Are past ties between India and Palestine being eroded? As India and Israel become closer,

Are past ties between India and Palestine being eroded?

As India and Israel become closer, Palestinians in India say they hope New Delhi will continue to support their cause.

Activists from Students Islamic Organisation protest against the Israeli bombing of Gaza in Bangalore

by. Tajul islam

New Delhi, India - Two famous Palestinians flank the office of the vice chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia University (JMI) in south Delhi.

To the left is an auditorium named Edward Said Hall, after the Palestinian American academic, an advocate for the political rights of Palestinians, and a pioneer of post-colonial thought.

Above the doorway of Yasser ArafatHall, which is to the right, an Urdu poem is inscribed on marble. "Though the dead do die they do not perish," it opens, a valediction to Palestine's first president, who died in 2004. For one student on this campus, Maphaz Ahmad Yousef, a 27-year-old postgraduate in the department of Peace and Conflict Resolution, it may as well be a rallying cry.

Maphaz, who came to Delhi from Gazain 2013, explained that Arafat and former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi were "like brother and sister" - a closeness which reflected India's staunch support of Palestine, and which she worries has been eroded during recent years,please see next weak

.