Careful, Ambassador Garcetti, much depends on your success

Will Ambassador Garcetti address the serious threats to India's security from the Taliban and the CCP, or will he follow Ambassador Rahm Emanuel and push a radical transgender ideology via USAID grants, while posting cheerful videos about the marvels of Indian cuisine?

- MAURA MOYNIHAN

Since arriving in New Delhi on 24 March 2023, US Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti has launched a lively Twitter feed, posting about Gujarati street food, dinner with Shahrukh Khan in Mumbai, sharing a video from a Tamil bistro in New Delhi set to a jazz pop soundtrack, where he described eating off a banana leaf with his hands, saying, “They say the best way to someone’s heart is through their stomach, so Chennai, today you’ve got my heart.” While it is encouraging to see the new US envoy expressing enthusiasm for Indian culture and cuisine, Ambassador Garcetti also needs to address weightier strategic and policy matters between India and the United States.

Garcetti has pledged to address the backlog of US visas applications by Indian citizens, and the slowdown in green card processing for Indians residing in the US. On 8 June 2023, the new envoy posted: “This summer, we’re on track to process the highest number of Indian student visa applications in the history of this Mission. Go Team Consular!” It remains to be seen if the Biden State Department will honour this pledge, as for many years Chinese nationals have far outnumbered Indian students at US universities. When Biden was Obama’s Vice President, US Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, Gary Locke tweeted about his success in quadrupling visas for Chinese applicants, as visas for Indian citizens sharply declined.