WASHINGTON, DC — Tata, India's largest conglomerate is "at the heart" of the India-Israel military alliance and "fundamentally embedded in the architecture of [Israeli] occupation, surveillance, and dispossession" of Palestinians, according to a new report released by US-based activists.
The report, Architects of Occupation: The Tata Group, Indian Capital, and the India-Israel Alliance, released by Salam, a South Asian political collective, in New York, called the Indian business empire "a key enabler" of Israel's system of control over Palestinians.
Tata's involvement spans across the arms, defence, and digital technology sectors, the research says.
"The conglomerate's complicity is comprehensive, providing the hardware of genocide, the machinery of daily oppression, and the digital backbone of apartheid. Through its subsidiary, Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL), it is a core global provider of wings for all new F-16 fighter jets and fuselages for all AH-64 Apache attack helicopters — the primary aircraft used by the Israeli Air Force to bombard Gaza," the report prepared by Salam states.
TASL, through its partnership with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), also manufactures the critical command systems for the Barak-8 missile, a weapon actively deployed by the Israeli Navy, the report shows.
In the automotive sector, Tata Motors, through its subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover, supplies the foundational chassis for MDT David light armoured vehicles, used by Israeli forces in patrols, raids, and crowd suppression across the occupied West Bank, the report claims.
Tata's contributions are not neutral business ventures but "core components of Israel's hardware of genocide and machinery of daily oppression."
On the digital front, the study says, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) provides crucial infrastructure to Israel's financial and governmental systems, including involvement in Project Nimbus, a controversial cloud computing programme that supports Israeli surveillance and control of Palestinians.
As of now, the Tata Group has not issued a response to Salam's report.
An expanding corporate-military nexus
Tata's business operations are "not isolated economic partnerships but integrated within Israel’s occupation economy and global war industries."
The findings place Tata in a developing defence network connecting India, Israel, and the United States.
"The deep integration into Israel's state apparatus is amplified by Tata's crucial role in the global defence-industrial network," the report reads, adding that components made in India have been used in American wars in the Middle East.
From drones over disputed Kashmir to fighter jets over besieged Gaza, "the imprint of Tata's metal and code is present under the surface," says the report.
Despite global embargoes, Israel benefits from India's arms production, while India seeks self-reliance using Israeli tech, and Tata profits from this arrangement, the group's report says.
'A textbook case of sportswashing'
The group accuses Tata of shielding operations by cultivating a benevolent image, leveraging philanthropic trusts and a US presence.
"This strategy of reputation-laundering culminates in its title sponsorship of the New York City Marathon, a textbook case of sportswashing designed to mask its role in profiting from genocide," Salam argues.
Since the summer of 2024, Salam says, it has organised a #TataByeBye campaign "to expose and dismantle this war economy, which is not distant but rooted in the very geographies we organise in."
The report frames Tata's operations within the growing India-Israel ties, especially in defence, tech, and intelligence.
India is now the largest buyer of Israeli arms, and Tata's multiple subsidiaries play a central role in maintaining that flow.
A recent report by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese recorded that between October 2023 and October 2025, India was among the 26 states that exported arms and ammunition to Israel, despite widespread allegations of war crimes and genocide in Gaza.
Critics say that Indian firms aided Israel's genocide in Gaza by supplying drones, munitions, and workers, replacing Palestinian labour.
Salam's report also traces India–Israel alliance from covert arms deals in the 1960s to today's formalised "strategic partnership," forged under far-right Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and extremist Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The India-Israel partnership is built on the mutual interests of a capitalist class seeking new markets, an Indian state pursuing regional dominance, and a bedrock of shared ideological leanings between Zionism and Hindu nationalism (Hindutva)," the report says. – Courtesy TRT World