Finally, unlike the Arabs, the Zionists lacked an eff ective and infl uen-
tial constituency within India. Even individuals who were sympathetic
toward their cause, such as K. M. Panikkar and Rabindranath Tagore,^55
were not prepared to come out in the open. The Mahatma’s more sympa-
thetic statement to Kallenbach written in 1937 was not made public while
he was alive. Panikkar’s memo visualizing post- 1947 “Hindu- Zionist co-
operation” long remained secret and confi dential. Thus, well before the
question of Palestine came before the United Nations in April 1947, the
Indian position was known and well publicized. As far back as in 1938,
Nehru visualized the formation of “a large Arab federation with a Jew-
ish autonomous enclave.”^56 The following year, the Tripuri Session of
the Congress Party proposed an “in de pen dent demo cratic state in Pal-
estine with adequate protection of Jewish rights.”^57 This subsequently
became the offi cial position on Palestine when India was elected to the
UN committee.
However, the Zionists and yishuv leadership also share some responsi-
bility for the pro- Arab disposition of the Indian nationalists.
Yishuv and Indian Nationalists
The non- Western world in general and Asia in par tic u lar did not
fi gure prominently in the po liti cal calculations of the yishuv. At one level,
with foresight and long- term calculations, the yishuv systematically culti-
vated major powers but paid little attention to the rest of the world. As
David Ben- Gurion aptly put it on the eve of the formation of the state,
“When we say the whole world it is an exaggeration. We never think of
India or China or similar countries, but rather about the countries in
which Jews have lived or are living.”^58 This indiff erence was reciprocated
by the Asian apathy toward Zionist aspirations in Palestine. Out of the
eight non- Arab Asian members, only the Philippines, a former American
colony, voted for partition. Five countries, Af ghan i stan, Iran, Pakistan,
and Turkey— all Muslim states— and India opposed partition; nationalist
China abstained and Thailand was absent.^59 Real support for partition
came from distant Latin America, which overwhelmingly endorsed Jew-
ish aspirations in Palestine.^60 This Asian indiff erence and isolation was
never fully overcome. Even though Israel later on was eager to befriend
countries such as Burma (now Myanmar), the overall indiff erence con-
tinued. It was only in 1956, ironically coinciding with the Suez crisis, that
56 the congress party and the yishuv