Alliance of South Asians Statement on Palestine

ASATA’s statement
ASATA Statement on Palestine | October 2023

The Alliance of South Asians Taking Action stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine in the face of the current escalation of violence unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank. Over the last two weeks, ASATA members looked to the leadership of Palestinian activists in the San Francisco Bay Area who continue to lead protests that lift up the unrelenting resistance of those living under violent occupation. 

As we mobilized for direct actions and joined the call for Palestinian liberation, we also deepened our understanding of how the state of Israel’s settler colonial tactics are proliferated and being replicated in the Indian government’s violent occupation of Kashmir. As part of a diverse South Asian Diaspora, ASATA members clearly see the close relationship between Hindutva (Hindu Nationalism) and Zionist ideologies. As South Asians, we challenge all forms of imperialism. Thus, we oppose Zionism, a settler colonial project displacing indigenous Palestinians, resulting in the world’s largest diasporic refugee population. 

The current close relationship between India and Israel has enabled a security regime where India has adopted Israeli tactics of collective punishment (such as the arbitrary revocation of residency and citizenship rights, arbitrary detention, statewide suspension of internet, etc.) in its occupation of Kashmir.  The deployment of the Israeli hacking software Pegasus to spy on Indian journalists, lawyers, activists, academics, supreme court judges, opposition politicians, and many others must be seen in the context of the announcement by India and Israel that cyber security is a key area of cooperation between them. The NSO group, an Israeli firm that’s an expert in cyber surveillance, has in effect abetted the Indian government’s surveillance of its own citizens as it has done in a dozen other countries.  

The Israeli government’s alliance with and support of the BJP’s Hindutva agenda is part of a longer history where it has exported its violent policies and military tactics to South Asia in order to suppress resistance movements there. For example, The New York Times has reported that as early as the 1980s, Israeli intelligence agents trained their Sri Lankan counterparts in their fight against Tamil groups. Israeli human rights lawyer Eitay Mack has raised questions about Israel’s more recent role in war crimes committed during the Sri Lankan civil war, and has called for criminal investigations into the involvement of Israeli companies, officials, and individuals. 

India’s embrace of Israel is polarizing the Indian-American diaspora, and has exacerbated the islamophobia of those who subscribe to the toxic ideology of Hindutva. The US-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) is modeled after AIPAC and the AJC, and the Hindutva lobby’s use of the accusation of “Hinduphobia” to shut down critical discourse is inspired by the Zionist lobby’s success in silencing critics of Israel’s policies by weaponizing charges of anti-semitism.  

The BJP’s fearsome “IT Cell” is a massive disinformation machine that amplifies Hindutva propaganda through an army of paid employees and volunteers that flood social media with fake news, and through a large-scale use of bots that power harassment and trolling campaigns. Many accounts known to push Hindutva content are now being used to spread disinformation about Hamas while continuing their systematic spreading of islamophobic content. 

Indeed, as documented by BOOM, one of India’s most reputable fact-checking websites, India is now one of the largest sources for disinformation targeting Palestinians negatively. We call on fellow South Asians in the diaspora to condemn the demonization of Palestinians, and ensure we do not contribute to the spread of disinformation and anti-Muslim hate. 

We take inspiration from the women of India’s National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW) who have declared their solidarity with Palestinians —  invoking the “historic oppression” and “systematic dehumanization” that both communities have faced. 

We are also in solidarity with the many anti-Zionist Jewish groups and individuals both within Israel and world-wide that are opposing the Israeli state’s attacks on Palestine, and its long standing policy of apartheid against the Palestinian people.  

We call on our fellow South Asians and South Asia- led organizations in the United States to reject the “both sides” argument that invisiblizes the experiences and dignity of the Palestinian people. We call for an immediate ceasefire and end to the ongoing siege and genocide in Gaza. We call on the US to stop arming the Israeli apartheid regime with billions’ of dollars worth of weaponry. And finally, We invite our communities to embrace the ways our histories of anti-imperialist struggles are connected so that we may build power and protect our communities against anti-Musilm hate violence and state-sponsored terrorism. Free Palestine!