USAID In India Issue Is Turning Bizarre With Every Passing Day

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar never seems to finish his thoughts. People might mistake him to be a hesitant hacker. But that isn’t the case. EAM Jaishankar is the second longest serving foreign minister after Jawaharlal Nehru, who kept the external affairs portfolio with him, for the entirety of his tenure as the Prime Minister of India.

“It would suggest that there are activities which have a certain objective out there, to push a narrative or a viewpoint,” Jaishankar said on the USAID row. “USAID Was Allowed Here In Good Faith.” The $21 million “Voter Turnout Fund” earmarked for India was scrapped by Trump’s DOGE led by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.

President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE has disrupted the workings of the United States and Trump’s got the title ‘Disruptor-in-Chief’. Guess what, a Harvard poll says the majority of American voters are more satisfied with President Trump than they were with President Joe Biden.

President Trump’s approval rating stood at 52% as 58% of voters are “more satisfied” with Trump, says the Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll. And 72% are “supportive” of having a government agency such as DOGE, which is “focused on efficiency initiatives.”

So much for President Trump and ‘Disrupter-in-Chief.’ Americans who voted for Trump are solidly behind him as he goes about draining the Washington Swamp, a poll-promise going back nearly 10 years. Americans who voted for Trump are happy, even those who voted for Kamala Harris are willing to give Trump time to settle in his job.

Indian detractors can take a hike and stop hyperventilating like their trousers were on fire! Trump is only doing his job, fulfilling the mandate given to him by American voters. Trump garnered over 76 million votes on promises he made to his constituency of diehard MAGA voters and other Americans who wanted zilch to do with President Joe Biden and Democrat candidate Kamala Harris.

Biden and Harris have moved on but Indians of a certain bent are mad at President Trump for daring to disrupt global politics. These Indian interlocutors of President Trump are as if they had voted Donald Trump to power to pursue their goals and were now being denied their pound of flesh.

It is under such circumstances that EAM Jaishankar is the USAID the benefit of doubt. Subramanyam Jaishankar has been a fixture in India’s foreign affairs apparatus through the decades when USAID operated in India with impunity and no questions asked. In fact, Jaishankar would know a whole lot more about USAID than most others in the Modi government.

And President Trump is point-blank blaming USAID for splurging US taxpayer money to line pockets in places around the world including in India. Trump wants USAID out of the gated-community. He is angry USAID had been bleeding American dollars, asking Trump-esque questions for which answers are taking their own sweet time coming.

President Donald Trump is not like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and EAM S. Jaishankar must know this better and plainer than the average Indian Foreign Service officer. President Trump will keep disrupting Prime Minister Modi and EAM Jaishankar questioning them about what they did with the info on the $21 million he excised from USAID grants.

President Trump will disrupt and disrupt, keep disrupting till his goals are met. Trump met Prime Minister Modi and told him in good faith that there were forces out there to “replace him” and the $21 million was intended to fund the effort. The question is, has the revelation sounded the alarm in the Modi government?

“Your security can be threatened without you leaving your house… I think some information has been put out there by the Trump administration people and obviously that is concerning…It would suggest that there are activities which have a certain objective out there, to push a narrative or a viewpoint,” Jaishankar told a bunch of Delhi University students, suggesting that the Modi government was looking into Trump’s revelation and that his “sense” was that the facts would come out.

When? The question has been roiling media and common folk even as President Donald Trump kept repeating his thoughts on the USAID grant and his allegation that Prime Minister Modi was in the crosshairs. So will the facts come tumbling out, will Prime Minister Modi order time-bound action, will the “crooks” who profited from USAID largesse be named and shamed?

The US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), perhaps the most revolutionary of President Trump’s executive actions, has put out a list of “cancelled US taxpayer-funded initiatives”, including the $21 million set aside for boosting “voter turnout” in India.

But the ice-cool S. Jaishankar isn’t alarmed, shocked or surprised, a mite angry or betrayed, perhaps. “Now, I read saying so-and-so dealt with USAID or so-and-so. Look, it’s not a question of do you deal with USAID or not. USAID was allowed – has been here historically. But USAID was allowed here in good faith, to do good faith activities. Suggestions are (now) being made out of America that there are activities which are in bad faith. So, it surely warrants a look.”

The problem is, Jaishankar is only thinking, not resolving, “I think the country should know who are the people involved in the bad faith activities.” So, the question remains, does the Modi government and the BJP want the names of the “crooks” revealed? All that is heard is that the “Bharatiya Janata Party itself” was seeking a probe.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has called the fund “kickbacks” and that might be worrying for the Modi administration. “Kickbacks” can be devastating for everybody concerned. The Trump administration wants to lead the Modi government by the nose for the ace in the hole but the Modi-friendly mainstream Indian media are making all the noise leading to nowhere and to no one except to “deep state assets” of the USA.

In other words, Joe Biden’s “deep state” is still active and President Trump should be thinking of himself instead of worrying about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. President Trump called the now nixed USAID grant of $21 million a “kickback scheme”.

One Indian media outlet, running contrary to the flow, linked the $29 million USAID grant to Bangladesh to the $21 million grant to India saying Trump fumbled, but there was a separate USAID grant of $29 million, which too now stands obliterated. The question is, how widespread is that part of the scam which relates to USAID and Indian journalists?

Reports are that the Enforcement Directorate and other Modi government agencies have started probing USAID’s tentacles in India and identifying Indian entities and individuals who took USAID funds to peddle influence in India. Reports say those being investigated include non-profits, social workers, media firms and individual journalists, all of them in violation of anti-money laundering laws. A section of the media have labeled them traitors and “name the crooks” has become a war-cry. (IPA Service)