burning gaze,

For in his eye the hero shone

That feared not death;-but high-alone

Abeing as if of lightning made,

That scorch'd all that is gazed uponTrampling

the living with the dead

Th' immortal Thund'rer's son,

Astonish'd eyed the heroic king;

He saw him bravely charge

Like his dread father,- fulmining:-

Tho' thousands' round him closed,

He stood-as stand the ocean rock

Amdist the lashing billows

Unmoved at their fierce thoundering shock.

But when th' Emathian conqueror

Saw that with gaping wounds he bled,

‘Desist-desist!’-he cried-

‘Such nobel blood should not be shed!’

Then a herald was sent

Where bleeding and faint,

Stood, ‘midst the dying’and the dead,

King Porus,- boldly, undismayed:

‘Hail, brave and warlike prince!’

Thy generous rival bids thee ceaseBehold!

there flies the flag,

That lulls dread war, and wakens peace!'

Like to a lion chain'd,

That tho' faint-bleeding-stands in prideWith

eyes, where unsubdued

Yet flash'd the fire-looks that defied;

King Porus boldly went

Where ‘midst the gay and flittering crowd’

Sat god-likeAlexander;

While ‘round’Earth's mightiest monarchs bow'd.

King Porus was no slave;

he stooped not-bent not there his knee,-

But stood, as stands an oak,

In Himalayan majesty.

‘The mighty king of Macedon:’

‘Ev’n as a King,’replied

In royal pride, Ind's haughty son.

The conqu’ror pleas’d,

Him forth releas’d:

Thus India's crown was lost and won.

John J. Mearsheimer on China

I referred to my favorite political scientist John J. Mearsheimer’s masterpiece on international relations “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics” to understand ongoing standoff between India and China at the Doklam region. This book was published in 2001; just before 9/11. Its clairvoyance on China’s rise and its impact on other powers are breathtaking.

Best quotes on China without further context or commentary:

 .....one of the key foreign policy issues facing the United States is the question of how China will behave if its rapid economic growth continues and effectively turns China into a giant Hong Kong. Many Americans believe that if China is democratic and enmeshed in the global capitalist system, it will not act aggressively; instead it will be content with the status quo in Northeast Asia. According to this logic, the United States should engage China in order to promote the latter’s integration into the world economy, a policy that also seeks to encourage China’s transition to democracy. If engagement succeeds, the United States can work with a wealthy and democratic China to promote peace around the globe. 

........Unfortunately, a policy of engagement is doomed to fail. If China becomes an economic powerhouse it will almost certainly translate its economic might into military might and make a run at dominating Northeast Asia. Whether China is democratic and deeply enmeshed in the global economy or autocratic and autarkic will have little effect on its behavior, because democracies care about security as much as non-democracies do, and hegemony is the best way for any state to guarantee its own survival. 

..But if China were to become a giant Hong Kong, it would probably have somewhere on the order of four times as much latent power as the United States does, allowing China to gain a decisive military advantage over the United States in Northeast Asia.

....The Chinese are good offensive realists, so they will seek hegemony in Asia, China is not a status quo power. It will seek to dominate the South China Sea as the U.S. has dominated the Greater Caribbean Basin. An increasingly powerful China is likely to try to push the U.S. out of Asia, much the way the U.S. pushed European powers out of the Western Hemisphere. Why should we expect China to act any differently than the United States did? Are they more principled than we are? More ethical? Less nationalistic?

.....Nations of the Western Pacific are slowly being “Finlandized” by China: they will maintain nominal independence but in the end may abide by foreign-policy rules set by Beijing. And the more the United States is distracted by the Middle East, the more it hastens this impending reality in East Asia, which is the geographical heart of the global economy and of the world’s navies and air forces.

The Adventures of Ibn Battuta

"The Adventures of Ibn Battuta A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century" by Ross Dunn is based on the travels of the famous fourteenth century Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta. He visited and stayed in India during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq. He recorded the general state of politics and society in India. The book shed light on the precarious situation of the Hindus; nothing less than relegation to second-class status.

I have pulled out the most interesting quotes from the book-

 ....The first phase of the Muslim conquest of North India was a splendid ghazi adventure of looting, shooting, and smashing up the gods of Hindu idolators. The new kings of Dehli, however, imposed civil order on the conquered areas and created a structure of despotism designed to tax rather than slaughter the native peasantry.

