A Conversation with Azad Essa: Author of Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel

<p>On this episode of SWANA Region Radio we welcome Azad Essa, author of the very timely and important book, <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745345017/hostile-homelands/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel</a> out earlier this year from Pluto Press. The publisher shares: </p> <p><em>Under Narendra Modi, India has changed dramatically. As the world attempts to grapple with its trajectory towards authoritarianism and a &#39;Hindu Rashtra&#39; (Hindu State), little attention has been paid to the linkages between Modi&#39;s India and the governments from which it has drawn inspiration, as well as military and technical support.</em></p> <p><em>India once called Zionism racism, but, as Azad Essa argues in his book Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel, the state of Israel has increasingly become a cornerstone of India&#39;s foreign policy. Looking to replicate the &#39;ethnic state&#39; in the image of Israel in policy and practice, the annexation of Kashmir increasingly resembles Israel&#39;s settler-colonial project of the occupied West Bank. The ideological and political linkages between the two states are alarming; their brands of ethnonationalism deeply intertwined.</em></p> <p><em>Hostile Homelands puts India&#39;s relationship with Israel in its historical context, looking at the origins of Zionism and Hindutva; India&#39;s changing position on Palestine; and the countries&#39; growing military-industrial relationship from the 1990s.</em></p> <p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/azad-essa">Azad Essa</a> is an award-winning journalist and author based between Johannesburg and New York City. He is currently a senior reporter for Middle East Eye covering American foreign policy, Islamophobia and race in the US. He is the author of <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/9789350294390/Moslems-Coming-Encounters-Desktop-Terrorist-9350294397/plp">The Moslems are Coming</a> and <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/978192