16 introductionThat the Israel policy could be a function of domestic Muslim politics con-
tinues to be absent from mainstream po liti cal debate within the country.
As a result, Maulana Azad became Nehru’s adviser on “Arab” and not Mus-
lim aff airs, India’s gatecrashing at the Rabat Islamic summit in September
1969 had to be given a national- interest slant, and even the Middle East
policy of the Hindu nationalists have to be painted in secular colors.
Do the Indian Muslims play a role akin to the Jews of the United
States with respect to the Middle East? Such suggestions are generally
unpop u lar in India. Arguments that Indian Muslims infl uence and
shape India’s Israel policy remain controversial, “not kosher,” and mar-
ginal. There are a number of diff erences between the two communities.
U.S. President Harry S. Truman could openly attribute his pro- Israeli
policy to the absence of “one hundred thousand Arabs” among his con-
stituency. Indian leaders, on the contrary, are far more cautious in admit-
ting any link between the domestic Muslim population and the nation’s
Middle East policy. This cautious approach dates back to the immediate
aftermath of the Khilafat struggle, when the secularization of the Middle
East policy became the prime agenda of the Congress Party. If the Mus-
lim League (later on, Pakistan) used Islam to rationalize its support for
the Palestinians, the Congress Party (later on, India) placed its pro- Arab
policies within a secular framework. If the driving forces before 1947
were anticolonialism and anti- imperialism, after 1947 it was support for
Arab nationalism and righ teousness of the Palestinian cause. The Is-
lamic dimension was rarely admitted as a factor in India’s prolonged un-
friendliness toward Israel.
There are other diff erences between the po liti cal role played by the
American Jews and the Indian Muslims. Even though domestic politics
led to swift U.S. recognition of Israel, for long the Jewish factor remained
dormant. It was only after the spectacular Israeli military victory in the
June 1967 war that the ethnonational factor became prominent in U.S.
policies and politics. From then onward, for the Demo crats and Republi-
cans alike, criticizing Israel is not a sensible po liti cal option. Despite oc-
casional diff erences, mainstream American politicians viewed Israel as
pivotal to U.S. interests in the ever- turbulent Middle East. The Indian
situation is somewhat diff erent. The domestic Muslim factor has always
been a consistent feature of the po liti cal scene, though with varying de-
grees of infl uence. When they were in power, even the pronouncedly pro-
Israeli parties such as the Jan Sangh (later on, the Bharatiya Janata Party)
could not ignore the domestic dimension.