The Hamas mastermind who planned the atrocities of ‘Al Aqsa Flood’, as the October 7 operation was codenamed, must have known that Israel’s retaliation, exceeding in savagery even the revenge that the British exacted in India after 1857, would force a puputan on more than two million Palestinians crammed into the Gaza Strip. A puputan is the ritual mass suicide that the Balinese preferred to the humiliation of surrender but the elaborate ceremony with which it was carried out is impossible amidst the thunder of Israeli air strikes and artillery and the clash of hand-to-hand fighting in densely-populated urban areas.

Horrendous as all this is, we must never forget that Israel is the occupying power in Gaza, the West Bank, Sinai, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, with far less legitimacy than any colonial ruler. When the dust settles down, therefore, a serious effort must be made to engage Israel in talks to vacate the occupation and revive the two-nation solution that the 1993 Oslo Accords contemplated. Meanwhile, like the stand-off with Canada — which the Gaza crisis has all but eclipsed from India’s foreign policy agenda — some churning in the style and substance of Indian diplomacy is also discernible. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s combative (sometimes to the point of curtness) retorts to intrusive Western journalists recalled Jawaharlal Nehru’s blunt remark to Loy Henderson, the American ambassador, “If there is friction between an Asian and a non-Asian power, I must be on the side of the Asian power.” A small personal comment may be apposite here. When researching Waiting for America: India and the United States in the New Millennium, I came upon several instances of Indian officials being downgraded in their exchanges with their American counterparts; if they dared to demur, they were accused of being obsessed with protocol. However, Narendra Modi more than made up for his external affairs minister’s abrasiveness. Although ignored by the Western media — and this must have been galling to South Block — his robust support for Israel seemed tailor-made to please the Americans.

Not that this quite fits into the Asian vs non-Asian category. Israel is, at best, a borderline state. When I suggested to P.N. Haksar, the éminence grise of Indira Gandhi’s early prime ministership, that my map showed Israel as Asian, he at once retorted, “Listen to their accents!” The accents were and are, of course, European. There, too, one can trace a link with the past. When Henderson wondered whether “Australia isn’t almost a part of Asia?”, Nehru conceded that it was “but Australia is European oriented.” The weapons flowing in from Joe Biden confirm Israel’s orientation.

The flattering call from ‘Bibi’ may have compensated for the Western media’s neglect of Modi’s instant and unconditional promise of support (“We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour”) but this can’t be attributed only to the complex that Jaishankar finds so irksome. The prime minister’s spontaneous generosity was at least partly occasioned by the saffron perception of Al Aqsa Flood and the sense of a common enemy. They might express support for the Palestinians in Iran as well as in Arab League countries like Oman, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, and Qatar; pro-Hamas demonstrations might be reported from Turkey, Bahrain and even Berlin. Saudi Arabia’s controversial crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, took time off from fist-bumping with Biden to agree with an unlikely Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, on the “need to end war crimes against Palestine.” The British Broadcasting Corporation refuses the ‘terrorist’ tag with its world affairs editor, John Simpson, explaining, “Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally.” India is made of sterner stuff. It “strongly and unequivocally condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.”

Clearly, the saffron lobby does not operate in a vacuum. Foreign policy, like charity, begins at home. When Golda Meir was prime minister, one of her senior aides wagged a finger at me to say that India cared two hoots for the United Nations and its then 15 or so Islamic members but opposed Israel and supported Palestine all the way only because the ruling Congress Party could not do without the Muslim vote. Domestic compulsions shape thinking on foreign affairs even more in these tumultuous times. Constant harping on Pakistani terrorists crossing into Jammu and Kashmir and the reported extension of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act “to include intellectuals, writers and journalists under the definition of terrorists” only further encourages the Indian majority’s minority complex. Opinion has been conditioned to view organisations like Hamas as providing a bedrock of support for India’s enemies who plant bombs, derail trains, murder civilians, and inspire and organise suicide attacks.

At the same time, Western condescension has always implied that India is a difficult customer who must be humoured. Ernest Bevin, foreign secretary in Britain’s post-war Labour government, actually suggested to the American ambassador that to keep Nehru happy the British high commissioner in New Delhi would not only not be too friendly publicly but would also criticise Washington from time to time! At another level, another British high commissioner, Sir Robert Wade-Gery, who had previously been Margaret Thatcher’s secretary, complained of having to explain to his hosts in New Delhi that the legal process in Britain didn’t allow the automatic extradition of people just because New Delhi regarded them as terrorists.

Things have changed of course and with someone as attuned to global nuances as Jaishankar in charge of external affairs, the West need not find it necessary to humour or patronise Indians. But some traits are too deeply embedded in history to die easily and recent events — the standoff with Justin Trudeau, for instance — have again proved Manmohan Singh was wrong in assuming that economic liberalisation had exorcised the East India Company. Both the Trudeau contretemps and Modi’s response to the Gaza crisis confirmed that the old enemy still haunts India’s imagination. Glimpses of the underlying complex are available in triumphalist newspaper headings about the snubs and slights that Trudeau has supposedly suffered, and social media gloating over the likely loss to Canada if Indian students stop going there.

Indian students — often disguised migrants — go to Canada (as to Australia) to seek a better life. “If there is a hell on earth, it is the lives of children in Gaza,” says António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general. India is not hell on earth, but there is nothing to boast of in the millions that make up the diaspora or the millions who are glad every year to shake the dust of India off their feet. Natwar Singh, the first foreign secretary to become foreign minister, held that India was pro-American because all Indian diplomats want their sons to migrate to the United States of America. The superpower status that Modi hankers for will remain elusive until Indians are able to fulfil their dreams of education, employment, housing and healthcare in India.

It is not too soon to think of how the next few weeks will unfold. His voice quivering with suppressed passion like Modi’s after the Godra kar sevak burning, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to exact “a huge price”. That is unavoidable. But sooner or later Israel must talk peace, if not with Hamas, then with Fatah or someone else empowering the Palestine Authority. The longer the fighting drags on, the greater the chance of violence spreading to the West Bank or Lebanon, or involving Syria or even Iran. The death of many civilians in Gaza would also damage Israel’s present position as the grievously injured party seeking to right a profound wrong. It can do so most effectively by righting the bigger wrong that some 15 million Palestinians have suffered for decades at Israeli hands.