Like the Turkish rulers of the Middle East and Anatolia, the sultans learned proper Muslim statecraft from the Abbasid tradition, though adding here and there colorful bits of Hindu ceremonial. Within several decades of the founding of the sultanate, these erstwhile tribal chieftains were transforming themselves into Indo–Persian monarchs, secluded from the populace at the center of a maze of intimidating ritual and an ever-growing army of officials, courtiers, and bodyguards. 

Delhi grew rapidly in the thirteenth century, not because it was an important center of industry or a key intersection of trade, but because it was the imperial residence. As Ibn Battuta had witnessed in other leading capitals, the operation of the army, the bureaucracy, and the royal household required an immense supporting staff of clerks, servants, soldiers, construction workers, merchants, artisans, transporters, shopkeepers, tailors, and barbers. Delhi was typical of parasitic medieval capitals, its royal establishment feeding magnificently off the labor of the lower orders and the revenues of hundreds of thousands of Hindu farmers. 

Also from central Islamdom came belle-lettrists, historians, poets, and musicians to entertain the imperial court, chronicle its achievements, and extol the virtues of the king. Though Hindi, Turkish, Gujarati, and numerous other Indian tongues could be heard in the streets and bazaars of Delhi, Persian was used in polite circles, thus extending its range as the language of literate prestige all the way from Anatolia to Bengal. Speaking and writing in Persian, the Muslim elite of India reaffirmed in effect their cultural and historical connections to the central lands and at the same time created a linguistic barrier of exclusivity and privilege between themselves and the Hindu masses. 

Delhi, like other rising Muslim cities of that period, grew outward from a hub of grand public buildings — mosques, palaces, Sufi khanqas, colleges, and mausolea — that incorporated the domes, arches, and calligraphic inscriptions characteristic of Middle Period architecture in Persia. Since the immigrant community was small, however, Hindu artisans and laborers had to be hired in large numbers to carry out most of the work. Thus all sorts of native structural and decorative elements found their way into these buildings, some of them built with the sandstone blocks of demolished Hindu temples. 

The prospering of Muslim life in Delhi and numerous other Hindustani towns in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries was evidence of a continuous stream of native conversion. India’s immigrant population of Turks, Afghans, Persians, and Arabs never represented more than a small minority of the total. By the time Ibn Battuta visited the country, the great majority of Muslims there were Indian-born. Most of India’s rural population remained true to the Hindu tradition. 

The Chinese emissaries had earlier arrived in Delhi with 100 slaves and cartloads of fine clothing, brocade, musk, and swords, compliments of Toghon Temur. Muhammad Tughluq naturally felt obliged to reciprocate with an even more magnificent array of gifts. The list included 200 Hindu slaves, songstresses, and dancers, 15 pages, 100 horses, and wondrous quantities of choice textiles, robes, dishware, and swords. 

By the 1340s, however, the conditions of travel, even under armed escort, had changed drastically. Seven years of famine, repeated rebellion, and disastrous government had left the rural areas of what remained of the empire more and more difficult to control. Hindu insurgency and brigandage had become endemic outside the walls of the garrison towns, even in the Ganges heartland. Traffic on the high roads connecting the major cities was even more susceptible to interference than when Ibn Battuta had his first encounter with Hindu dacoits on his way to Delhi in 1334.

On History

Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.

Niccolo Machiavelli

After the first visits, our conversations become eerie affairs, because I realized Djilas was always right. He was able to predict the future. His technique was a simple one for an East European, but a difficult one for an American: he seemed to ignore the daily newspapers and think purely historically.

Robert Kaplan on Milovan Djilas

History not used is nothing, for all intellectual life is action, like practical life, and if you don't use the stuff well, it might as well be dead.

Arnold J. Toynbee

"Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged."

Abraham Lincoln (in the context of The American Civil War of 1861 to 1865)

"History is for human self-knowledge ... the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is."

R. G. Collingwood

"History does not repeat, but it does instruct."
Timothy Snyder

Following are from “what is History?” by E. H. Carr.....

