Book launch: Hostile Homelands - the New Alliance between India and Israel

Join us for the UK launch of Hostile Homelands: the New Alliance between India and Israel by Azad Essa (Pluto Press, 2023), and a discussion with the author.

Chair: Dr Nathaniel George, Centre for Palestine Studies, SOAS. Author Azad Essa will be in conversation with writer and activist Amrit Wilson (South Asia Solidarity Group) and Kashmiri lawyer Mirza Saaib Beg.

Under Narendra Modi, India has changed dramatically. As the world attempts to grapple with its trajectory towards authoritarianism and a 'Hindu Rashtra' (Hindu State), little attention has been paid to the linkages between Modi's India and the governments from which it has drawn inspiration, as well as military and technical support.

India once called Zionism racism, but, as Azad Essa argues, the state of Israel has increasingly become a cornerstone of India's foreign policy. Looking to replicate the 'ethnic state' in the image of Israel in policy and practice, the annexation of Kashmir increasingly resembles Israel's settler-colonial project of the occupied West Bank. The ideological and political linkages between the two states are alarming; their brands of ethnonationalism deeply intertwined.

Hostile Homelands puts India's relationship with Israel in its historical context, looking at the origins of Zionism and Hindutva; India's changing position on Palestine; and the countries' growing military-industrial relationship from the 1990s. Lucid and persuasive, Essa demonstrates that the India-Israel alliance spells significant consequences for democracy, the rule of law and justice worldwide.

About the speaker

Azad Essa is an award-winning journalist and author based between Johannesburg and New York City. He is currently a senior reporter for Middle East Eye covering American foreign policy, Islamophobia and race in the US. He is the author of The Moslems are Coming and Zuma's Bastard and has written for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and the Guardian.

Registration

This event will take place in-person. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Register via Eventbrite.

Hosted by the South Asia Solidarity Group, the Centre for Palestine Studies, SOAS and the Department of Development Studies, SOAS