'Conspicuously muted', Sonia Gandhi questions Modi govt's silence on Palestine

New Delhi, Sep 25 (IANS) Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi has said that India needs to demonstrate leadership on the issue of Palestine while slamming the Centre's stance, saying its response has been characterised by a "profound silence" and an "abdication" of both humanity and morality.

In an article in The Hindu, she wrote that in the last two years, since the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Palestine in October 2023, India has all but relinquished its role.

In the article, she has called the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, brutal, but labelled the Israeli response as "nothing less than genocidal".

"As I have previously raised, more than 55,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed, including 17,000 children. The residential, schooling and health infrastructure of the Gaza Strip has been obliterated, as have agriculture and industry. 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 wrote.

Gandhi said that in one of the most revolting acts of inhumanity, hundreds of civilians have been shot down while trying to access food.

She said the world has been slow to respond, implicitly legitimising the Israeli actions and the recent moves by several countries to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state are a welcome and long overdue departure from the policy of inaction.

The Congress leader termed the move a historical moment, and an assertion of the principles of justice, self-determination and human rights. She, however, said that India has remained silent.

"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. And here, India’s voice, once so unwavering in the cause of freedom and human dignity, has remained conspicuously muted."

While slamming the Centre, she said, "The Modi government's response has been characterised by a profound silence and an abdication of both humanity and morality. Its actions appear to be driven primarily by the personal friendship between the Israeli premier and Mr. Modi 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. 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 wrote in the article.

She said that it was "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".

Gandhi has urged the government to act now. "Most fundamentally, 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."

She compared the plight of Palestinians with the struggles that India faced during the colonial era. "Their plight echoes the struggles that India faced during the colonial era -- a people deprived of their sovereignty, denied 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."

The veteran leader said that India's historical experience, its moral authority and its commitment to human rights should empower it to speak, advocate and act in favour of justice -- without delay or hesitation.

"The expectation is not of partisanship in this conflict, of choosing between Israel and Palestine. The expectation is of principled leadership, consistent with the values that have long guided India, our nation, and on which its freedom movement was anchored," Gandhi concluded.

--IANS

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