I

ndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi received a standing ovation at Israel’s parliament on Wednesday, marking the start of a two-day visit aimed at deepening security, economic and technological cooperation between the two countries.

Modi addressed lawmakers at the Knesset, pledging “friendship, respect and partnership” at a time when Israel faces mounting international criticism over the genocide in Gaza. “Let us ensure that the friendship between India and Israel remains a source of strength in an uncertain world,” he said during a 30-minute speech that was warmly received by members of the governing coalition.

Modi was greeted at Ben Gurion Airport with a personal embrace from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who later introduced him to parliament as “Narendra, my dear friend.” The Knesset building in Jerusalem was illuminated in the colors of India’s flag on the eve of his arrival.

Following his address, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana awarded Modi a medal in recognition of his role in strengthening bilateral relations.

The visit underscores how much ties have grown under Modi, who in 2017 became the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel. Netanyahu reciprocated with a trip to India in 2018, cementing a partnership that has expanded significantly in recent years.

Expanding strategic cooperation between India and Israel

India and Israel established full diplomatic relations in 1992. Since then, defense and technology cooperation have become central pillars of the relationship. India is now Israel’s second-largest trading partner in Asia, with bilateral trade valued at $3.6 billion in the 2025 fiscal year, according to India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

During his speech, Modi emphasized collaboration in security, artificial intelligence, quantum technology and infrastructure development.

“We’re committed to expanding trade, strengthening investment flows and promoting joint infrastructure development,” he said.

Netanyahu praised Modi’s early and unequivocal support for Israel “You didn’t flinch. You didn’t waver. You stood by Israel,” Netanyahu said.

Modi reaffirmed India’s support for a U.S.-backed ceasefire framework for Gaza endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, describing it as a pathway to “a just and durable peace for all the people of the region, including the Palestine issue.”

However, he did not directly address Israel’s newly approved measures to deepen control over parts of the occupied West Bank — steps that India had joined more than 100 countries in condemning earlier this month.

India historically supported the Palestinian cause, but under Modi’s leadership, New Delhi has recalibrated its Middle East policy, strengthening ties with Israel while maintaining diplomatic engagement with Palestinian authorities.

A boost for Israel’s international standing

The visit also unfolded against the backdrop of domestic political tensions in Israel. Opposition lawmakers briefly walked out of the chamber during speeches by Netanyahu and Speaker Ohana, protesting the exclusion of Supreme Court Chief Justice Yitzhak Amit from the event. They returned for Modi’s address, with opposition leader Yair Lapid assuring the Indian leader that the protest was unrelated to his visit.

Netanyahu, currently on trial for corruption charges, has faced ongoing disputes over judicial reforms that have deeply divided Israeli society.

The high-profile visit is widely seen as a diplomatic boost for Israel as it navigates strained relations with some traditional allies over the Gaza genocide. Modi is scheduled to meet President Isaac Herzog and visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial before concluding his trip.

As Israel seeks to broaden its global partnerships, the public display of solidarity from India — one of the world’s largest economies and most populous nations — signals a deepening strategic alignment between the two governments.

(Source: The Associated Press)

Narendra Modi is roaring to the world that India is a worthy contender on the global scene. India has come to the fore with its massive economy, recent successes at the space front, potential megaproject linking India, the Middle East and Europe via rail and sea, and playing the role of a distanced ally towards to the competing world powers: the U.S. and China.

All eyes were on the G20 summit taking place in New Delhi this year, and Modi surely wanted to make a good impression. Schools and offices were shut, roads were blocked, and street vendors were removed. Even whole slums near the venue were covered in tarpaulin! Ironically, Modi’s speeches repeatedly described India as the world’s largest democracy and the ‘voice of the Global South’.

However, behind this sterilized facade lies discrimination, oppression, and erasure— on brand with the Hindu nationalism fueled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Numerous attacks on minority communities sweep through the country, including demolitions of Muslim houses, mosque and church attacks, grave desecrations and violent killings. Meanwhile, the government takes every step to define India as a Hindu nation.

In this month’s book bundle, we examine how Modi’s India both oppresses and suppresses its minority citizens. Through books that explain the political dynamics in India, the impact of state-sanctioned violence, and the silencing of critical voices, we observe how the world’s largest democracy goes wrong.

