Missing Today: India at the ICJ

I was proud of South Africa today, for what they did at the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—holding the state of Israel to account on the charge of genocide. They did a masterful job, marshalling the facts and arguments meticulously assembled to make their case.

It is easy to understand why South Africa was eminently suited to bring forward the case before the ICJ. Their own struggles against the brutality and oppression of apartheid over many years, still fresh in memory, made them well positioned to speak for the pain, the disruptions, discrimination, and deprivation suffered daily by Palestinians due to the denial of freedom.

Still, it must not have been easy for South Africa to make that decision to approach the ICJ, when older nations, big powers, ‘paragons’ of democracy, the ‘defenders’ of freedoms and the ‘champions’ of human rights and humanity preferred silence, leaning on convenient and partial versions of history that aggravated prevalent prejudices towards Arabs, and Muslims more broadly, and reinforced notions of Israel’s innocence and victimhood.

South Africa showed courage, moral clarity, empathy, and facts-based objectivity, and argued forcefully in court today. It showed up many other states as hollow and hypocritical in their espousal of the rule of law and human rights—particularly those states that continue to aid and abet Israel’s blatant war crimes and genocidal acts with a steady supply of money and deadly weapons. These states have been criminal in their willfully blindness to the decimation of Gaza—an atrocity that cannot be explained away as arising from legitimate acts of ‘self-defense’ by the ‘victim’ of the grotesque and horrific 7 October attack by Hamas.

The media has had its own day of reckoning, and big names such as CNN and the BBC were missing on a truly historic day. They probably capitulated to powerful pro-Israel forces or received directives not to air the proceedings at the ICJ live. Just such a shame! Many news outlets too have long given up the pretense of unbiased reporting and pass off propaganda as reportage. Just a reminder that powerful forces are at play, not least our biases.

It was disappointing to not see India take the lead or stand alongside South Africa in laying out the case today. Its absence has been noticeable and its silence, disconcerting. India, given its own struggles with colonialism, and its long-standing support of the Palestinian right to self-determination could have been a powerful voice in support of freedoms. Abandoning the Palestinian cause and cosying up to Israel may have helped India procure weapons and Pegasus, and perhaps some other benefits by association.

In the emerging statecraft of the Indian state, the moral high ground is perhaps seen as a drag, an impediment in fulfilling its economic and geopolitical aspirations to be a superpower, and therefore dispensable. Much like Israel appears to use ‘existential threat’ as a glue to bind its people, and its military offensives as acts of self-defense, India too has in recent years chosen to invoke threats to the nation’s integrity from within and outside to project an aggressive posture against ‘enemies’ and ‘foreigners’, a reference seen by many as a shorthand for non-Hindus. So, what explains our reticence is perhaps the shift from a deep resonance with the Palestinian struggles for freedom in the earlier decades to an ideological resonance with Israel that is underlined by a manufactured fear and suspicion of the Muslim.

It will be a sad day if we reject the compassion of a Buddha for the cunning of a Chanakya, the moral imperative for the militaristic, dharma for the dollar, and inclusive leadership for the exclusive club of superpowers.

Image: Ontheway Advice, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons