US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that India has been ‘allowed’ to buy oil from Russia for a month. When India was told not to buy Russian oil, it agreed; instead, it agreed to buy oil from the US. Now, Bessent said that the permission to buy Russian oil was given considering the temporary shortage due to the blockage in the Strait of Hormuz, and has also given India a ‘good boy’ certificate. "India is a great trading partner, having complied when asked to stop buying Russian oil." India has recently acquired the ability to yield to any pressure. An incident from 2012 is worth remembering. When the same US ‘ordered’ India not to buy oil from Iran, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that India was not going to stop buying oil from Iran even though the US and the European Union had tightened sanctions. But today, it is as if we have left our decision to them. They will tell, we will obey. We are abandoning our eternal friends without a trace for the sake of imperialism. Iran has a history of standing with us in crises. It supported India against Pakistan in the UN. Today, America, which has been strangulating Iran with sanctions for years, is our new master. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was able to go to Israel - which was preparing to attack Iran after killing more than a million people in Gaza - and hug Benjamin Netanyahu, who has an arrest warrant from the International Court of Justice. When Israel assassinated Iran's supreme leader, we were reluctant to even express our condolences.
Whether we view it from the angle of law or of the international image, we have arrived on the wrong side of history. By befriending a country facing genocide charges, we are sharing in the disgrace that the Zionist state has brought upon itself. European countries, which were Israel’s closest friends, are now keeping it at a distance. Israel is a guilty state before the UN, world courts, and the people of the world that witnessed the genocide. Never before has Israel faced such intense criticism and condemnation since its establishment in 1948. A survey conducted by Pew Research last year is an indicator. In 20 of the 24 countries surveyed, half or more of the population hates Israel. In Australia, Greece, Japan, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Turkey, three-quarters of the population is anti-Israel. In the UK, it was 44 percent in 2013; today it is 61 percent. Even among American conservatives, who are very loyal to Israel, anti-Israel sentiment has increased by ten points since 2022. Our accepted policy has been to keep this country, which is causing bloodshed and chaos around the world, at bay in the name of justice. However, under the Modi regime, it has come to be accused of intruding into our national security and foreign policy to the point of interfering. The Prime Minister, embracing Israel, which has been isolated in the world due to its own actions, declares that it is our friend ‘today and forever’.
Another major mistake on our side is that at a time when the US has become the bully of the world's nations by challenging the world it has become acceptable to us. Trump's America is challenging all systems of global cooperation. It has created its own 'Board of Peace' to dismantle the UN. It has unilaterally withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement, the nuclear agreement with Iran, the UN Human Rights Council, and the nuclear arms control agreement with Russia, destroying global peace mechanisms. It has attacked Syria and Iran without UN authorisation. It has also undermined that institution by imposing sanctions on officials of the International Criminal Court. It has revealed its own demonic nature by abandoning UN relief centres in Palestine and imposing a blockade on Francesca Albanese. It has challenged the world order by joining Israel in the Gaza genocide and the attack on Iran. India cannot become a close ‘friend’ of the US which is globally isolated for spreading unrest around the world, devoid of law, justice or humanity and Israel. The Modi government should reconsider this policy of subservience. Can we hope that there are no ‘other pressures’ that will hinder it?