Palestine, Mahatma Gandhi and Indian judiciary

“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French,” wrote Mahatma Gandhi in 1938 amid escalating violence in Palestine. Eight years later, he went hammer and tongs against the violence unleashed by Jews, even while sympathising with the Jewish community.

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Mercifully, the Bombay High Court, functional since 1862, did not feel like reprimanding Gandhi, telling him not to poke his nose in matters taking place thousands of miles away and instead focus on India’s own woes. On July 25, however, the same court thought it fit to publicly pull up, and not in charitable words, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) after it sought permission to hold a public rally in Mumbai against the ongoing Gaza war.

Gaza Strip in ruins

Israel’s military blitzkrieg in the wake of the Hamas savagery of October 2023 has left the Gaza Strip in ruins, leaving more than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, dead and thousands injured or maimed for life. The Hamas may have taken a severe beating, but it is still fighting.

Also read: As children pay highest price for Gaza conflict, global protests on the rise

The terrible price for what Hamas did is being paid by innocent Palestinian civilians whom the outfit did not consult before raiding Israel, killing over 1,200, and abducting about 250 Israelis, some foreigners included. There is widespread anger around the world against Israel’s military atrocities, which have led to a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions. And with Israel using food as a weapon in a bid to starve the Palestinians into submission, the situation has become so nauseating that Tel Aviv’s traditional allies are one after another readying to recognise a Palestinian state.

Bombay HC tells CPI(M) 'be patriots'

It is against such a miserable state of affairs that the CPI(M) wanted to stage a public protest. Considering that the Middle East accounts for a substantial number of Indian expatriates and meets 40 per cent of India’s energy needs, the public protest, limited to Mumbai, would have in no way harmed New Delhi’s interests. If anything, it would have sent a positive signal to a region where there is tremendous disquiet on the sullen streets over the Indian government’s refusal to condemn the horrific human suffering in Gaza. But the Bombay High Court thought very differently.

Also read: Sonia Gandhi condemns 'Israeli genocide' in Gaza, slams PM Modi's 'silence'

Dismissing the CPI(M) plea, Justices Ravindra Ghuge and Gautam Ankhad said that protests related to Gaza and Palestine might detract people from the more pressing domestic problems like unemployment and infrastructure weaknesses. “Our country has enough issues to deal with. We do not want anything like this. I am sorry to say, you are short-sighted,” sermonised the judges.

“You are looking at Gaza and Palestine while neglecting what’s happening here. Why don’t you do something for your own country? Be patriots.”

Mahatma Gandhi's sympathy for Jews

Imagine a scenario, in 1938 or 1946, if a judge had reacted similarly to Mahatma Gandhi, whose concern for Palestinians, as we shall see, was more forthright and who denounced the Zionists without mercy for unleashing violence against Palestinian Arabs. Unlike the CPI(M), whose members are dominantly atheists, Gandhi was a devout Hindu. But he took a humanitarian line over the emerging crisis in Palestine, which the Zionists wanted to and did transform into a Jewish homeland with help from the US and Britain after expelling huge numbers of Palestinians en masse.

Gandhi did not shy away from expressing sympathy for the Jewish people, who had been persecuted for their religion and were later subjected to genocide by Hitler. “They have been the untouchables of Christianity,” the apostle of non-violence stated in the Harijan. “The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close.” Very strong words.

Court asking Indians to ignore Gaza horror

But the Mahatma found fault with the Jews for imposing themselves on Palestine and, in a pointed reference to the Zionist methods, “now with the aid of naked terrorism”. After heaping praise on Jews for the wondrous achievements by members of the community, he asked in 1946, two years before Israel was founded: “One would have thought adversity would teach them lessons of peace. Why should they depend upon American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine?”

This was Gandhi’s agony in the decades when British India was in convulsions, getting bogged down by Hindu-Muslim violence that would tear apart the sub-continent in 1947. It was also the time when the independence struggle was seeing ups and downs amid World War II and the disastrous Bengal famine. Imagine if a member of the judiciary had asked Gandhi to confine his interest to what was going on in the then undivided India instead of spending time and energy on issues related to Palestine and Jews! The analogy strikes one hard after reading what the Bombay High Court went on to say to the CPI(M). The judges could have turned down the CPI(M)’s request, saying they won’t interfere in an administrative (police) decision denying permission to take to the streets over Gaza. Or the judges could have cited valid legal reasons for backing the police's stand. But telling a registered political party in India that it was “short-sighted” and asking it to be “patriots” simply because its members wanted to denounce the globally condemned Gaza genocide is amazing, to say the least.

In effect, the judiciary has said that the Indian people should, unlike Gandhi, ignore the Gaza horror, though even Israel’s long-time Western allies are beginning to move away from the Jewish state.

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