The Congress party has launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi this Thursday, downplaying his historic speech to the Israeli Parliament as nothing more than an "unabashed defence" of his host, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The attack, led by Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, aimed to juxtapose the current position of PM Modi with the historically nuanced position that had been adopted by India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. In his speech to the Knesset yesterday, Modi had presented a strong message of solidarity, saying that India stands with Israel "with full conviction" and reaffirming that no cause could ever justify the "barbaric" Hamas attacks of October 2023.
Taking to social media, Ramesh pointed out that while Modi highlighted the fact that India recognised Israel on the very day he was born, Nehru’s approach was rooted in a more balanced empathy. To drive the point home, Ramesh shared a 1947 letter from Nehru to Albert Einstein. In the correspondence, Nehru confessed that while he felt a "great deal of sympathy" for the Jews, he was equally concerned for the "predicament" of the Arabs.
Nehru’s letter, written just before India's independence, questioned why the remarkable achievements of the Jewish people in Palestine had failed to win over their neighbours. "Why do they want to compel the Arabs to submit against their will to certain demands?" Nehru had asked, thereby suggesting that the approach taken at the time was more likely to prolong conflict and not resolve it. He ultimately attributed much of the friction to the "continuation of British rule" in the region.
By reviving this historical exchange — including mentions of Nehru’s 1949 meeting with Einstein at Princeton and their later shared concerns over nuclear weapons — the Congress party is clearly attempting to frame Modi’s visit as a departure from India’s long-standing tradition of multi-aligned diplomacy in the Middle East.
Also read: Netanyahu greets PM Modi in Indian attire
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