Hours after the Al Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received his first call from a world leader. As Israel’s foreign ministry later recounted, it did not come from Washington, London, or Paris. It came from New Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s open embrace of Israel set the tone for what followed.

Over the course of the genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Indian state provided diplomatic cover. Its media helped manufacture consent. Its arms industry fed Israel’s military supply chain with thousands of shipments of components, munitions, and drones. And as Palestinians were expelled from Israel’s labor market, India sent workers to replace them.

While much of the world’s attention has focused on the West’s role in the genocide, The Architecture of Complicity turns to India, examining how a country that had long presented itself as a voice of the Global South became one of the most consequential, yet least examined, actors in the destruction of Gaza. Drawing on original reporting and unpublished trade data, Azad Essa shows how Gaza became a key site in the consolidation of India’s authoritarian project, revealing the self-described “world’s biggest democracy” in its fascist avatar.