Suez crisis of 1956, when Nehru observed that the time was not ripe for
relations with Israel. This subsequently became the standard Indian re-
frain on normalization.
Interestingly, the two reasons given for Azad’s stance— the domestic
Muslim factor and Pakistan’s diplomatic maneuvers— were actually valid
when Prime Minister Narasimha Rao normalized relations with Israel
in January 1992. How could a po liti cally weak prime minister such as
Rao ignore these compulsions when a more powerful and dominating
personality— Nehru—had been unable to? What helped Rao but worked
against Nehru? Why was Rao successful? Three closely linked factors
worked against normalization during Nehru’s time. As discussed earlier,
the pro- Arab policy enjoyed strong domestic support from Indian Mus-
lims. Two, both the international climate and India’s foreign- policy cal-
culations did not favor a pro- Israeli policy. And fi nally, despite his tower-
ing personality— or because of it— Nehru remained a prisoner of his
ideological worldview, which prevented him from understanding the na-
tionalist aspirations of the Jewish people.
During the struggle for Indian freedom, the nationalists identifi ed
themselves with other peoples resisting foreign rule. They felt that India’s
struggle against the British was also a part of the wider struggle against
colonialism. This brought them into contact with leaders of various
nationalist movements in Asia and Africa and formed the basis for the
post- 1947 Indian policy toward these countries. Decolonization and anti-
imperialism became the hallmark of India’s foreign policy. Nehru also
visualized a leadership role for India among the newly in de pen dent coun-
tries. As highlighted by the Asian Relations Conference held in New
Delhi a few months before Indian in de pen dence, forging closer ties with
the decolonizing countries became an important foreign- policy priority.
Through the formation of an Afro- Asian bloc of in de pen dent countries,
Nehru also sought to distance and in the pro cess quarantine India and
other countries from cold- war politics. Maintaining po liti cal autonomy
through a nonaligned foreign policy became the key to maintaining and
consolidating the newly won po liti cal freedom.
The opposition to imperialism, solidarity with the newly in de pen dent
countries, and the emergence of nonalignment as its principal foreign-
policy instrument naturally aff ected India’s Israel policy. In continuation
of the pre- 1947 position, India and its leaders took anti- imperialist logic
and Afro- Asian solidarity to mean a greater accommodation of Arab views
regarding Israel. The growing Arab world weighed heavily in Indian
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