India’s abstention at UN is a nuanced, principled stand that exposes Congress’s miserable equivocation on terror

Three weeks since the 7 October massacre of thousands of Israeli citizens by the Islamist terrorists of Hamas, Israel is already faced with an impossible situation. The floors have barely been wiped clean of the blood and human remains in the civilian communities where the atrocities took place. Wreaths are falling short in burial grounds. Leftists and Islamists around the world — an alliance that wields enormous human resources, political influence, and discourse power — have started a shocking, coordinated anti-Semitic campaign of genocide, terror denial and victim-blaming. The streets of Europe, not to speak of the Muslim world, are reverberating with thunderous vows of wiping Israel off the face of the earth amid calls for a ceasefire. Lynch mobs are prowling airport premises in Dagestan, Russia, looking for Jewish passengers following rumours that refugees have deplaned. Jewish students in America’s most prestigious universities are receiving death threats. In the UK, they are hiding religious symbols for fear of being targetted and harmed. Israel has barely started the war to destroy Hamas. It cannot heed calls for a ceasefire, not yet, given the scale, significance, and ferocity of Hamas’s terrorist assault. And while it seeks to demolish the terrorist organisation’s infrastructure, foot soldiers and the leadership and reestablish deterrence, it must seek to minimise civilian casualties — an impossible task given the way Hamas has deliberately entrenched itself in underground tunnels in densely populated Gaza and are using the Gazan population as cannon fodder to win the global PR war. Israel’s ground invasion, that has just begun, must achieve a devilishly difficult objective made even harder by the fact that it has to free over 200 hostages that Hamas is holding captive and using as leverage to scuttle Tel Aviv’s offensive. So, even as the ground operation in Gaza has barely taken off, Jews are facing Islamist persecution and Tel Aviv is under enormous global pressure to call it off. It essentially means taking the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust on its chin, forgetting about retribution and moving on until the next terrorist attack. This is not only morally onerous, deeply unfair and impossible since the state of Israel has a duty to secure its citizens from further terror attacks which can’t be ensured unless the Hamas challenge is dealt with — but also strategically disastrous for a Jewish population that faces extermination in a hostile neighbourhood where battles are shaped along medieval ideological lines. It isn’t surprising to note Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu making it clear on Monday that Israel would not agree to a ceasefire, “just as the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, or after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.” This isn’t rhetoric. To quote Hillary Clinton’s comments from a recent panel discussion, “People who are calling for a ceasefire now do not understand Hamas, that is not possible. It would be such a gift to Hamas because they would spend whatever time there was a ceasefire in effect rebuilding their armaments, creating stronger positions to be able to fend off an eventual assault by the Israelis.” It is in this context that we must place the UN General Assembly resolution, drafted by Jordan, that called for an “immediate, durable and sustainable humanitarian truce” between Israel and Hamas “leading to a cessation of hostilities” and demanded “unhindered provision of essential aid to civilians throughout the Gaza Strip.” In adopting the non-binding resolution by a vote of 120 in favour to 14 against, with 45 abstentions, essentially a moral exercise reflecting the global mood and geopolitical realities, the 193-member UNGA in its first response to the war failed to unequivocally reject and condemn the terrorist attacks by Hamas. India’s stance, to be on the side of the nations that abstained (a list that includes Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and even Iraq), has come in for strong criticism from the Opposition that has accused the Narendra Modi government of abandoning the Palestine cause in favour of Israel. Implicit in the accusation is the charge that the BJP government is reversing India’s longstanding West Asia policy driven by anti-Islam prejudice. Signalling a deviation from bipartisan consensus on major foreign policy issues — that has more or less held its ground despite recent global turmoil — the Congress led by its chairperson Sonia Gandhi said it is “strongly opposed to India’s abstention”, while other leaders from the Opposition camp such as Sharad Pawar of NCP and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi have called it “confusing” and “shocking”. The Opposition’s charge is laughably off the mark. Its position is hypocritical, fossilized in a time warp and reeks of political opportunism. The political slugfest that has emerged from the Modi government’s move at the UN is essentially a dog-whistling exercise aimed at the Muslim vote bank ahead of the crucial Assembly polls. Let’s break down the argument. India’s abstention on the Jordan-sponsored UNGA resolution does not indicate a deviation in its traditional stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. India remains committed to the two-state solution and has made it clear on more than one occasion post the 7 October massacre that it advocates the “resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine living within secure and recognised borders side by side at peace with Israel.” As MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi pointed out during media briefings on 12 October and again on 19 October, “We have reiterated our position in favour of direct negotiations for establishing a two-state solution. We have also expressed our concern at the civilian casualties and the humanitarian situation. We would urge the strict observance of international humanitarian law.” Separately, in its explanation for the vote at the UNGA, India made it clear that “casualties in the ongoing conflict in Gaza are a telling, serious and continuing concern” and said that “we welcome the international community’s de-escalation efforts and delivery of humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. India too has contributed to this effort”. The reference was to the over 38 tonnes of food and critical medical supplies, including surgical items, tents, sleeping bags, tarpaulins, sanitary utilities, water purification tablets and other necessities that