"But when points of this kind are raised, I am reminded of Housman's remark that 'accuracy is a duty, not a virtue'." To praise a historian for his accuracy is like praising an architect for using well-seasoned timber or properly mixed concrete in his building. It is a necessary condition of his work, but not his essential function. It is precisely for matters of this kind that the historian is entitled to rely on what have been called the 'auxiliary sciences' of history archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, chronology, and so forth. The historian is not required to have the special skills which enable the expert to determine the origin and period of a fragment of pottery or marble, to decipher an obscure inscription, or to make the elaborate astronomical calculations necessary to establish a precise date. These so-called basic facts, which are the same for all historians, commonly belong to the category of the raw materials of the historian rather than of history itself."

"It used to be said that facts speak for themselves. This is, of course, untrue. The facts, speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the door, and in what order or context. It was, I think, one of Pirandello's characters who said that a fact is like a sack - it won't stand up till you've put something in it, The only reason why we are interested to know that the battle was fought at Hastings in 1066 is that historians regard it as a major historical event. It is the historian who has decided for his own reasons that Caesar's crossing of that petty stream, the Rubicon, is a fact of history, whereas the crossing of the Rubicon by millions of other people before or since interests nobody at all. The fact that you arrived in this building half an hour ago on foot, or on a bicycle, or in a car, is just as much a fact about the past as the fact that Caesar crossed the Rubicon. But it will probably be ignored by historians."

"History has been called an enormous jig-saw with a lot of missing parts. But the main trouble does not consist in the lacunae. Our picture of Greece in the fifth century B.C. is defective not primarily because so many of the bits have been accidentally lost, but because it is, by and large, the picture formed by a tiny group of people in the city of Athens. We know a lot about what fifth-century Greece looked like to an Athenian citizen; but hardly anything about what it looked like to a Spartan, a Corinthian, or a Theban - not to mention a Persian, or a slave or other non-citizen resident in Athens. Our picture has been preselected and predetermined for us, not so much by accident as by people who were consciously or unconsciously imbued with a particular view and thought the facts which supported that view worth preserving. In the same way, when I read in a modern history of the Middle Ages that the people of the Middle Ages were deeply concerned with religion, I wonder how we know this, and whether it is true. What we know as the facts of medieval history have almost all been selected for us by generations of chroniclers who were professionally occupied in the theory and practice of religion, and who therefore thought it supremely important, and recorded everything relating to it, and not much else. The picture of the Russian peasant as devoutly religious was destroyed by the revolution of 1917."

Milovan Djilas’s book The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System

As per Djilas, the Communist revolution has resulted in creation of a new class with the most complete authority. This new class (mostly political bureaucracy) was made up of those who have special privileges and economic preference because of the administrative monopoly they hold.

I have listed some of my favorite quotes below.

"Communist materialism is possibly more exclusive than any other contemporary view of tће world. It pushes its adherents into the position which makes it impossible for them to hold апу other view point."

"Consequently, they proceeded practically unaware of tће most important minds of their time, апd disdained the views of орропепts iп their own movement. Тће writings of Marx and Engels сопtаiп по mention of suсћ а well-known philosopher as Sсhорепћаuеr or of аn aestћeticist like Таiпе. There is по mепtiоп of tће well-kпown writers апd artists of tћeir period."

"Leпin rejected everything that was not iп accord witћ Marxist views. То him, anything was erroneous and valueless if it was поt iп accord with original Marxism. It must be acknowledged that, in this respect, his works are outstanding examples of logical and persuasive dogmatism."

"Stalin went further; ће "developed" Lenin, but without having Lenin's knowledge or depth. Careful research would lead to tће conclusion that tћis man, whom Khrushchev himself today acknowledges to ћаvе been the ''best Marxist" of his time, had поt еvеп rеаd Marx’s Das Kapital, tће most important work on Marxism. Practical soul that he was, and supported bу his extreme dogmatism, it was not еvеп necessary for him to be acquainted with Marx's economic studies to build his brand of "socialism"."

"In many ways contemporary Communism is remiпiscent of tће exclusiveness of religious sects of tће middle Ages."

"Absolute despotism equates itself witћ thе belief in absolute human happiness, though it is an all-inclusive and universal tyranny."

"From birth to death а man is surrounded bу thе solicitude of the ruling party, а solicitude for his consciousness апd conscience. Journalists, ideologists, paid writers, special schools, approved ruling ideas,апd tremendous material means are all enlisted and engaged in this "uplifting of socialism.” Iп thе final analysis, all newspapers аrе official. So are thе radio and other similar media."

