NEW DELHI: Hundreds of people gathered for a protest organized by Indian university students in New Delhi on Friday to demand that the government act against Israel’s breaking of the ceasefire in Gaza and renewed deadly strikes on its population.
Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire with the Palestinian group Hamas on Tuesday by bombarding displaced people sleeping in tents. At least 400 — half of them children — were killed, while hundreds more were severely injured.
The ceasefire was mediated by the US administration in January. Israel earlier violated the agreement by stopping all aid, electricity and water from entering Gaza — days before it launched the wave of deadly airstrikes. About 700 people have been killed since.
“The Indian government should take a stand. They should reassert our traditional stand on Palestine,” Dhananjay, president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union, told Arab News.
The union is part of the All India Students’ Association, which organized the protest at the Jantar Mantar site in the center of New Delhi.
“The way Israel keeps on pounding Gaza and kills more than 400 people in one day despite the ceasefire, this I feel is an attack on humanity and all civilizational values.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry estimates that at least 49,617 Palestinians have been confirmed dead and 112,950 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023. The real toll is likely to be much higher as thousands of people are missing under the rubble.
About 500 people, including students and members of other groups such as the All India Progressive Women’s Association, joined the protest to demand a return of India’s historical support for Palestine.
Many years before the establishment of Israel, Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of India’s freedom movement against British rule, had opposed a Jewish nation-state in Palestine, deeming it “inhumane.” For decades, other Indian leaders also viewed Palestinian statehood as part of the country’s foreign policy.
The support has only waned recently, with the current government in New Delhi being mostly quiet in the wake of Israel’s deadly siege and onslaught on Gaza and forging partnerships with Tel Aviv.
“We are registering our resistance, our voices in support of Palestine and against the kind of partnership that we are seeing between India and Israel … India and Israel have partnerships on each front — we are the second largest exporter of Israeli arms, several Indian companies are manufacturing arms in partnership with Israeli companies … and we are sending workers to Israel,” said Ambika Tandon, doctoral student at a university in Delhi.
“These partnerships of arms manufacturing are making India directly complicit in the ongoing war crimes in Gaza.”
Anjali, another student and member of the India for Palestine collective, said links with Israel were affecting Indians too, especially young people.
“Young people should be very concerned … The Indian state is playing a role in this genocide, and its friendship with Israel is harming citizens of India,” she told Arab News.
“Israel has broken the ceasefire. They don’t understand the meaning of ceasefire … We have gathered here today to create some pressure on the Indian government to take a stand against what Israel is doing.”
The protesters believe that India has the leverage to play a meaningful role in stopping Israeli massacres.
“India should immediately pressurize Israel, the US, and Western powers to stop the bombardment. It should bring the third-world countries united,” said N. Sai Balaji, former president of the JNU Students Union.
“The open, brazen violation of the ceasefire unilaterally by Israel — supported by the US — clearly shows that they were never intended to bring any peace … The silence of leaders across the world, even our own Indian prime minister and Indian government, (is) not just shameful but a disgrace on the history of India’s solidarity with Palestine.”
