The Delhi Police on Friday detained economist Jean Drèze, Communist Party of India leader Annie Raja, among others, during a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and urging the Indian government to cut ties with Israel.
The protestors, who included activists and social scientists as part of the Indians for Palestine collective, alleged that they were detained by the police despite having informed them about the gathering.
They were detained as they were marching towards the Israeli embassy in the national capital, The Wire reported. “We did not even shout slogans but were standing silently with banners,” Drèze told the news website. “Unfortunately, [the] police detained us.”
Israel’s military offensive against Gaza began on October 7 after the Palestinian militant group Hamas invaded southern Israel, killing 1,200 persons and taking over 200 hostages.
Since October, Israel has been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes on Gaza. The attacks have killed more than 40,300 persons, including over 15,000 children.
In a statement, the collective said the “complicity” of the Indian government and “some public and private sector companies” in the “ongoing genocide in Gaza” is well known.
“We have heard of Adani Defence and Aerospace Ltd., but there are other culprits as well – Munitions India and Premier Explosive, in addition to the [Indian] government itself which has approved not just the provision of militarised cargo to Israel but also the shipment of Indian workers to Israel, a move that puts their lives at risk,” the collective alleged.
In February, reports claimed that New Delhi was supplying Israel with drones manufactured in Hyderabad. This was part of a joint venture between Israel’s Elbit Systems and industrialist Gautam Adani’s Adani Group.
In May, Spain had denied permission to an Israel-bound ship carrying arms from Chennai to stop over at the Cartagena port in the country’s southeast. The Danish-flagged ship was carrying 27 tonnes of explosive material from Chennai to a port in Israel’s Haifa.
India has so far neither confirmed nor denied supplying weapons to Israel.
In November, reports also stated that the construction industry in Israel had asked the Indian government to allow companies to recruit one lakh Indian workers to replace the 90,000 Palestinians whose work permits had been cancelled since Israel’s war on Gaza started in October.
In April, the Israeli government announced that over 6,000 construction workers from India would arrive in Israel over the next month. The workers from India were being sent to Israel under a government-to-government agreement between the two countries.
On Friday, the collective said that India was committed to various international laws and treaties that prevented it from supplying military weapons to countries involved in alleged war crimes.
“Under the Genocide Convention, which India has signed and ratified, India is required to take all possible steps to prevent genocide,” the statement said. “This means that India cannot export military equipment or weapons to Israel if there’s a serious risk that these weapons might be used to commit war crimes.”
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalises genocide.
The statement added that as per the convention, a country that was complicit in genocide could also be held accountable for it. “Therefore, we Indians for Palestine, demand the immediate stoppage of arms supply to Israel and the end of all official ties between India and Israel for the time being.”
The collective also urged Indians to boycott companies and products that support the illegal occupation of Palestine by Israel and “take action in line with the BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement”.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions is a global nonviolent movement to pressurise Tel Aviv into withdrawing from the Palestinian territories it has occupied and abide by human rights laws.
Multiple countries, including South Africa, have accused Israel of carrying out genocidal acts during its war on Gaza. In January, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take measures to prevent genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Also read: Why there is no legal basis for India’s crackdown on pro-Palestine protests
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