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HT Grand Tamasha: Tracing India’s rise on global stage and its US partnership
The delegation’s leader was Congressman Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who serves as co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans.
In late August, a bipartisan delegation of members of the US Congress traveled to India to build on the momentum of Prime Minister Modi’s historic June visit to America. The delegation—a mix of eight Democrats and Republicans—met with business, technology, and government leaders in Mumbai, Hyderabad, and New Delhi, including observing Modi’s address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15.
Read here: PM Modi, Joe Biden reaffirm ‘close and enduring’ Indo-US partnership. Full statement
The delegation’s leader was Congressman Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who serves as co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans. Khanna reflected on his recent visit on last week’s episode of Grand Tamasha, a weekly podcast co-produced by HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Asked by host Milan Vaishnav to sum up the current mood in India, Khanna noted that he was struck by the feeling of extraordinary national pride. “There’s a feeling of self-confidence…of India being on the march, of India being a nation of equals among other nations, of being a rising power that is finding its voice in the world,” Khanna said.
He contrasted this with the India that he used to visit as a child when he would make the long journey to meet relatives. “I would meet cousins and they would ask [if] I could bring them tennis balls because they did not have access to them in India. There was a sense of aura almost when someone would visit from America. All of that is gone,” he remarked.
Khanna has been an outspoken champion of the US-India partnership, but he has not shied away from expressing concerns about perceived democratic backsliding in India. Asked about religious intolerance, Khanna said Hindus, Muslims, and others “have coexisted for hundreds and hundreds of years. And when you talk to Muslim leaders, they say: ‘Look, it is not at a societal level where we have these challenges.’” But Khanna went on to say that there have been “issues where—for political reasons—some of the divisions have been exploited and there has been fear that has been induced. I have tried to speak out against that, just like I’ve tried to speak out against that happening in the United States.”
Read here: US Congress clears landmark India-US fighter engine deal
On this score, Khanna gave the Biden administration credit for how they’ve managed sensitive questions of democracy and human rights in a bilateral context. “I think they have conveyed those concerns…but I think they have the appropriate humility in conveying those concerns. You can’t give India a lecture. India, a country that is two generations removed from colonialism, is not going to be lectured on human rights when we have imperfections in our own democracy,” stated Khanna, who noted that Donald Trump’s return to the White House is a real possibility. “To me, the tone matters. It has to be a tone of respect as opposed to hectoring. If it is hectoring, it is just going to generate a backlash and India will say: ‘why should we listen to you?’”
