New Delhi: A group of diaspora activists have launched a movement in the US alleging that the Tata Group is complicit in Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine.
The Middle East Eye has reported that the New York City-based South Asian Left (Salam) has held that the Tata Consultancy Services or TCS subsidiary of the Tata Group is responsible for playing a “critical role in enabling Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime”.
Tata, Salam has alleged, has multiple business ties with the Israeli government, including in manufacturing weapons as well as in providing IT and cloud services for the Israeli military.
The group have launched a movement called ‘Tata Bye Bye’ ahead of the New York City Marathon, of which TCS is a lead sponsor. The group has asked New York Road Runners which organises the marathon, to drop TCS, identifying it as a “Zionist entity.”
“As long as TCS maintains ties with Israel’s military, the NYRR is complicit in legitimizing Tata’s role in upholding apartheid. This is why we demand that @nycmarathon cut ties with @TataCompanies,” Salam has posted on X.
The report notes that the organisers stressed that Tata’s “benevolent image” – in employs close to 50,000 people in North America – is used by the company to whitewash serious crimes, like the Project Nimbus, which provides cloud storage for the Israeli government and over which Google employees have staged protests too.
The project equips the Israeli army with AI strengths, which workers believe it has used in its strikes on Palestine, which have been described as “genocidal.”
The report notes that in addition to TCS, the Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) has also been closely involved with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) since at least 2008.
India and Indian companies’ ties with Israel have been criticised within the country as well.
