On Saturday, an attack drone launched by Iran-backed Houthi guerrillas in Yemen struck a commercial tanker in the Red Sea, and another drone—thought to have been launched from Iran itself—hit a chemical tanker off the Indian coast. Both ships’ crews, none of whom were injured, were made up mostly of Indian citizens. India has since dispatched several naval vessels to protect its sea lanes. Meanwhile, there was an explosion near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday. These events suggest that, despite its history of cordial relations with Iran, the world’s largest democracy has reason to see Tehran’s regional aggression as a threat to its own security. And this is happening at a time when Israel and India have been growing closer.
Yeshaya Rosenman observes that Indian popular opinion is moving in the same direction:
Never before October 8 had Israel been flooded with so many Indian reporters. Of the few thousand foreign journalists who rushed to Israel to cover the war, over a hundred arrived from India, including many of the most famous faces of Indian media. . . . Even more unusual than the sheer magnitude of Indian-focused coverage is the fact that Indian media were staunchly supportive of Israel.
Indian Muslims number an estimated 200 million, roughly 15 percent of the 1.4 billion Indians. The majority are not radical. . . . However, the October 28 televised speech of the Hamas leader, Khaled Mashal, to a Jamaat-e-Islami (India’s Muslim Brotherhood) rally was an alarming development. The rally was part of a campaign titled “Uproot Hindutva and Apartheid Zionism.” Hindutva, the ideology of Hindu nationalists—here just a code word for Hindus—was equated with Zionism by Muslim Brotherhood leaders in a candid attempt to export Hamas ideology and methods to India.
Read more on Hashiloach: https://en.hashiloach.org.il/india-and-israel-a-crucial-alliance/