In the book Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, Christophe Jaffrelot delves into the intricate dynamics of Indian politics over the last two decades, with a particular focus on the rise of Hindu nationalism coupled with national-populism, largely attributed to Narendra Modi’s leadership. This confluence of factors has not only secured Modi’s electoral success, starting in Gujarat and extending to the entire country but has also transformed the very nature of democracy in India.

Jaffrelot’s work spotlights Modi’s ability to captivate a significant portion of the Indian populace by offering promises of development while simultaneously exploiting ethno-religious fault lines within the electorate. This national-populism is marked by Modi’s personalized political style, characterized by direct communication with voters through various channels, effectively saturating the public discourse.

To shed light on the consequences of this political shift, Jaffrelot conducts original interviews across India, revealing a troubling evolution toward what he terms an “ethnic democracy.” In this model, the majority community is equated with the nation, while religious minorities, specifically Muslims and Christians, find themselves relegated to the status of second-class citizens, vulnerable to harassment by ‘vigilante’ groups.

Furthermore, Jaffrelot elucidates how the political landscape in India has developed authoritarian tendencies for various reasons. In its quest for power not only at the national level but also in the states, the government has centralized authority at the expense of federalism, eroding the very institutions that once served as checks and balances, including India’s Supreme Court.

In sum, Modi’s India showcases a government, supported by popular mandate, stifles dissent and grows increasingly intolerant of ethnic and religious minorities. The book provides essential insights into politics, nationalism, and populism in contemporary India.

Christophe Jaffrelot, Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2021) ISBN: 9780691206806, 656 pages

In Composing Violence: The Limits of Exposure and the Making of Minorities, Moyukh Chatterjee examines the haunting memory of the 2002 anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat, India, where armed Hindu mobs unleashed brutal attacks on Muslims in broad daylight, resulting in a staggering death toll that shocked the nation. Chatterjee’s investigation goes beyond the horrific events themselves, aiming to dissect how such highly visible political violence against minority communities serves as a catalyst for profound transformations in the domains of law, public culture, and power dynamics.

Contrary to the expectation that exposing state-sanctioned anti-Muslim violence would lead to its suppression, Chatterjee argues that these incidents actually set the stage for a fundamental shift in India, pushing it toward a Hindu supremacist state. He contends that examining the responses of both the state and civil society to this violence offers crucial insights into the inherent features of modern democracy, where riots and pogroms become tools for molding a society defined by a vulnerable minority and a dominant majority.

Chatterjee’s exploration focuses on multiple facets, including courtroom procedures, police archives, legal activism, and mainstream media coverage. Through this multifaceted approach, he constructs a theory of violence as a form of governance, effectively engineering minority populations.

Composing Violence invites readers to grapple with the profound and unsettling implications of anti-Muslim violence in India. Chatterjee’s meticulous analysis paints a picture of how violence can shape the course of democracy, raising profound questions about the fragility of minority rights and the complex interplay between power and prejudice in contemporary societies.

Moyukh Chatterjee, Composing Violence: The Limits of Exposure and the Making of Minorities (Duke University Press, 2023) ISBN: 978-1-4780-1966-4, 184 pages

What happens to those who dare question the injustices of the Modi regime? The book How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? provides a piercing examination of the authoritarian regime under Narendra Modi in India, where the suppression of critical voices and the silencing of dissent have become central objectives for the ruling BJP party. Their ethno-nationalist aspiration of establishing an exclusively ‘Hindu’ India, involves targeting anyone who dares to voice questions or opposition.

Authors Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia present a unique perspective highlight the experiences of political prisoners. Their approach combines astute political and legal analysis with firsthand accounts, offering readers an in-depth exploration of the subtle acts of resistance that occur both within and beyond prison walls, involving not only the prisoners themselves but also their families. The narrative unravels a tale of institutional decay and the erosion of fundamental rights.

The book spotlights the stories of those who have been falsely accused of inciting the Bhima Koregaon violence, student leaders who have protested against the discriminatory citizenship law of 2020, and activists associated with the Pinjra Tod movement. By weaving together these voices, How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? celebrates the remarkable bravery, unwavering humanity, and moral integrity of individuals who have been incarcerated for their unwavering solidarity with marginalized and oppressed communities.

In a world where the struggle for dissent and the preservation of civil liberties are ever more vital, this book serves as a powerful testament to the resilience of those who refuse to be silenced, while painting a vivid picture of the ongoing battle for justice and equality in India.

Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia, How Long Can the Moon Be Caged?: Voices of Indian Political Prisoners (Pluto books, 2023) ISBN 9780745347981, 216 pages

Four weeks after Amnesty International was forced to halt is operations in India in September 2020, citing the Indian government’s crackdown on civil society, the UK-based human rights organization published a report warning of a coordinated effort to target journalists and activists in India and Kashmir, specifically those critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Indian government “must immediately halt its intensifying suppression of dissent,” said Amnesty International, following a series of counter-terrorism raids on human rights groups and human rights defenders and journalists in Jammu and Kashmir.

Since then, the situation has deteriorated from bad to worse for journalists in both Kashmir and India, culminating with terrorism charges levelled against me and 101 other journalists, lawyers, academics, and human rights defenders in November of last year – for “promoting enmity between religious groups” across social media, an Orwellian way to describe reporting violent attacks committed by right-wing Hindu groups against Muslims in Tripura state in late October.

These criminal charges were filed under the country’s draconian anti-terror law – the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) – a legacy of British colonial rule, prompting a strong rebuke from Reporters Without Borders, which said our “only crimes were to cover the recent attacks against mosques in the North-eastern state of Tripura,” while the Editors Guild of India described the bogus charges as an attempt by the BJP ruled state government to “deflect attention away from its own failure to control majoritarian violence.”

International silence has created space for New Delhi to carry out “counter-terrorism raids” against journalists and editors.

But whereas human rights and civil society groups have been vocal in their condemnation of the Modi regime’s anti-democratic and unconstitutional crackdown on dissent, India’s international allies, particularly Western governments, have been conspicuously silent, showing a willingness to ignore its attacks on free speech and free press in exchange for New Delhi’s unfettered cooperation in the contestation between Washington DC and Beijing for primacy in Indo-Pacific.

This international silence has created space for New Delhi to carry out an ever-increasing number of cynically named “counter-terrorism raids” against journalists and editors, particularly those in Indian administered Kashmir. Notably these raids go unreported in the intimidated and ever-compliant mainstream media ecosystem, which has helped Modi build the most extraordinary personality cult in modern political history,” as noted by former UN under-secretary-general and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

If convicted of sedition under the draconian anti-terrorism legislation, known as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), both Shah and Gul face life imprisonment. It’s for this reason Sanjay Kapoor, head of the Editors Guild of India, accused the government of “stifling” democracy in Kashmir, and for painting journalists as the “enemy of the state.”

Meanwhile, Hindu nationalist leaders who publicly call for a genocide against Muslims and other religious minorities are ignored by security forces and the Indian government. The double standard and motive of the Modi government could not be more obvious.

It must also be noted here that this anti-democratic campaign to intimidate and silence journalists in Kashmir is taking place alongside continued government-controlled communications blackouts and curfews. The Modi government is desperate to deny the international community evidence of its human rights violations in the disputed territory, which have become measurably worse since 2019, the year India revoked Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status, as illustrated in an upward spike in extrajudicial killings.

“Indian authorities appear determined to prevent journalists from doing their jobs,” says Steven Butler, Asia programme coordinator of the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which partly explains why India has seen its democracy downgraded by 53^rd position on the most recent Democracy Index published by The Economist Intelligence Unit, while falling to 142^nd position out of 180 countries in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders.

The Sweden-based V-Dem Institute went even further in its latest report on global democracy in describing India an “electoral autocracy,” and accusing the Modi government of “diminishing freedom of expression, media and civil society” to a point where it’s “as autocratic as Pakistan and worse than its neighbours Bangladesh and Nepal.”

Any number of Indian news media watchers have observed how the country’s mainstream media has essentially functioned as the public relations arm of Modi and BJP, leading many to mock influential television news channels as the “Godi Media,” a pejorative Hindi term that accuses journalists and editors of performing as lapdogs for the Hindu nationalist agenda.

“Perhaps the best example of how journalists have become accustomed to not challenging the government is the fact that Modi failed to hold a single press conference in his first term in office,” says iconic Indian editor and journalist Vir Sanghvi, who also observes how access to the Modi government has become conditional on the journalist’s ideology.

Clearly, the Indian government’s war on the free press and democracy hasn’t gone unnoticed.

The question is what will New Delhi’s democratic allies do about it?

