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Under Narendra Modi, India has changed dramatically. As the world attempts to grapple with its trajectory towards authoritarianism and 'Hindutva' (Hindu Nationalism), little attention has been paid to the linkages between Modi's India and the governments from which it has drawn inspiration, as well as military and technical support.

India once called Zionism racism, but, as Azad Essa argues, the state of Israel has increasingly become a cornerstone of India's foreign policy. Looking to replicate the 'ethnic state' in the image of Israel in policy and practice, the annexation of Kashmir increasingly resembles Israel's settler-colonial project of the occupied West Bank. The ideological and political linkages between the two states are alarming; their brands of ethnonationalism are deeply intertwined.

Hostile Homelands puts India's relationship with Israel in its historical context, looking at the origins of Zionism and Hindutva; India's changing position on Palestine; and the countries' growing military-industrial relationship from the 1990s. Lucid and persuasive, Essa demonstrates that the India-Israel alliance spells significant consequences for democracy, the rule of law, and justice worldwide.

Azad Essa is a senior reporter for Middle East Eye based between Johannesburg and New York City. He has written for The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and The Guardian, among others.

“Formidable and timely. Azad Essa lays bare the historically malignant roots of an often overlooked and underestimated kinship between two ideologies, Zionism and Hindutva, hungry for land and hungrier for dominance.”
-Mohammed El-Kurd