MUMBAI – The trade spat between the U.S. and India is getting more complicated since White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro keeps saying that “Brahmins are profiting” from the Indian people. The statements, which were made in defense of President Donald Trump’s 50% duty on Indian imports, have caused a lot of anger in India.
Harsh Goenka, an Indian billionaire and Chairman of RPG Group, tweeted a direct response to Navarro’s comments, calling out the U.S. official by name. Goenka disagreed with Navarro by naming some of India’s most well-known business families that are not from the Brahmin community.
Goenka wrote, “Dear Peter Navarro, Brahmins don’t run India’s boardrooms.” “Tata? Not a Brahmin. Dependence? Not a Brahmin. Mahindra? Not a Brahmin. What is Wipro? Not Brahmin. Birla? Not Brahmin.”
Goenka then moved the focus to what the Brahmin group has done in the past, talking about their participation in other areas of history. “But what about India’s soldiers, scientists, and poets? A lot of them were. From Param Vir Chakra heroes to Nobel Prize-winning thinkers like C.V. Raman, S. Chandrasekhar, and Tagore. “Unlike some others who are trying to get the Nobel prize, our Brahmins got their prize only because they deserved it,” he said. The last dig was a thinly veiled shot at Navarro’s earlier claim that Donald Trump should get the Nobel Prize for “restructuring” global trade.
Goenka ended his tweet with the words “An Indian (not a Brahmin),” which made his point even stronger that no one group controls India’s corporate world.
Many people have said that Navarro’s comments were rude and wrong. In the U.S., the word “Brahmin” is occasionally used to mean an aristocratic, privileged group (like “Boston Brahmins”). However, using the word in the context of the Indian caste system is seen as very problematic and has been seen as an attempt to utilize India’s social structure for political gain.
Goenka’s tweet has been very popular, with people praising it on social media for being funny and to the point. Many other people have praised the company leader for standing up to the “senseless” and “brutal” comments from a foreign representative.