Growing Ideological Convergence, Not Just Business, Is Driving India-Israel Relations

Current enthusiasm towards Israel is largely driven by the defence sector, business groups, and policy think-tanks. One of the dominant arguments is that India can benefit a lot in areas such as defense, agriculture, trade, technology-driven development, etc. Hence, India’s policy towards Israel should be guided not by old ideology(ies) but by realpolitik — pragmatic and rational.

Is this the driving force behind India-Israel growing relations? . . . Thinking theoretically about India-Israel ties, a better explanation comes out of the constructivist theory of international relations, which takes into account the role of identity of a nation-state and popular political values in understanding the foreign policy choices of a given State.

Michael Walzer, political philosopher and Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Science, has mapped the role of ideological alignment between India and Israel in his latest work—The Paradox of Liberation: Secular Revolutions and Religious Counterrevolutions (2015, Yale University Press). He explains why, not long after very sincere secular national liberation movements came to power in India and Israel, they were replaced by religious reactionary movements opposed to secularism.

In his analysis, Israel and India went through parallel paths, at roughly the same time, and appear to be reaching the same outcome.