Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Thursday launched a sharp attack on the Modi government’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, accusing it of abandoning India’s long-standing principled position and reducing foreign policy to “personalised diplomacy.”
In an article published in The Hindu titled “India’s muted voice, its detachment with Palestine”, Gandhi said India must demonstrate leadership on the Palestine issue, which she described as “a battle for justice, identity, dignity and human rights.”
Gandhi criticised the government for its “profound silence” and “abdication of both humanity and morality,” alleging that New Delhi’s approach is being shaped more by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal friendship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than by India’s constitutional values or strategic interests.
“This style of personalised diplomacy is never tenable and cannot be the guiding compass of India’s foreign policy,” she wrote, adding that similar experiments “in other parts of the world, most notably in the United States, have come undone in the most painful and humiliating ways.”
This is the third article by the former Congress president in recent months on the issue, where she has strongly criticised the Modi government’s muted response.
Highlighting how nations like France, the UK, Canada, Portugal, and Australia have now recognised Palestine, Gandhi pointed out that more than 150 UN member states have already done so. She reminded that India had taken a leadership role in the past, formally recognising Palestinian statehood in 1988 after years of support to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
Drawing parallels with India’s own history of backing anti-colonial struggles, Gandhi recalled New Delhi’s strong voice against apartheid in South Africa, its support for Algeria’s independence, and its decisive role during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.
On the present crisis, Gandhi did not mince words: “The brutal and inhumane Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, were followed by an Israeli response that has been nothing less than genocidal. More than 55,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed, including 17,000 children,” she wrote, stressing that Gaza’s infrastructure had been “obliterated” and its people pushed into a “famine-like situation.”
She described the obstruction of aid and reports of civilians being shot while seeking food as “one of the most revolting acts of inhumanity,” while accusing the global community of responding too slowly and thereby “implicitly legitimising Israeli actions.”
Welcoming recent recognitions of Palestinian statehood, Gandhi said: “This is a historical moment and an assertion of the principles of justice, self-determination and human rights. These steps are not merely diplomatic gestures; they are affirmations of the moral responsibility that nations bear in the face of prolonged injustice. Silence is not neutrality, it is complicity.”
Gandhi also hit out at India for hosting Israel’s far-right finance minister—known for his incitements against Palestinians—and for signing a bilateral investment pact with Israel just two weeks ago, calling it “appalling.”
She argued that the Palestine issue is not merely about foreign policy but about India’s “ethical and civilisational heritage.”
“We owe Palestine a sense of historical empathy in its quest for dignity, and we also owe Palestine the courage to translate that empathy into principled action,” Gandhi said.
