India has never been merely a business destination or a point on the map for me. For many years, I have travelled to the country regularly through my work with Indian companies and business leaders across several sectors. Many of my closest friends are Indian, and my relationship with the country has grown into something far deeper than professional engagement.
India, to me, is a place of balance, calm, curiosity, colour and fragrance. I feel a natural connection to its culture, people, landscapes, food, and remarkable ability to place ancient tradition beside modern innovation. Above all, India represents the capacity to hold an extraordinary diversity of faiths, communities, languages, and customs within one national civilisation. Not always without tension, but with the enduring understanding that difference need not become enmity.
One of the Indian figures I have long admired is Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I have followed his work for years. It is difficult not to be moved by a man who has devoted his life to reducing suffering, reconciling communities, improving physical and mental wellbeing, and spreading a message of peace, compassion, and human responsibility.
It was precisely because of that respect that I took notice when the Palestinian Ambassador to India, Abdullah M. Abu Shawesh, visited the Art of Living International Centre in Bengaluru and joined the evening satsang.
In a separate development, the Government of India has advanced plans for an Indian super-specialty hospital with 200 beds in Jenin, including a modern trauma centre. The ashram visit and the hospital project are separate events. Yet their proximity raises a wider and important question. How can compassion be extended to civilians in need without allowing humanitarian goodwill to be used to obscure responsibility, sanitise denial or generate political legitimacy?
The meeting itself is not objectionable. A spiritual leader committed to peace should not speak only with those who already agree with him. Dialogue often requires an open door, especially when the person entering it carries a difficult or opposing narrative.
Yet public gestures are never entirely weightless. A photograph is not necessarily an endorsement, but symbols travel faster than explanations. When a person of Gurudev’s global moral stature receives a diplomat, the occasion can confer a degree of public legitimacy that extends beyond the simple act of conversation.
That is why the ambassador’s public record matters.
In a lengthy interview published by The Wire on 3 July 2026, Ambassador Abu Shawesh went far beyond criticism of Israeli policy or the conduct of the war in Gaza. Such criticism is legitimate and should be examined seriously. His remarks, however, crossed a different line.
He suggested that responsibility for 7 October did not rest with Hamas alone and implied that Israelis and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were themselves part of what stood behind the attack. He cast doubt on reports of sexual violence and described much of the Western media as being controlled by the Zionist movement.
This is not merely an attempt to place the conflict in historical context. It is a form of denialism that blurs the direct responsibility of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups for crimes they themselves filmed, celebrated, and circulated.
Israel’s failures before and during the attack must be investigated. Israelis themselves have demanded hard answers about the intelligence, security and political failures that left their communities exposed. But a failure to prevent a crime does not transfer responsibility from the perpetrator to the victim. Nor does a long and painful history absolve those who deliberately crossed a border to attack civilians.
History may explain how a conflict was formed. It cannot absolve those who deliberately murder civilians, take hostages, or commit sexual violence.
The core facts of 7 October do not depend solely upon Israeli testimony. Approximately 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led assault, most of them civilians. The victims included Jews, Arab Israelis, and foreign nationals. A total of 251 people were abducted into Gaza, among them women, children, and elderly people.
A United Nations mission found reasonable grounds to believe that rape and gang rape occurred in several locations during the attack. It also found clear and convincing information that hostages were subjected to sexual violence. These are not matters of political interpretation. They are findings grounded in testimony, documentation, and international review.
Ambassador Abu Shawesh represents the Palestinian Authority and the State of Palestine, not Hamas. That distinction is important. It also makes his words more consequential. A diplomat seeking India’s support for his people should be among the first to draw an unambiguous moral line between legitimate Palestinian aspirations and the deliberate murder, abduction, and abuse of civilians.
Instead, his rhetoric, whether intended or not, gives political cover to Hamas. It echoes the organisation’s effort to redirect attention from the perpetrators, cast doubt upon documented atrocities, and portray Israel as the author of its own catastrophe. Hamas is designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other democracies. Lending respectability to its narrative does not advance peace or serve the Palestinian people.
