'Silence is not neutrality': Sonia Gandhi slams Modi govt's response on Palestine, calls it 'abdication of humanity'

Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi has once again asserted that India needs to demonstrate leadership on the issue of Palestine while slamming the Narendra Modi-led Union government's stance, saying its response has been characterised by a "profound silence" and an abdication of both humanity and morality.

Gandhi said the government's actions appear to be driven primarily by the personal friendship between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and rather than India's constitutional values or its strategic interests.

"This style of personalised diplomacy is never tenable and cannot be the guiding compass of India's foreign policy. Attempts to do the same in other parts of the world, most notably in the United States“, have come undone in the most painful and humiliating ways in recent months," Gandhi said in her article published in The Hindu.

The article titled ‘India’s muted voice, its detachment with Palestine’ is the third by Gandhi on the Israel-Palestine conflict, published in a national daily in the recent past, in which she has vehemently criticised the Modi government's stance on the issue.

Gandhi's remark come a day after the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reaffirmed the body's stance that “statehood for Palestinians is a right, not a reward”.

India recognised Palestinian statehood in1988

This also comes days after, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia officially recognised Palestine as a state on 21 September. The move is seen as a significant shift in foreign policy of these nations and a step away from their alignment with the United States which has leaned towards Israel under Donad Trump administration.

Gandhi said in her Thursday's article that India's standing on the world stage cannot be wrapped up into the personal glory-seeking ways of one individual, nor can it rest on its historical laurels. It demands persistent courage and a sense of historical continuity, she said pointing out how France has joined the United Kingdom, Canada, Portugal and Australia in recognising Palestinian statehood --“ "the first step in the fulfilment of the legitimate aspirations of the long-suffering Palestinian people".

More than 150 of the 193 countries that are members of the United Nations have now done so, she said.

India formally recognised Palestinian statehood way back on November 18, 1988, after years of support to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Gandhi underlined.

India raised the issue of Apartheid South Africa

The former Congress president cited the examples of how India raised the issue of Apartheid South Africa even before Independence and during the Algerian struggle for independence (1954-62), India was one of the strongest voices for an independent Algeria.

In 1971, India intervened firmly to prevent genocide in what was then East Pakistan, midwifing the birth of modern-day Bangladesh, she pointed out.

On the critical and sensitive issue of Israel-Palestine as well, India has long maintained a delicate but principled position, emphasising its commitment to peace and the protection of human rights, the former Congress chief said.

India needs to demonstrate leadership on the issue of Palestine, which is now a battle for justice, identity, dignity and human rights, she said .

"The brutal and inhumane Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, were followed by an Israeli response that has been nothing less than genocidal. As I have previously raised, more than 55,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed, including 17,000 children," she said.

The residential, schooling and health infrastructure of the Gaza Strip has been obliterated, as have agriculture and industry, Gandhi said.

"Gazans have been forced into a famine-like situation, with the Israeli military cruelly obstructing the delivery of much-needed food, medicine, and other aid – a 'drip-feeding' of aid amidst an ocean of desperation," she said.

The recent moves by several countries to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state are a welcome and long-due departure from the policy of inaction, she said.

Silence is not neutrality: Sonia Gandhi

"This is a historical moment and an assertion of the principles of justice, self-determination and human rights. These steps are not merely diplomatic gestures; they are affirmations of the moral responsibility that nations bear in the face of prolonged injustice.

It is a reminder that in the modern world, silence is not neutrality, it is complicity," she said.

And here, India's voice, once so unwavering in the cause of freedom and human dignity, has remained "conspicuously muted", Gandhi said, hitting out at the Modi government.

Meanwhile, it is appalling that just two weeks ago, India not only signed a bilateral investment agreement with Israel, in New Delhi, but also hosted its highly controversial far-right finance minister who has invited global condemnation for his repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank, she said.

Gandhi argued that India must not approach the issue of Palestine as merely a matter of foreign policy but as a test of India's ethical and civilisational heritage.

The people of Palestine have endured decades of displacement, prolonged occupation, settlement expansion, restrictions on movement and repeated assaults on their civil, political and human rights, she said.

Their plight echoes the struggles that India faced during the colonial era -- a people deprived of their sovereignty, denied a nationhood, exploited for their resources, and stripped of all rights and security.

"We owe Palestine a sense of historical empathy in its quest for dignity, and we also owe Palestine the courage to translate that empathy into principled action," she said.

(With PTI inputs)