India has already dispatched to Gaza through Egypt on 22 October with a promise that it would do more. Alongside, the prime minister has rung up leaders across the Arab world including Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Jordan’s King Hussein to explain India’s stand in the conflict. In its statement at the UN, India also pointed out that it is “deeply concerned at the deteriorating security situation and astounding loss of civilian lives in the ongoing conflict” and called for “all parties to display the utmost responsibility.” while reiterating that “India has always supported a negotiated Two-State solution to the Israel-Palestine issue leading to the establishment of a sovereign, independent and viable State of Palestine living within secure and recognized borders, side-by-side in peace with Israel.” Evidently, India’s position on Palestine has undergone no change. To the extent that there is a shift, it is a necessary one in keeping with the shifting geopolitical sands in West Asia. While publicly many Arab nations cannot be seen siding with Israel in the war, privately many are dropping hints that they want to see an end to the threat posed by Hamas to the West-Asian peace process. For countries such as Saudi Arabia, geopolitical stability is a prerequisite for its economic progress. India’s stance reflects these realities. As Indian Express writes in an editorial, “contrary to the criticism of it, (the shift) is not about India abandoning the Palestine cause. It has to do with replacing the traditional diplomatic formalism and a defensive political correctness with a policy rooted in a hard-headed assessment of the shifting regional dynamic, and India’s enduring interests, especially in relation to terrorism". The criticisms of India’s abstention at the UN perhaps deliberately failed to recognize the fact that New Delhi’s move was forced by the omission of the word ‘Hamas’ in the resolution, the terrorist organisation that launched one of the most brutal attacks on Israeli civilians that plumbed the depths of human depravity. To come out in favour of such a resolution would be to implicitly legitimise a dubious document that fails to even mention the word ‘hostages’, around 220 of whom are being held captive by the terror operatives in some dark tunnel in Gaza. India’s stand is therefore a principled one. Little attention has been paid to the fact that the omission of the word ‘Hamas’ — that the US side termed as ‘omission of evil’ — could have been remedied had the amendment moved by Canada, co-sponsored by the US, saw the light of day. The amendment sought to insert a paragraph in the resolution that the UNGA “unequivocally rejects and condemns the terrorist attacks by Hamas that took place in Israel starting on 7 October 2023 and the taking of hostages, demands the safety, well-being and humane treatment of the hostages in compliance with international law, and calls for their immediate and unconditional release”. The amendment failed to get a 2/3rd majority despite 87 nations, including India, voting in favour while 55 member states voted against it and 23 abstained. It left the UN with no other option but to adopt the resolution brought by the Arab nations that the US described as “outrageous”. The reasonable amendment wasn’t included in the final statement owing to the ganging up of nations that wanted the focus firmly and exclusively on Israel’s response. To not even acknowledge the fact that Israel is acting in self-defence and responding to the terror attack on its civilians is unbecoming and perverse, and India rightly sat this one out, and gave a balanced statement to explain its stand. New Delhi’s abstention is in line with its tough stance on terrorism. It is the same principle that led Prime Minister Modi to state unequivocally that “people of India stand firmly with Israel in this difficult hour. India strongly and unequivocally condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.” As External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in Bhopal at an event on Saturday, India’s position on terrorism is “consistent” because “we are big victims of terrorism”, and India “will have no credibility if we say that when terrorism impacts us, it’s very serious; when it happens to somebody else, it’s not serious”. Through its nuanced stand of standing firmly against terrorism while reinstating the need to recognize the rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people, India is making a crucial distinction between Hamas and Palestine and sending a message that coming down heavily against the former is not to take a position against the latter. This complexity is adequately reflected in India’s voting pattern at the UN that the Opposition parties have wilfully decided not to take into account. Sadly, it is the Congress that has been found equivocating on terror. It failed to mention the word “terrorism” to describe the massacre of Israeli civilians on 7 October — that rivals the Holocaust in violent debauchery when Hamas operatives raped women beside dead bodies, murdered children, burnt them alive, put them inside oven, killed, maimed and kidnapped ordinary citizens going about their lives. Congress took recourse to the sanctified expression of “brutalities” at first, and in each subsequent statement managed to water down even that position, ending up conflating the interests of Hamas and Palestinians. As exemplified in Sonia Gandhi’s mealy-mouthed apologism of terror published in The Hindu, Congress’s equivocation is tied to the interests of the radical fundamentalists of the Muslim community whose votes it seeks to woo, putting on altar India’s security interests. What Congress and other Opposition parties fail to see is that Hamas is not Palestine. This shouldn’t be hard to grasp. Hamas cares little for the safety, security or well-being of the Palestinian people, who have voted them to power, and has been very open about the fact that protection of civilians in Gaza is “not their responsibility”. Hamas leaders have repeatedly claimed that “liberation demands sacrifices” with an unsaid caveat that it is the Palestinian people that must shed blood so that the terror group may achieve its objectives. Its grand plan of winning the war against Israel rests not on firepower or military strategy, but staying put inside underground tunnels, well-ventilated and well-stocked with food, fuel and medicines even as the hapless Gazans above die by thousands out of scarcity and bombings and help Hamas win the war in the court of public opinion. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. 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