One can support Palestinian civil rights, express anguish over the suffering in Gaza, and criticise Israeli decisions without minimising what Hamas did. Indeed, any credible Palestinian future requires a rejection of the idea that the deliberate targeting of civilians can ever be a legitimate instrument of national struggle.
None of this is an argument against medical assistance. A Palestinian child is not Hamas. A doctor is not Hamas. A patient in need of surgery should not be subjected to a political test before receiving care. Medicine is not a reward reserved for people who hold the correct opinion.
India’s decision to support a hospital in Jenin can therefore be a noble expression of its civilisational commitment to human dignity. The essential question is how India will ensure that the institution it finances remains a hospital in the fullest meaning of the word, dedicated exclusively to healing and protected from military or political exploitation.
The concern is not imaginary. An international commission confirmed that Israeli hostages were brought to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza and that at least two hostages were held in hospitals. It also verified that members of armed groups entered the Al Shifa compound with Israeli vehicles stolen on 7 October. In an earlier conflict, weapons were found inside an UNRWA school in Gaza.
These documented cases do not justify treating every Palestinian hospital or school as suspect. They do, however, establish that misuse of civilian institutions is a real risk and that rigorous safeguards are indispensable.
The Indian hospital in Jenin should become a model of accountable humanitarian assistance. It should include meaningful Indian participation in governance, independent financial and engineering audits, transparent procurement and appointments, regular inspections, and an absolute prohibition on weapons or military infrastructure within or beneath the premises. Funding arrangements should include the authority to suspend support if medical neutrality is violated.
New Delhi should not merely finance the walls. It should protect the purpose they enclose.
Here, Gurudev can play a valuable moral role. It is not his task to conduct a security investigation or formulate India’s foreign policy. His spiritual authority, however, enables him to ask questions that political leaders often prefer to avoid.
There is one question he could place before the Palestinian ambassador with complete clarity: Do you condemn, without qualification, the deliberate murder of civilians, the taking of hostages, and the sexual violence committed by Hamas and other armed groups on 7 October?
No historical lecture can substitute for a direct answer.
Gurudev could also invite families of Israeli victims and hostages to the ashram, alongside Palestinian doctors, civil society representatives, and civilians who reject terrorism. That would transform a symbolic encounter into a dialogue worthy of India’s deepest traditions, one that recognises every innocent life and grants no moral exemption to any party.
Indian civilisation has given the world the principles of Seva, service to others; Satya, truth; and Ahimsa, nonviolence. These principles cannot be separated. Service without truth is vulnerable to exploitation. Truth without compassion can become harsh. Ahimsa that refuses to name violence risks becoming a slogan rather than a moral discipline.
The Indian ideal of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, that the world is one family, cannot be subject to geographical or political exceptions. The Palestinian child who needs medicine and the Israeli mother waiting for her abducted son belong to the same human family.
India does not need to choose between its strategic friendship with Israel and medical assistance to Palestinians. New Delhi has long maintained relations with both sides, recognised Palestine, supported a negotiated two-state solution, and deepened a vital partnership with Israel. That is not a contradiction. It is an expression of India’s independent and mature diplomacy.
But strategic autonomy need not become moral ambiguity. India can build a hospital for Palestinians while demanding an unequivocal rejection of Hamas, the release of all hostages, and binding guarantees that no medical institution will be diverted to military purposes.
Balance does not mean standing at an equal distance from fact and denial, from medical care and its cynical exploitation, or from a victim and the person who deliberately chose to harm that victim.
I believe Gurudev’s intentions are sincere and his commitment to peace is genuine. This is not a call for him to withdraw compassion from Palestinians. It is a respectful appeal to protect that compassion from those who may turn it into an instrument of propaganda and denial.
Peace cannot be built upon the obscuring of truth. Healing does not begin with bricks and equipment alone. It begins with the courage to name violence, recognise the suffering of the other, and ensure that an institution created to save lives is never used to endanger them.
Gurudev, please continue to open your door to the world. But when denial and distortion enter with the guest, make certain that truth is not left waiting outside.