Recently, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal posted a telling picture on his X handle. It showed the minister flanked by the controversial US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Ambassador Sergio Gor in a convivial pose. The photograph captured the new informality that has suddenly infused Indo-American relations. This image conveyed camaraderie rather than deference. Such pictures were rarely shared on public platforms during State visits in the past. Ambassador Gor has made that difference.
Ambassadors, traditionally, are the invisible persuaders who whisper counsel in shadowed corridors rather than stride forth as aggressive masters commanding the spotlight. Yet, in the teeming diplomatic theatre of New Delhi, Gor, America’s freshly-minted envoy to India, has shattered this cardinal tenet with a flamboyance that borders on the brazen. At a mere 38 years old, the youngest ambassador posted to this pivotal perch in recent memory has arrived like a whirlwind. He started his operations long before he presented his credentials to President Droupadi Murmu on January 14.
His hyperkinetic tenure suggests overreach. He has already completed visits of defence installations, state capitals, corporate boardrooms, political salons. He has hosted lavish soirées at his residence. Indian ministers and MPs do not merely meet him; they trumpet these encounters as badges of prestige. One might mistake him not for the nominee of a foreign president, but for a de facto American viceroy wielding unfettered access to every corridor of power.
He is no ordinary diplomat. Gor, a Soviet-born political operative and Trump loyalist, once helmed the White House Presidential Personnel Office. He carries baggage that should have tempered such audacity. His nomination was shadowed by controversy: Elon Musk once branded him a “snake” for allegedly dragging his feet on personal security clearance paperwork while vetting thousands of others. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton dismissed him as unqualified, citing his lack of India-specific diplomatic pedigree. Critics painted him as the quintessential insider operative fluent in loyalty tests rather than languages of nuance. In Senate hearings, Gor thundered that Trump had made it “crystal clear” that India must stop buying Russian oil. Detractors in Washington and beyond whispered of him as one of the most vocal anti-India voices in Trumpworld.
Contrast this with the decorous restraint of his peers. Ambassadors from Europe, Japan, China and Russia glide through Delhi like phantoms. They confine to official conclaves, terse communiqués and ceremonial handshakes. Even Gor’s immediate predecessor Eric Garcetti, though energetic, maintained a more measured cadence. There were State visits, but never the feverish fusion of military briefings, industrial schmoozing and parliamentary glad-handing that defined Gor’s opening salvo. Where others observe protocol, Gor orchestrates dominance.
Last month, he descended upon Chandigarh for a high-profile tour of the Indian Army’s Western Command headquarters alongside Admiral Samuel J Paparo, Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command. There, they were briefed on operational readiness, strategic dynamics along the western front and even Operation Sindoor—details ordinarily reserved for sovereign eyes. Indian opposition leaders erupted in outrage. Yet Gor boasted on X: “Just landed in Chandigarh. Looking forward to visiting the Western Command.”
His highly-publicised itinerary didn’t stop at the barracks. He has traversed states, wooed business houses, and flung open the doors of his residence for glittering receptions. Industrialists fete him and parliamentarians preen in his presence. Former Foreign Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Harsh Vardhan Shringla, a stalwart of Indian diplomacy, hosted an elaborate reception in Gor’s honour, drawing a constellation of MPs who promptly flooded social media with proud photographs. Posts from lawmakers across various parties hailed the evening as a significant moment in bilateral ties, with images of handshakes and smiles proliferating like confetti. Ministers, too, propagate these encounters with gusto, elevating Gor beyond the status of mere presidential nominee to something approximating an American proconsul.
This relentless courtship of India’s political, military and business elite—from four-star generals to backbench MPs, from industrial tycoons to state-level bureaucrats—has raised unsettling questions about Gor’s underlying motives. Opposition parties, already wary of creeping American influence, have seized upon this spectacle as proof of Washington’s undue sway over New Delhi’s policy establishment. The sight of Indian ministers and parliamentarians jostling for photographs with a foreign envoy and treating access to him as a status symbol has provided fresh ammunition to critics who argue that the Modi government has ceded too much ground to American interests.
What Gor frames as bridge-building, his detractors cast as influence-peddling and an orchestrated penetration of India’s decision-making apparatus that risks reducing sovereign policy calculation to mere appendage of American strategic preferences. His royal omnipresence is no accident. It is choreography. Gor has been instrumental in advancing the India-US trade deal, negotiating tariff adjustments tied to Russian oil purchases and championing initiatives like the Pax Silica Declaration for semiconductor and AI supply chains. In his inaugural embassy address and subsequent remarks, he has cast himself as the indispensable bridge-builder.
Yet, beneath the bonhomie lies a disconcerting asymmetry. Indian leaders host him, while opposition voices question whether his interventions veer into meddling. Critics, particularly from opposition benches, have begun to voice alarm at this pattern of overweening involvement. The Western Command visit, timed amid deepening defence pacts, has been lambasted as emblematic of a larger syndrome—where American envoys cease to advise and begin to direct. One cannot dismiss the optics: a foreign ambassador, barely credentialed, embedded in sensitive military discussions alongside a four-star US admiral. This is not diplomacy. It is dominion dressed in decorum.
His predecessors limited themselves to protocol. Gor transcends it, transforming the ambassadorial role into roving vice-regency. The peril is profound. By cultivating this cult of accessibility, inviting elites to his residence, posing for viral photographs, and inserting himself into the sinews of Indian power structures, Gor lends dangerous credence to the perennial suspicion that India dances to an American tune. When an envoy becomes more visible than the institutions he ostensibly serves, the host country’s sovereignty appears negotiable. Opposition scrutiny is not paranoia; it is patriotism confronting overreach. Gor’s hyperactive hegemony in New Delhi should serve as a cautionary parable.
Diplomats must remain invisible persuaders and not act as advisors. India, a civilisation of ancient grandeur and modern resurgence, deserves envoys who elevate alliance without eroding autonomy. Anything less is not diplomacy; it is dominance by another name. It’s nothing but an affront to the very independence India so fiercely guards.
Read all columns by Prabhu Chawla
PRABHU CHAWLA
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com
Follow him on X @PrabhuChawla