India was always a safe haven for Jews

Israel has an official book in which they say that they have been persecuted in every part of the world especially in Germany. It further says that if there is a land where Jews were welcome and never persecuted in its history, then its India where Jews have lived for centuries. (Note: This is true; when Israel's very first parliament formed after its formation the very first resolution they passed was to thank India).

If there is one place in the world which has been a safe haven for Jews, it is India. “India has been the only country in the world where Jews have never been oppressed or suppressed or discriminated against,” says Romiel Daniel, who is Jewish-Indian-American. Indeed, India has been nurturing home and haven for generations of Jews whose ancestors fled from persecution centuries ago. At its peak there were about 37,000 Jews living in India. “Discrimination is something that has never happened in India for 2000 years and that is something we are very proud of, and that is why we go back to India so often,” he says.

In 1974, the New York Times journalist Bernard Weinraub described India as "the loneliest post in the world" for Israeli diplomats. Having voted against the creation of Israel at the UN in 1947, India held back from establishing full diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv until 1992. 

For decades, Israel's presence in India was limited to an immigration office in Mumbai. In between, India voted with the majority to pass UN resolution 3379, condemning Zionism as a form of racism, became one of the first non-Arab states to recognize Palestine's declaration of independence in 1988, and was generally among the more vocal non-Arab voices against Israel.

Today, India is Israel's closest eastern ally and its largest arms market. Since 2001, the diasporas of the two countries have emerged as energetic allies against a shared enemy: Islamic extremism. A survey by the Israeli foreign ministry in 2009 found India to be the most pro-Israel country in the world, well above the US. Once a bastion of pro-Palestinian sentiment, India is now at the bottom in a worldwide poll of countries sympathetic to Palestinian statehood. 

What precipitated this dramatic shift? Israel had all along been a quiet ally of New Delhi, volunteering clandestine support as India sought to repel attacks by China (in 1962) and Pakistan (in 1965). Israeli officials knew also that India, which had no history of anti-semitism, had arrived at its Israel policy through a combination of post-colonial realpolitik – particularly its desire to placate Arab opinion in its contest against Islamic Pakistan – and an ethical commitment to the Palestinian cause. Partly for these reasons, India's anti-Israel actions rarely provoked any anxiety in Tel Aviv.

There are three principal reasons behind the shift in India's attitude. The first is the belated realization that no amount of deference to Arab sentiment could alter Muslim opinion in the Middle East in India's favour: when it came to Kashmir, Shia and Sunni united in supporting Pakistan's position. 

The second owes itself to the collapse of the old world order: the death of the Soviet Union meant that India had to seek out new allies. 

The third factor that contributed to the deepening of Indo-Israeli ties is less well-known: the rise of Hindu nationalism in India.

2014 and the election of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister decisively swung India's foreign policy in Israel's favour.