At UNGA, India Votes for Ceasefire in Gaza. What Explains the Shift in Position?

The 12 December resolution passed with a massive four-fifth majority when 153 countries voted in favour of the resolution, and only 10 countries, including Israel and the US, voted against it.

(Photo: PTI)

On Tuesday, 12 December, India voted in favour of a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and the protection of civilians in accordance with international law and the release of all hostages.

Recall that India had abstained from voting on a similar UNGA resolution on 27 October, saying that it did not refer to the 7 October attacks in Israel by Hamas.

The 12 December resolution passed with a massive four-fifth majority when 153 countries voted in favour of the resolution, and only 10 countries, including Israel and the US, voted against it. Another 23 countries, mainly from Europe, abstained.

How Did India Shift Tracks?

The US and Austria, supported by India and other countries, attempted to push amendments to Tuesday’s UNGA resolution in order to insert a specific mention of the “terrorist attack by Hamas”. But they failed to muster support.

This time, too, the UNGA resolution did not mention Hamas' attacks by name. But India shifted tracks. The resolution came in the wake of a US veto of a similar resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on 8 December.

This was an outcome of the UN Security General Antonio Gutteres’ invocation of Article 99 informing the UNSC that the situation in Gaza “threatens the maintenance of international peace and security.” This clause was invoked for the first time since 1989 (during the war in Lebanon) and for the first time by Gutteres. After abstaining from the 27 October resolution, India issued an unofficial note explaining its stand. The government said that the resolution had not included an “explicit condemnation” of the terror attack and the release of hostages.

This time around, explaining the vote, India’s Permanent Representative Ruchira Khamboj did not go into the specific reasons for the shift, but praised the fact that the international community was able to find a common ground to address the situation where more than 18,000 people, mostly children and young adults, had been killed in retaliation to the Hamas attack that killed 1200 Israelis.

Kamboj laid out four criteria that informed the Indian vote, which she said was an effort “to strike a balance” in difficult times. These four issues were:

• The lack of mention of Hamas in the 7 October attack

• The humanitarian crisis and the large-scale loss of lives

• The issue of observing humanitarian law in all circumstances

• The need to find a lasting ”two-state” solution to the Palestine issue

What Explains the Shift?

From the outset, New Delhi sought to shift its policy on Israel. On the day of Hamas' terror attack, Prime Minister Modi had tweeted “Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks on Israel…we stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour.”

Three days later, after speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he repeated these views and added that “India strongly and unequivocally condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.” There was no reference concerning the situation of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Five days after the attacks came a corrective of sorts in a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs which observed that there was a “universal obligation to observe international humanitarian law” and a responsibility to fight terrorism. The official spokesman laid out India’s official position on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, calling for direct negotiations towards a “sovereign, independent, and viable state of Palestine living within secure and recognised borders, side by side, at peace with Israel.”

There is little doubt that India's shift in position this week has arisen from the disproportionately massive scale of destruction that Israel has wrought on Gaza. It is no coincidence that it came on the day US President Joe Biden said in public remarks that the US will continue to support Israel, as would Europe and other parts of the world, “but they’re starting to lose that support due to the indiscriminate bombing taking place.”

Biden is facing growing pressure from his own Democratic Party, and his officialdom, over the free hand he has so far given to Tel Aviv. This would, no doubt, have instilled some caution in South Block.

Shifting Position is Outcome of Modi Govt's Outlook

As it is, the UNGA vote on Tuesday indicated which way the wind is blowing. Given the breakup of the outcome, India would have either been with the US and Israel as well as eight disparate countries that opposed it, or the 23 (largely European) countries that abstained. The vote on the resolution represented a massive shift of 33 nations from their neutral or pro-Israel positions in the passage of the October 27 resolution.

The Global South, which New Delhi has pretensions of leading, was firmly and decisively, in favour of the ceasefire motion. Arab countries which initiated and supported the motion are themselves in a quandary. In many instances, their leaders are behind the popular opinion that is now fully in support of the Palestinian cause.

The shifting Indian position on the Israel-Hamas war is an outcome of the outlook of the Modi government which is firmly pro-Israel and retains only token sympathy for the Palestinians. It is also linked to India’s closer alignment with the US and Israel through entities like the India-Israel-US-UAE (I2U2) grouping, and the new plans to establish an India-Middle East Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC) using the Israeli port of Haifa as a key maritime link.

As death and destruction continue to rain on Gaza, many of these schemes are unlikely to fructify anytime soon. The US is increasingly isolated, as is Israel. Indian policy has to now navigate this ruined geopolitical landscape. What the future holds for Gaza is as unclear as what it holds for India’s West Asia policy.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)