For the world’s largest democracy to wilfully disregard the suffering of hundreds of innocents in Gaza is shockingly insensitive as well as shameful. In more than two days of chaos and frayed nerves in parliament, India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party blocked the opposition demands for a discussion on the unfolding tragedy in Gaza on grounds that it had no intentions of slighting its friend, Israel. In doing so, the BJP has revealed how utterly it lacks a proportionate and balanced world view.
To back its vested interests — a long-term trade and military partnership with Israel — at a time when a humanitarian crisis of staggering proportions is unfolding before its eyes is to reveal an utter lack of the right perspective. A country’s credibility lies not just in the way it treats its friends, but also in how it reacts to the friend’s wrongdoings. The plight of the Gazans, with dozens of children dying every day, invokes a purely humanitarian concern and as a leading voice in the world, India needs to show that it can rise above its self-serving interests. Having got its own independence from a struggle that championed the virtues of non-violence, it does not behove India to turn a blind eye to the struggle of the Palestinians for their own land.
