Whenever I read Western commentary on the India-Israel relationship, I see the same mistake repeated. Analysts try to wedge India into a political template that simply does not fit. Some claim New Delhi supports Jerusalem out of pure ideology. Others reduce the relationship to defense contracts or domestic election strategies. Both are wrong. From an Indian perspective, India’s position is far more practical and forged by hard experience than most outside observers realize.
For anyone growing up in India, national security is never an abstract debate. Terror attacks were a staple of our news cycle for decades. Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Pune: we have watched violence unfold in our own streets. That history rewires how ordinary Indians perceive terrorism. We do not process it through academic theory or campus slogans. We process it through memory.
That deep sense of familiarity explains the immediate Indian reaction to the October 7 attacks in Israel. Even those entirely disconnected from foreign policy recognized the sheer horror of civilians being hunted. It provoked a gut-level response because Indians have lived through their own versions of that grief.
Yet, despite that shared trauma, India does not manage its Middle East policy on emotion. Our foreign policy is a careful balancing act of balance and survival.
This is exactly where many Western analysts misunderstand India. India cannot afford the luxury of the black-and-white moral posturing that dominates political debates in London or Washington. We maintain deep, active ties with Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the Palestinian leadership simultaneously. Millions of Indian citizens work in the Gulf. A major portion of India’s energy security depends on stability in the Middle East. Major diplomatic miscalculations in the region could carry serious economic consequences for India.
When India unequivocally condemns terrorism while simultaneously dispatching humanitarian aid to Gaza, it is not being contradictory. It is practicing survival realism. That might sound cold to a Western audience, but it is how nations outside the Western bubble actually operate.
There is also a quiet shift that rarely makes it into international op-eds. Indian public opinion on Israel has transformed over the last twenty years. Two decades ago, Israel was a topic reserved for defense corridors and strategic circles. Today, the average Indian views Israel through the lens of agricultural technology, startup innovation, intelligence sharing, and resilience under constant fire. Social media broke the traditional information monopoly, and expanding defense and cybersecurity cooperation cemented the partnership.
India is too vast and diverse for absolute consensus, and Indians certainly do not endorse every policy out of the Knesset. But the outdated assumption that India naturally defaults to anti-Israel solidarity is dead.
Most Indians are actually deeply uncomfortable with how sanitized and simplified the global conversation has become. Social media demands instant allegiance. It forces people to pick a side, chant a slogan, and treat centuries-old conflicts like a movie with obvious heroes and villains. Real geopolitics is far uglier and far more complicated.
India understands this implicitly because we live in a brutal neighborhood. We navigate border standoffs, cross-border terrorism, regional rivalries, and massive economic pressures every single day. We avoid dramatic, sweeping foreign policy declarations because flexibility keeps you alive, while emotional posturing gets you isolated.
India’s relationship with Israel does not require the abandonment of the Palestinians, nor is it a blind capitulation to Western consensus. It is a calculated, mutually beneficial strategic partnership that leaves room for the rest of the region. It is an approach that has kept India secure and growing.
The root of the misunderstanding is that Western commentators still expect countries like India to operate within Cold War-era thinking. But the India of 2026 is self-assured, fiercely independent, and completely uninterested in moral lectures from observers who do not even understand the geography they are analyzing.
India has zero interest in fitting into someone else’s political narrative. We are writing our own.
Ankit Gawande, a writer based in India, with a deep interest in the lesser-known historical connections between India and the Jewish world. His writing spans long-form essays, cultural commentary, and historical narrative. He brings a researcher’s curiosity and a storyteller’s eye to subjects that often live at the margins of mainstream discourse.