On November 12, thousands of protesters took to the streets of the Maldivian capital Male, calling for and an end to the Indian military presence and interference in domestic affairs, while chanting, “Indian Military Out,” making it one of the largest ever political protests on the archipelagic country, and igniting similar protests elsewhere, including Fuvahmulah city, where thousands gathered on Sunday, November 14, 2021.

Despite the Maldivian government’s efforts to ignore and downplay the protester’s demands, the hashtags “IndiaOut,” “IndianMilitaryOut,” and “DefendMaldives” have since become the top trending topics on social media in the country.

While the Maldives and India have long enjoyed warm ties, with Indian nationals accounting for 90,000 of the roughly 1.5 million tourists who visit the Maldivian islands each year, there’s been a noticeable shift in attitudes among the general population in recent times, as resentment grows towards New Delhi’s ever-more aggressive policies and meddling in the country and region.

These anxieties were given a jolt in June, when a series of leaked documents, showing communication between the Maldives Foreign Ministry and the Indian High Commission, revealed the Indian government denied a request by the previous Maldivian administration, under President Abdulla Yameen, to withdraw its Indian Military helicopters from the country in the months leading up to the 2018 Presidential Election.

Mr. Yameen was ultimately defeated by his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) rival and current President – Ibrahim Mohamed Solih – in the November 2018 polls, a victory secured among allegations New Delhi had tipped its finger on the scales by meddling in the election.

The Indian government denied a request to withdraw its Indian Military helicopters from the Maldives in the months leading up to the 2018 Presidential Election

These allegations were given undeniable credibility when former President and current Speaker of Parliament – Mohamed Nasheed – gave an interview to India Today in 2019, in which he praised Indian officials and diplomats for creating a “small window” to help MDP win the election.

Worryingly, for many Maldivians, President Solih has been acting as New Delhi’s “yes-man” since the election, prompting widespread concerns he has traded the country’s sovereignty and independence to enrich his political and personal fortunes, while also dressing up Indian military expansionism as “infrastructure projects.”

More troubling still is the way some of the agreements between the two countries have been signed in secrecy, and made available to the public only because of leaked documents obtained by The Maldives Journal earlier this year.

Worryingly, for many Maldivians, President Solih has been acting as New Delhi’s “yes-man” since the election.

At the core of the protesters grievances is revelation the current Maldivian government has signed a secretive deal with New Delhi, allowing for Indian military personnel to enjoy full diplomatic immunity and tax exemption status, thus constituting a violation of the Maldivian Constitution, which states foreign soldiers may not be stationed in the country without full approval from Parliament.

Hamdham Shakeel, co-founder and editor of the independently operated Maldives News Network, explained to Politics Today how Maldivians don’t wish to be caught in the middle of a potential future shooting war between India and China in the increasingly contested Indian Ocean, a concern he described as “one of the major driving forces behind anti-Indian military sentiments.”

“Stationing and operating military assets in the Maldives would mean that it has become a point of military operation. Maldivians would have to face collateral damages for stationing Indian military personnel and hardware in the Maldives,” therefore breaking from its long-held policy of remaining neutral in regional and great power rivalries, said Shakeel.

Of particular concern is an agreement signed between the current Maldivian government and India on 21 February to develop and maintain the country’s most strategic military naval bases – Uthuru ThilhaFalhu (UTF) – which is not only located within close proximity to the capital city, but also described as its “last line of defence.”

Details of the agreement became public only after it was leaked to local newspapers, revealing Indian military personnel will be allowed to carry arms and live ammunition and conduct their own surveillance and patrols in the country.

It’s for these reasons, the “Indian Military Out” protest movement continues to gather steam, becoming better organized, with the group “Defend Maldives,” consisting of the opposition coalition, a breakaway faction of the ruling party and many other smaller groups, lending its support and infrastructure.

Expectedly, the Maldivian government launched a counter campaign against the protest movement on 17 November, when it issued a statement condemning the protesters as only a “small group of individuals with the objective of tarnishing the country’s long-standing cordial ties with India,” while accusing them of “spreading false information.”

Conspicuously, however, the Maldivian government mischievously removed the word “military” in its statement, therefore mislabelling the protest movement as “India Out,” a naked effort to malign the “Indian Military Out” protest movement as anti-India.

Shakeel scoffed at the government’s characterization of the protesters, describing the Maldivian people as great friends of the Indian people and culture, and saying they specifically oppose India’s BJP government’s “aggressive foreign policy revolving around Indian imperialism in the Indian Ocean” and encroachment on the country’s sovereignty and independence.