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.”