India's shifting policy on Israel-Palestine – Southasia Weekly #51

This week in Himal

This week, Chintan Girish Modi reviews three recent books that discuss India’s position on Israel and Palestine, revealing the country’s calculated calibration of geopolitical interests. He writes that India has forgotten the shared history of British empirical design that led to the country’s solidarity with Palestine, with economic and strategic interests winning out instead. 

For our next Podcast of the Week, host of the Southasia Review of Books podcast Shwetha Srikanthan talks to Kanupriya Dhingra, Assistant Professor at O P Jindal Global University about Old Delhi’s parallel book bazaar, exploring the spatial politics of the Daryaganj Sunday book market. 

This month, we’re screening ‘No burqas behind bars’, directed by Nima Sarvestani for Screen Southasia, our monthly online screening of compelling documentaries from the region, a partnership between Himal Southasian and Film Southasia.  'No burqas behind bars' is an intimate window into the daily lives and friendships of women convicted of 'moral crimes' in Afghanistan's Takhar prison. Sign up here to receive the screening link!

This week in Southasia

Southasia's refugees, migrants impacted by Trump's executive order

Southasia’s migrants and refugees are already being impacted by a series of sweeping executive orders greenlighted by US President Donald Trump, who recently won a second term in office. One week after taking office, healthcare offices along the Myanmar-Thailand border have been forced to shut, leaving refugees from Myanmar to seek treatment elsewhere as a result of a freeze on US foreign aid. At least one aid group in Thailand also announced it was suspending assistance to Myanmar refugees as a result of the freeze. While US Secretary of State Marco Rubio agreed to ‘temporarily’ continue humanitarian programmes providing lifesaving medical assistance, food and shelter on 28 January, it was not clear whether programmes involving Myanmar refugees would qualify. Meanwhile, Afghan refugees have been impacted by a separate executive order suspending resettlement programmes - while just over six million Afghans face hunger due to the aid freeze. Following a phone call with India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, Trump said India ‘will do what’s right’ on the deportation of undocumented migrants, potentially impacting an estimated 725,000 Indians.

Trump has justified the foreign aid freeze as a bid to cut wasteful spending, while he has long framed immigration as a national security issue. His orders have already impacted vulnerable communities, with humanitarian organisations expressing concern that the freezing of foreign aid is “threatening the lives and futures of communities in crisis”. The news has also revived discussions about extractive aid and the contributions that Southasian immigrants have made to the US, even as they now face the threat of deportation. 

Elsewhere in Southasia

• Pakistan’s Senate passes bill criminalising the ‘intentional’ spreading of online misinformation, with penalties of up to three years in jail, sparking protests from journalists who see it as a move to suppress dissent 

• At least 30 people reportedly killed at a stampede at the Maha Kumbh festival, an important Hindu pilgrimage drawing tens of millions of devotees, in the northern Indian city of Prayagraj 

• Leaked videos show Arakan Army soldiers torturing and executing junta prisoners of war, the army’s spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha confirms. Rights groups call on the International Criminal Court to investigate alleged Arakan Army war crimes in Myanmar. 

• Maldives’ ruling People’s National Congress faces allegations that they artificially inflated their membership in order to qualify for more state funding as parties with over 10,000 members receive funding from the state budget

• Afghanistan’s women’s cricket team play first match since fleeing the Taliban regime in Australia, continue to lobby governing International Cricket Council to form refugee team

• India lodges strong protest against the Sri Lankan Navy for firing at a boat of Indian fishermen near Delft Island, where five sustained injuries and are being treated in the northern Sri Lankan city of Jaffna 

• Nepal’s Supreme Court blocks execution of 267 power plants in various stages of construction that are partly or fully in conservation and national park areas, prompting outrage from companies in the hydropower sector 

• Bhutan receives EUR 17 million support package from the European Commission to bolster the country’s digital transition, sustainable development and public finance management

• Maldivian tourism minister Ibrahim Faisal has been dismissed by the President’s Office, temporarily replaced by economic minister Mohamed Saeed. While no official reason was provided, Faisal’s tenure was met with criticism with the opposition accusing President Mohamed Muizzu of nepotism. 

• Train services resume in Bangladesh after railway workers ended their indefinite strike. Railways Adviser Muhammad Fouzal Kabir Khan agreed to fulfill their demands of higher pensions, overtime compensation and other benefits.

Only in Southasia!

Sparks flew as British rock band Coldplay wrapped up their tour of India with a final show in Ahmedabad. In a twist of irony, two men got into a fistfight just as the band began to sing Viva La Vida - a song about fallen kings and transcending pain and suffering. Passersby (and the internet) did not understand the Gravity of the situation, with one fan joking, “Viva la Kalesh is the anthem we didn’t know we needed.” For most Indian fans, the Coldplay concert was the Adventure of a Lifetime, but for the two brawlers, it all went downhill faster than the Speed of Sound. 

From the archive

Southasian aid regimes (December 2013)

This week, as Southasians begin to feel the impact of a US freeze on foreign aid, a 2013 article by Nilanjana Biswas is worth revisiting. In a review of Foreign Aid in South Asia: The Emerging Scenario edited by Sri Lankan economist Saman Kelegama, Biswas reflects on the political economy of aid-giving. Biswas notes that aid is often used to secure the economic, political and military interests of donor countries, while those receiving aid are often locked in cycles of aid-dependency and debt.