New Delhi must look for formal, institutional statements issued directly from Washington rather than rely on casual pronouncements meant for local audiences, notes Ambassador Rajasekhar.
Key Points
- US Ambassador Sergio Gor's Srinagar remarks praised Kashmir's security and reaffirmed Jammu and Kashmir's integration with India.
- Diplomatic statements by ambassadors should not automatically be interpreted as formal changes in their governments' foreign policy.
- Washington's tariffs, trade investigations and engagement with Pakistan indicate continuing tensions within India-US relations.
- The 1971 War showed how ambassadorial warmth could coexist with sharply different White House calculations.
- India should assess Washington's policy through institutional decisions and actions rather than diplomatic rhetoric or public pleasantries.
The aphorism coined by the 17th-century English diplomat Sir Henry Wotton remains an enduring truth of international relations: 'An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.'
While modern diplomacy prefers the terms 'public diplomacy', 'strategic communication', or 'soft power', the fundamental objective has not changed over the centuries.
Diplomats are dispatched to foreign capitals not to be objective commentators or neutral observers, but to relentlessly advance the strategic, economic, and political interests of their home countries.
A primary tool in this endeavour is the art of pleasing the host. Flattery, praise, and optimistic projections are the staple diet of diplomatic discourse.
Therefore, a host nation must always analyse such diplomatic statements within their proper context, especially when these assertions are at variance and not formally confirmed by the sending government's capital.
The necessity of separating diplomatic text from geopolitical context was just highlighted during Wednesday's tour of Srinagar by United States Ambassador Sergio Gor.
While assessing the local landscape, Ambassador Gor delivered a series of statements that were music to Indian ears.
He explicitly noted that Jammu and Kashmir are an integral part of India, indicated that his office would relook at the discouraging travel advisories currently dampening regional tourism, praised the significantly improved security situation on the ground, and pointed toward a deeper, more robust strategic engagement with New Delhi.
To the untrained eye, or to a media landscape hungry for external validation, these remarks seemed to signal a monumental shift in Washington's South Asia policy.
However, a closer look at the messenger and the mechanism reveals a far more complex reality. Ambassador Gor is a political appointee, a close confidante of President Donald Trump, someone who serves entirely at the pleasure of the president.
In the American system, political appointees often use grand, sweeping rhetoric to build immediate rapport with host populations, sometimes speaking in personal capacities or offering what legal parlance is obiter dicta -- incidental remarks that lack the binding force of official State policy/gravitas.
While Ambassador Gor was spreading goodwill in Srinagar, the institutional machinery in Washington has been executing a policy framework that tells a vastly different story.
The structural reality of the bilateral relationship reveals a series of actions deeply damaging India's core interests.
On the economic front, New Delhi has been slapped with aggressive tariffs, disrupting trade flows and souring commercial relations.
Concurrently, several key sectors of Indian exports have been placed under intense scrutiny and investigation on charges of child labour and unfair trade practices.
Furthermore, much to India's chagrin, Washington continues to court Pakistan whenever tactical geopolitical needs arise, signaling that the traditional hyphenation of South Asian policy is far from dead.
This institutional coldness is occasionally mirrored in public rhetoric from the highest levels of the American political establishment, where India has been abruptly characterised as a 'hellhole' or a 'dead economy' when domestic political points need to be scored.
Clearly, in terms of structural policy, India has faced a functional downgrade.
The 1971 Lesson For India
This disconnect between an ambassador's sweet talk and a capital city's bitter actions is a recurring pattern.
A striking precedent occurred during the lead-up to the 1971 War. At the time, the US ambassador to India, Kenneth Keating, maintained an extremely cordial and empathetic relationship with New Delhi.
He privately and publicly expressed deep sympathy for India's burden regarding the massive influx of refugees from East Pakistan and praised India's democratic resilience.
Yet, simultaneously, the White House -- under President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger -- was engineering the famous 'tilt' toward Pakistan.
Washington was secretly using Islamabad as a backchannel to open relations with China, completely disregarding Ambassador Keating's warnings and India's security anxieties.
Keating's pleasantries meant nothing when measured against the cold, global strategy being calculated in the Oval Office.
Similarly, during the Cold War, American envoys frequently assured New Delhi of Washington's deep respect for Indian non-alignment and democratic values.
Yet, behind the scenes, the United States consistently blocked Indian interests in multilateral forums and heavily armed regional adversaries.
The moral from these historical examples is clear: An ambassador's primary function during public tours is to manage impressions and soothe local anxieties, while the actual levers of foreign policy remain firmly controlled by the institutional deep state and political leadership back home.
Strangely, large segments of the Indian print and electronic media got carried away by Ambassador Gor's platitudes. Headlines celebrated the statements as a definitive triumph for Indian diplomacy, completely failing to look through the rhetoric to grasp its proper context and import.
To equate an ambassador's local tour commentary with a formal shift in US foreign policy betrays nativity and a lack of strategic insight.
It overlooks the reality that a change in a country's official stance on a sensitive geopolitical issue like Jammu and Kashmir requires formal, written declarations from the State Department or the White House, not a passing verbal assurance during a guided tour.
For India, the stakes are too high to mistake diplomatic charm for structural transformation.
Relations with the United States are among the most critical bilateral ties. Because these relations are so vital, misreading the signals can be costly.
If India alters its strategic calculations based merely on such pleasantries, it risks being caught off guard when Washington enforces harsh economic sanctions, imposes trade barriers, or shifts its geopolitical alliances.
Hope New Delhi adopts a realist framework in its diplomatic assessments. India will do well to go rather by actions, not pleasantries.
It must look for formal, institutional statements issued directly from Washington rather than rely on casual pronouncements meant for local audiences.
In the theatre of international relations, words are mere tools, but policy actions -- such as tariffs, trade investigations, and strategic treaties -- are the true currency of statecraft.
Recognising the profound difference between the text of an ambassador's speech and the context of a capital's actions is not just a sign of diplomatic maturity; it is a necessity for national survival.
Ambassador Rajasekhar served in the Orient and as Director East Asia at the ministry of external affairs.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
