Navarro’s ‘Brahmin’ remarks reflect utter ignorance: Suhag A. Shukla

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro’s recent remarks that “Brahmins” are “profiteering” off India’s oil trade with Russia are “at best, a reflection of his utter ignorance” and “at worst, plainly racist”, says Suhag A. Shukla, executive director of the Hindu American Foundation, a non-profit advocacy organisation.

With U.S. cities like Seattle and Fresno including caste in their anti-discrimination Ordinances, and California becoming among the first States in the country to ban caste discrimination, the Hindu American Foundation has been at the forefront of resisting ongoing efforts to have caste explicitly recognised as a protected class in the U.S.

The gist of its arguments has been that making caste-based discrimination an offence by recognising it as a part of the Hindu faith was going to create a category of offence that would invariably exclusively target Hindus, which they argued was discriminatory against Hindus. A California court in July this year refused to accept this argument.

Responding to a questionnaire from The Hindu on Mr. Navarro’s remarks, Ms. Shukla said the White House adviser was “framing complex international issues with inaccurate and reductive orientalist stereotypes”. She said the remarks were made within a week of Mr. Navarro posting a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in saffron robes, meditating, “implying that India’s choices are somehow irrational, backwards, or uncivilized”.

“Rather than basing his arguments for tariffs on logic or sound reasoning, as any American public official should, he’s showing a preference towards sycophancy combined with racist colonial stereotypes,” she said.

Ms. Shukla said that while the HAF is not scheduled to issue a public statement on these remarks, it “may consider communicating our concerns directly to the Administration”. She said there had also been a “disturbing spike” in hate speech against Indians online from the “far right”, rhetoric that she argued was “recycled caste tropes originally pushed by the far left”.

Within hours of Mr. Navarro’s remarks, which he made during a Fox News interview on U.S.-India trade relations on Monday, a debate broke out in India about what he meant, how deliberate his remarks were, and what was the level of his understanding of caste, with political leaders from both the BJP and Opposition parties commenting on this.

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey implied that Mr. Navarro’s rhetoric came from the “ignorance script” of the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, while Trinamool Congress leaders insisted that the White House adviser meant to refer to a general elite, equivalent to American terms like “Boston Brahmins”. Congress leader Pawan Khera condemned Mr. Navarro’s remarks.

Dalit leader and MP Chandra Shekhar Azad, while asserting his wish to reject comments by foreign leaders on India’s “internal affairs”, also took this opportunity to speak about studies that had demonstrated how wealth, resources, and power remain concentrated in the country among a very small number of castes. And yet, other commentators on social media reckoned Mr. Navarro was confusing “Brahmins” and “Baniyas”.

Amid this, Ms. Shukla also reacted to Mr. Navarro’s remarks on the social media platform X, where she said Indians “heard” his remarks as “a slur”, further arguing that his comment on “Brahmins” was akin to an Indian trade negotiator saying, “I want Americans to understand what is going on. Jews are profiteering by buying Russian oil at the expense of the American people.”

In her email response to The Hindu’s questions, Ms. Shukla said there was “shock and offense” among Indians over Mr. Navarro’s remarks, adding that for “observers like us at the Foundation (HAF)”, it was “not surprising”.

“False and negative stereotypes about Indian and Hindus persist through our education systems — elementary and secondary, as well as post-secondary — where India is too often reduced to a land of rituals and superstition, social backwardness, and moral degradation,” she said.

“Moreover, we’ve witnessed a disturbing spike in hateful rhetoric online towards Indian immigrants from far right figures. But the fact is they often recycle caste tropes originally pushed by the far left, especially in recent years as fringe South Asian activists have pushed for discriminatory caste policies that would single out and target only people of Indian origin,” she said.

Reacting to some political leaders insisting that Mr. Navarro meant to refer to an elite class in India, much like the term “Boston Brahmins” was used at one point in New England, Ms. Shukla said, “The attempts to rationalise his remarks by some in India that he was referring to “Boston Brahmins” — which is such an obscure and outdated phrase that’s rarely used here — are way off mark and seem driven more by politics than principle.”