India's Punjab state and farmers unions express solidarity with Iran amid government silence
The state government of Punjab held a moment of silence in solidarity with the Iranian people last week, becoming the first and only Indian state assembly to collectively condemn the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The act of solidarity marks a sharp contrast from how US and Israeli attacks have been met with silence and even tacit support by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's central government.
In a recording of the state's budgetary session published by the government of Punjab, Sukhwinder Kumar Sukhi, a member of the Legislative Assembly, decried the attacks that began on 28 February, particularly the strike on a school that killed around 165 children, an act he called "inhuman".
A growing body of evidence suggests the school was attacked by the US military.
"Many doctors and patients in the hospital were killed and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was also killed," Sukhi noted, according to a translation by Indian news platform The Wire.
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"I condemn what the Trump government did, and I pay my tributes. I urge you, if possible, to pay tribute to them."
Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan, who was convening the session, then called on the assembly to rise and observe a moment of silence for those killed.
Sukhi told The Wire that in raising this issue at the Punjab state level, he was attempting to "wake up other governments too".
The Punjab state assembly action came alongside condemnations from state-level politicians from across India who expressed solidarity with the Iranian people and decried US-Israel aggression at the onset of the war.
On 2 March, the chief minister of the southern Indian state of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, denounced the US-Israeli attacks, calling on the central government to take action.
"Shouldn’t we be condemning these attacks unequivocally? The imperialist forces have done things which no other country would dare to do," he said.
Karnataka state chief minister Siddaramaiah similarly described the attacks as "unnecessary" and condemned the "double standard of the United States", according to Indian sources.
While the Indian foreign secretary met with the Iranian ambassador in New Delhi last week, Modi's government has yet to make any official remarks about the war on Iran or the killing of Khamenei.
The US-Israeli attacks came just two days after Modi's state visit to Israel, where he embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and vowed to tighten cooperation with his counterpart.
Modi was also honoured at Israel's parliament, where he expressed his support for Israel and its people, drawing criticism from Indian opposition and international commentators who objected to the sentiments, particularly following the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
The Indian government has pursued increased proximity to Israel under the Modi government, escalating arms deals and economic cooperation, and entering partnerships such as the I2U2, between India, Israel, the UAE and the US.
On Tuesday, thousands of farmers across Punjab also expressed solidarity with Iran in a demonstration against a recent US-India trade deal.
The secretary-general of the Bharatiya Kisan Union Dakaunda, Jagmohan Singh, told Indian news outlet Scroll that "both the US-Israel war on Iran and the trade deal are anti-farmer".
The demonstration came after the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a national coalition of farmers' organisations, led a 7 March protest against the "war unleashed on Iran by US and Israel", referring to the US as the "biggest enemy of world peace" in a statement reported by Scroll.
All India Kisan Sabha, the farmer's wing of the Communist Party of India, also held a protest in Chennai against the US-India deal and the "imperialist" war on Iran in early March.
Middle East Eye has previously reported on the role of Israeli policing tactics and training as a means to suppress farmers' protests in Punjab and Haryana.
Despite New Delhi's silence, student groups and civil society organisations in Punjab have continued to protest the US-Israel war and the impact of American trade deals on Indian agriculture, local media has reported.
Protests in solidarity with Palestine and Iran and against US-Israeli aggression have also persisted in Indian-occupied Kashmir, where the Indian military has responded with repression and force.
On Friday, as many Kashmiri Shia and others worldwide marked Al-Quds Day in solidarity with the Palestinian people, Indian authorities closed the Jamia Masjid, the largest mosque in Srinagar, and implemented restrictions on Shia areas in the occupied valley, according to reports from The Wire.
In a post on X, Kashmiri chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq likened the Indian military's shutdown of Jamia Masjid to the ongoing Israeli closure of Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque throughout the holy month of Ramadan.
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