Letter from Einstein to Nehru

India formally recognized Israel as a sovereign nation in 1950 and established full diplomatic relations in 1992. It took 70 years for India’s top leadership to visit Tel Aviv officially.

70 years back, Israeli leaders worked ardently to convince a skeptical India to recognize the fledgling Jewish State; ultimately roped in Albert Einstein to convince Jawaharlal Nehru. Einsten wrote a four-page letter to Nehru on June 13, 1947.

Following are excerpts, interspersed with my comments:

My dear Mr. Nehru:

“I read that the curse of the pariah was about to be lifted from millions of Hindus in the very days when the attention of the world was fixed on the problem of another group of human beings who, like the untouchables, have been the victims of persecution and discrimination for centuries.” (India is one of the few countries where Jews were never ill-treated)

“And because you have been the consistent champion of the forces of political and economic enlightenment in the Orient, I address myself to you in regard to the rights of an ancient people whose roots are in the East.” (economic enlightenment in the Orient? with ides borrowed from west..)

“The Jewish people alone has for centuries been in the anomalous position of being victimized and hounded as as people, though bereft of all the rights and protections which even the smallest people normally has. Jews have been persecuted as individuals; the Jewish people has been unable to develop fruitfully as a cultural and ethnic group. The spirit of the people as well as the bodies of its members have been assailed. Zionism offered the means of ending this discrimination. Through the return to the land to which they were bound by close historic ties, and, since the dispersion, hallowed in their daily prayers, Jews sought to abolish their pariah status among peoples.” (Jews returned and fought for homeland after 2000 years, Hindus pondering over converting LoC into international border for a land that was ceded just 70 years back)

"The Advent of Hitler underscored with a savage logic all the disastrous implications contained in the abnormal situation in which Jews found themselves. Millions of Jews perished extermination program cost my people, nor of the tragic plight of the survivors. India, I am sure, mourned not only for six million men, women and children killed in gas-chambers and crematoriums, but also for a civilization which permitted this horror to take place. And I believe that wherever men dream of justice and struggle for its presence, the cry of those who escaped from the Nazi chamel-house constitutes invasion."

“At the close of world war 1, 99% of the vast, underpopulated territories liberated from the Turks by the Allies were set aside for the national aspirations of the Arabs. Five independent Arab states have since been established in these territories.Only 1% was reserved for the Jewish people in the land of their origin. The decision which led to the proclamation of the Balfour Declaration was not arbitrary, nor the choice of territory capricious. It took into account the needs and aspirations of both Arab and Jew, and certainly, the lion’s share did not fall to the Jews. In the august scale of justice,which weighs need against need, there is not doubt as to whose is more heavy.  The “small notch” in the land of their fathers, granted the Jewish people, somewhat redresses the balance.” (land grabbing like in West Bengal currently, perpetual )

“Nor can I ignore the new concepts of economic equality which Jewish workers have brought to the Middle East. Their network of flourishing cooperatives, their vigorous trade-union movement,are token of a social idealism which is an organic part of their striving for national regeneration. Through the force of this social vision, both Arab and Jew will go forward.” (Leftist idol Bernie Sanders spent several months volunteering on an Israeli collective farm, or kibbutz, that functioned according to communist principles in 60’s)

“It is time to make an end to the ghetto status of Jews in Palestine, and to the pariah status of Jews among peoples. I trust that you, who so badly have struggled for freedom and justice, will place your great influence on behalf of the claim for justice made by the people who for so long and so dreadfully have suffered from its denial.” (India did vote against the United Nations Partition plan for Palestine arguing for a composite state like that of India. India's vote was overruled by a majority vote, approving the creation of Israel and Palestine as two independent states.)

Yours very sincerely,

Albert Einstein

I conclude by quoting S Prasannarajan-

“Israel is a place where an Indian leader can come face to face with the politics of being alive in historical adversities. Traditionally, solidarity with the Palestinian cause demanded the total exclusion of the other. In its crudest form, Israel’s own victimhood has been trivialised as an ultra-nationalist excuse for repression. The Palestinian romantics called it ‘ Holocaust blackmail’. The tragedy of the Jew is too singular to be banalised in the comparative narrative of persecution and victimisation. By reaching out, Modi has shown that India is, at last, willing to establish an emotional covenant with its true partner in the Levant. For too long did we pursue the ‘correct’ policies of de-colonisation politics, no matter it was history-proof.”