It has been two years now since India, the most populous democracy in the world, announced that it would exchange ambassadors with Israel.
Since then, the two countries have been building stronger ties after years of chilly relations.
But in the United States, some Jewish and Indian Americans were forming bonds even before Israel and India exchanged ambassadors in 1992.
For several years, B’nai B’rith has had a relationship with the Indian American Forum for Political Education, a group promoting Indian American political concerns.
“Our experience as immigrant groups is similar,” said Dan Mariaschin, director of B’nai B’rith’s department of international, governmental and Israel affairs.
To learn how to tackle the political as a minority group, the Indian American Forum turned to the Jewish community in 1986.
“We have been working especially with B’nai B’rith to understand how they became involved in the political process in this country and to learn from their successes,” said Krishna Srinivasa, the past president of the forum who now serves on the group’s executive committee.
“B’nai B’rith has been extremely helpful to us,” said Srinivasa, who lives in Atlanta.
Most Indian immigrants came to United States within the last several decades, later than most Jews, but the two groups share values of “a strong family, veneration of education, and a desire to succeed,” said Mariaschin, whose wife is from an Indian Jewish family.
Srinivasa echoed Mariaschin. “People do not realize there are a lot of common things between Indians and Jews in this country,” he said.
“Indian kids are the valedictorians of their high school class and are the children of immigrants,” Mariaschin said. “We’ve had that experience too. I think there is a great deal of potential in our working together.”
The Indian American Forum, one of the biggest Indian American political groups with about 2,000 members in more than 20 state chapters around the country, is seeking to educate U.S. foreign policy-makers about its views on the U.S.- Indian relationship, and is involving itself in a variety of political issues, including health care.
Like the Jewish community, the Indian American community in this country, numbering about 1 million, is heavily represented in the health care professions.
The American Jewish Committee is also forming ties with the Indian community here, and Jason Isaacson, the group’s Washington representative, said the Indian community has taken the initiative in the relationship.
“They and I see a great commonality of interest, and great potential for interethnic work,” Isaacson said.
The Indian ambassador addressed an AJCommittee forum earlier this year.
While both communities are “keen to establish relations,” the relationship between Jewish and Indian Americans “has not taken off as much as it should have,” said Pankaj Saran, first secretary in the political section of the Indian Embassy here.
Saran speculated that the relationship would probably grow in the wake of the improving relations between Israel and India.
“We’ve now normalized relations,” he said. “There is likely to be greater interactions.”
Israel and India established full diplomatic relations in January 1992, and exchanged ambassadors for the first time in October 1992.
Back in 1951, Indian extended de facto recognition to Israel, when both countries were newly independent.
India, however, would not establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel. Israel maintained a consulate in Bombay, but India did not have a reciprocal office in Israel.
India’s position was attributed to its wish not to antagonize its large Muslim minority, and its role as a leader in the non-aligned movement during the Cold War.
The non-aligned movement, which also included Egypt, Indonesia and Yugoslavia, tried to carve out its own place independent of either the United States or the Soviet Union, and supported the Arab cause against Israel in international forums.
But in the past two years, relations between Israel and Indian have turned around, because of changed international conditions including progress in the Middle East peace talks.
“Since January 1992 when we established relations, things are on the rise. We are witnessing a new deepening and broadening of the relationship,” said Dan Arbell, an official at the Israeli Embassy here.
When the Madrid process was established in 1991, “it essentially meant that Arab countries were prepared to sit with Israel and talk to it,” said Saran of the Indian Embassy. “The international community was beginning to look at Israel in a different light.”
“At that time, we felt that since the situation of Israel in the region was changing,” Saran said, “we needed to reassess our own relationship with Israel.”
Official delegations and private businesspeople have been traveling between the two countries in recent months, including Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who visited India this past May.
India “is poised to be an increasingly important economic and political partner for Israel,” said Isaacson of AJCommittee.
The overall trade volume between the two countries is currently $300 million a year, said Arbell of the Israeli Embassy, adding that the Israelis hope it will reach $400 million next year.
Israel has been exporting agricultural technology to India and is participating in joint ventures dealing with agriculture in India, and India in turn has been exporting textiles to Israel.
The two countries are engaged in negotiations to finalize a trade agreement, and India is considering buying Israeli equipment to upgrade its air force, Saran said.
The Israeli airline E1 A1 began flying to India Dec. 9, and Air India is expected to begin flights to Israel soon.
And in addition, considering its new relationship with Israel and its older ties to Arab countries, India is hoping to play a role in the Middle East peace process.
“We have expressed our readiness to help in any way to further the peace process,” Saran said.
India is participating in the water resources and arms control groups of the multilateral peace talks, and pledged $1 million for Palestinian economic development at the donors’ conference held here this past fall, Saran said.
Islamic fundamentalism has been another topic of discussion between the two countries, Arbell said. “We find with India that we have many things in common vis-a-vis Islamic fundamentalism,” he said.
Another reason for optimism in the relationships both between Israel and India and between Jewish and Indian Americans is the lack of a history of anti- Semitism in India.
“There is no history of anti-Semitism per se,” said Mariaschin of B’nai B’rith, so the relationship could “start without that kind of baggage.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
