Running on Blood Money: The New York Marathon’s Hidden Ties to Genocide in Gaza 

This Sunday, November 2, over 55,000 runners will traverse all five boroughs of New York City in the TCS New York City Marathon. For the twelfth consecutive year, India’s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)—a multinational information technology company headquartered in Mumbai, India—will function as the event’s title sponsor, channeling millions into its global brand infrastructure. Behind the corporate sponsorship banner lies a darker reality. Through various subsidiaries, the Tata Group manufactures critical components for weapons actively used by the Israeli military and provides digital infrastructure enabling occupation and surveillance of Palestinians. The #DropTCS campaign calls on New York Road Runners to sever ties with a sponsor whose complicity in Gaza’s devastation is now documented.

On October 21, 2025, South Asian Left Activist Movement (SALAM), a New York–based grassroots organization, released a comprehensive 60-page investigative report titled “Architects of Occupation: The Tata Group, Indian Capital, and the India-Israel Alliance,” which documents how the Tata Group provides “the hardware of genocide, the machinery of daily oppression, and the digital backbone of apartheid.” The report details how Indian capital strategically positioned itself as a crucial partner for the Israeli state within a shared military-industrial complex, a role described as deeply intertwined with the burgeoning strategic, economic, and ideological alliance between the Indian and Israeli states. 

The Infrastructure of Genocide

Through Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL), the Tata Group manufactures fuselages for AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and wings for F-16 fighter jets—the primary aircraft deployed by the Israeli Air Force to bombard Gaza. At a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Hyderabad, India, TASL is the global sole source supplier for Apache fuselages, meaning every new Apache helicopter built globally contains Indian-manufactured components. According to the SALAM report, every Apache helicopter deployed by the Israeli military carries a fuselage manufactured by Tata, directly enabling this genocidal air campaign.

Israel operates approximately 48 Apache helicopters, consisting of both AH-64A and AH-64D variants, conducting round-the-clock operations  in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The Israeli Air Force has struck 31,000 targets on multiple fronts in the last two years—up until the ceasefire earlier this month (which Israel has violated numerous times), pilots received orders to engage new targets every five or six minutes. Each carries AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and advanced targeting systems designed to identify and destroy specific buildings, vehicles, and individuals. The operational tempo became so relentless that Israel has recalled retired pilots over age 55 and requested additional helicopters from the United States to sustain combat operations. In September 2025, the Trump administration formally submitted weapons sale proposals to Congress of $6.4 billion for 30 additional AH-64E Apache helicopters—nearly doubling Israel’s current fleet and $1.9 billion for 3,250 infantry assault vehicles for the Israeli army.

While TCS builds a multi-billion dollar brand name off flashy logos and international sporting events, it cannot separate itself from the material conditions of violence that it contributes to.

Through Tata Motors’ ownership of Jaguar Land Rover, the company supplies the foundational chassis for the MDT David, an armored personnel carrier and ubiquitous tool of the Israeli military used for patrols, raids, and the violent suppression of protests in the occupied West Bank. With an estimated 370 units deployed throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the MDT David has become one of the Israeli military’s most essential instruments of occupation. According to extensive research by Who Profits Research Center, these vehicles are deployed for patrol, raids, and violent suppression of Palestinian demonstrations.

Beyond its role in Israel’s military hardware supply chains, TCS provides critical infrastructure to Israel’s surveillance apparatus. Suchitra Vijayan, founder of the Polis Project, a New York-based research and journalism organization focused on documenting state violence and authoritarianism, stressed to Breakthrough News that, “Infrastructure providers cannot claim neutrality since its technical support sustains a system of surveillance, repression and rights abuse.” TCS serves as the crucial middleman in this pipeline.

Through its role in Project Nimbus—a $1.2 billion cloud services contract between Google, Amazon, and the Israeli government—TCS could be providing digital infrastructure for Israeli government bodies. Project Nimbus has drawn international concern for its potential use in surveillance and targeting systems; Israeli forces have deployed AI systems like ‘Lavender’, which reportedly created a kill list containing as many as 37,000 Palestinians targeted for assassination. Additionally, TCS has built the digital backbone of Israel’s settlement-financing banks through its Banking Services Bureau platform, serving institutions named in UN databases for financing illegal Israeli settlements according to the SALAM report. SALAM told BreakThrough News that the stakes of confronting TCS are also about targeting the military-industrial nexus of weapons and tech companies underlying the political alliance between Hindu Nationalists and Zionists. The #DropTCS campaign isn’t simply about one sponsor—it’s about exposing the economic machinery sustaining occupation.

Sportswashing and Corporate Complicity

The TCS sponsorship of the NYC Marathon represents far more than a peripheral marketing opportunity. The New York Marathon is one of the world’s largest mass participation sporting events, attracting over 55,000 runners and more than a million spectators lining the streets of all five boroughs each year. The event receives global media coverage, broadcast to millions across multiple platforms. For TCS, a multinational IT services company with limited consumer-facing presence in the United States, the marathon serves a strategic purpose for their brand visibility and reputation rehabilitation.  

Since 2014, TCS has invested between $30-40 million annually in global running sponsorships, focusing specifically on marathons as its primary marketing vehicle. According to research, this strategy has proven effective. TCS brand familiarity among marathon runners stands at 46%, compared to 16% among non-runners. More significantly, TCS saw consideration increase from 27% among non-runners to 67% among marathon runners—a dramatic uplift that demonstrates the sponsorship’s capacity to reshape corporate perception. TCS’s brand value has soared to $57.3 billion, with the company attributing significant growth to its marathon sponsorship strategy and its position as title sponsor of multiple. 

This is corporate image-making at scale. By aligning itself with an event celebrated as “the best day in New York City” one that emphasizes community, resilience, and human achievement—TCS rehabilitates its public profile. The company presents itself not as a technology services provider involved in surveillance and weapons manufacturing, but as a supporter of athletic excellence and civic pride. 

We are not protesting sport. We are exposing how corporate sponsorship hides genocide behind a finish line.

SALAM told BreakThrough News that the #DropTCS  campaign seeks to directly confront TCS during one of its most important global branding moments. 

Shraddha Joshi, a SALAM member, pointed out there is no such thing as “apolitical” sponsorship: 

“While TCS builds a multi-billion dollar brand name off flashy logos and international sporting events, it cannot separate itself from the material conditions of violence that it contributes to. By choosing TCS as its title sponsor, New York Road Runners (NYRR) is making a clear political choice—one that entails actively endorsing the dispossession and genocide of the Palestinian people.”

New York Road Runners and TCS did not respond to requests for comment from BreakThrough News.

On November 2, SALAM and coalition partners will engage in activist efforts along the marathon route. Rather than calling for a marathon boycott, SALAM invites runners to join the protest by wearing campaign bibs with the #DropTCS message, engaging in banner drops and political education along the route, making phone calls and sending letters to NYRR demanding divestment, and educating their networks about TCS’s complicity. On November 2, solidarity sites will be staffed along the marathon route at Harlem (29th Street & 5th Ave) and Long Island City (2418 Queens Plaza S) from 10 a.m. onwards. 

SALAM clarified the purpose of #DropTCS, explaining that they are bringing key information about the marathon to light:

“We are not protesting sport. We are exposing how corporate sponsorship hides genocide behind a finish line. Hundreds of marathon runners are with us and agree that NYC institutions should not be funded with blood money and the death of Palestinians. We are not adding politics to this beloved sport. We are exposing the politics already embedded in TCS’ sponsorship of the NYC Marathon: the politics of laundering war crimes.”