COUTESY HT OCT 26

No way to talk of friends: Biden on ‘filthy’ remark

Yashwant Raj

letters@hindustantimes.com

Washington : Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, slammed President Donald Trump on Saturday for using the word “filthy” while talking about the air in India, and admonished him for speaking that way about “friends”.

“President Trump called India ‘filthy’,” Biden wrote in a tweet. “It’s not how you talk about friends — and it’s not how you solve global challenges like climate change.”

He added, referring to his Indian-descent running mate Kamala Harris, “@KamalaHarris and I deeply value our partnership — and will put respect back at the center of our foreign policy.”

During an exchange at the last presidential debate on Thursday, Trump had sought to defend his record on climate change and his decision to exit the Paris Accord, alleging it was partial to India, China and Russia that were more polluting.

“Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia. Look at India, it’s so filthy, the air is filthy,” the American President had said.

“The Paris Accord I took us out because we were going to have to spend trillions of dollars, and we were treated very unfairly when they put us in there, they did us a great disservice,” he had said.

India Americans and surrogates of the Biden campaign responded angrily at the time. “His rhetoric has proven time and time again that he has disdain for India, as well as for people who draw their heritage from South Asia,” South Asians for Biden, a group of the Democratic nominee’s backers and surrogates, said in a tweet.

A congressional aide who spoke on background had said it was a “bizarre comment from a President who is trying to court India as a key part of his national security strategy in the Indo-Pacific”. And it was “oddly timed especially when his secretary of state and defense are headed to India next week to meet with their Indian counterparts”. The aide was referring to the upcoming one-day 2+2 ministerial dialogue in New Delhi on October 27.

Indian Americans have been courted this election like never before.

Both the Biden and Trump campaigns have reached out to the community extensively, arguing, among other things, their respective principals were, and will be, better shepherds of the bilateral relationship with India.

There are an estimated 1.9 million eligible Indian American voters. A recent poll of the community showed an overwhelming 72% of them will vote for Biden and 22% for Trump (an earlier survey with smaller sample size was more generous to Trump — 28% to vote for him, 66% for Biden).

“No way for a president to talk about another country and it personally bothered me,” said Swadesh Chatterjee, a long-time political activist and Padma Bhushan recipient. “As an Indian-American I felt ashamed,” he added