recognition without relations 111was being “reconsidered.” In the meantime, Menon advised the missions
to immediately inform the ministry of “any approaches” made by Israeli
missions “without... any assurances being conveyed to them.”^11
India took as many as twenty- eight months to reciprocate the Israeli
request for recognition. During this period between May 1948 and Sep-
tember 1950, there were a number of defi nite and incontrovertible signs
indicating India’s movement toward recognition.
Ginger Steps
Writing to state chief ministers in May 1948, within days after
the establishment of the state of Israel, Nehru remarked: “We propose to
take no action in this matter [that is, recognition] at present. India can play
no eff ective part in this confl ict at the present stage either diplomatically
or otherwise. We can only watch events for the time being, hoping that an
opportunity may come when we might use our infl uence in the interest of
peace and mediation.”^12
While acknowledging the Israeli request, he opted to defer decision on
the matter. A note prepared in October following the formation of the
All- Palestine Government (APG) rationalized the offi cial stand: “in May
this year, when the State of Israel was proclaimed in Palestine, her For-
eign Minister Mr. Shertok also sent a similar tele gram. It was decided
that time not to take any action on the tele gram and the said tele gram was
not even acknowledged in the view of possible po liti cal complications.”^13
Interestingly, its silence on the request for recognition from the APG was
accompanied by its preparedness to communicate with Hajj Amin al-
Husseini not as the head of the APG but as grand mufti of Jerusalem. In
March 1949, India’s chargé d’aff airs in Cairo acknowledged the mufti’s
tele gram, wherein he expressed his “gratitude and appreciation of the
[Indian] Government’s refusal to recognize Israel.”^14
Remaining cautious regarding the issue, in August 1948 Nehru in-
formed the Constituent Assembly that “a new State [of Israel] was formed
and we had to wait.”^15 Expressing similar caution, in February 1949 he
observed that the recognition of Israel would be “guided not only by ide-
alistic considerations but also a realistic appraisal of the situation.”^16 A
month later, he reiterated that Israel “is undoubtedly a State which is
functioning as such; and the honorable member’s [H. V. Kamath] opin-
ion about it having come to stay may be correct.”^17 Meanwhile, on May 11,