Azad Essa

Join us for this conversation about Hostile Homelands: the New Alliance between India and Israel with the author, Azad Essa. Guest speakers will be writer and activist, Amrit Wilson of the South Asia Solidarity Group and Kashmirir lawyer, Mirza Saaib Beg. Chairing the event will be Dr Nathaniel George (Centre for Palestine Studies, SOAS).

Under Narendra Modi, India has changed dramatically. As the world attempts to grapple with its trajectory towards authoritarianism and a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ (Hindu State), little attention has been paid to the linkages between Modi’s India and the governments from which it has drawn inspiration, as well as military and technical support.

India once called Zionism racism, but, as Azad Essa argues, the state of Israel has increasingly become a cornerstone of India’s foreign policy. Looking to replicate the ‘ethnic state’ in the image of Israel in policy and practice, the annexation of Kashmir increasingly resembles Israel’s settler-colonial project of the occupied West Bank. The ideological and political linkages between the two states are alarming; their brands of ethnonationalism deeply intertwined.

Hostile Homelands puts India’s relationship with Israel in its historical context, looking at the origins of Zionism and Hindutva; India’s changing position on Palestine; and the countries’ growing military-industrial relationship from the 1990s. Lucid and persuasive, Essa demonstrates that the India-Israel alliance spells significant consequences for democracy, the rule of law and justice worldwide.

Azad Essa is an award-winning journalist and author based between Johannesburg and New York City. He is currently a senior reporter for Middle East Eye and has written for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and the Guardian.

Hosted by South Asia Solidarity Group, the Centre for Palestine Studies, SOAS, and the Department of Development Studies, SOAS.

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