The NPR Politics Podcast - Biden's Red Carpet For India's PM Sweeps Tensions Under The Rug

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is head of the world's largest democracy — but concerns over his human rights and freedom of speech records took a backseat to public celebrations of the country's relationship with the United States during his visit with President Biden this week.And it has been more than a decade since the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy was repealed, but thousands of people who were other than honorably discharged over their sexual orientation still don't have full access to benefits.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, White House reporter, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and veterans correspondent Quil Lawrence.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Annabelle from Richmond, Virginia. I just turned 18 last month, and this week I voted in my first ever election in the Virginia primaries. Good for you. This podcast was recorded at 1117 a.m. on Friday, June 23rd. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll still be super excited to be a voter in this democracy I've heard so much about. All right, here's the show. Oh, that's great. You never forget your first election. That's inspiring.

All right, Commonwealth voter. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And Washington rolled out the red carpet this week for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His official visit included a joint address to Congress, meetings with President Biden, a fancy state dinner, and an audience with some of the country's top business executives. Deepa, this was a very high profile, very lavish, and very tightly orchestrated visit. Get us into the politics of this one. This was grand. This was a grand,

grand event, state dinner, invite, very lavish, very detail-oriented from the White House. A lot of little things went into this coming from the dinner and the process of planning the dinner. Also, this joint address to Congress, even just the event of Modi arriving officially and doing the entrance ceremony on the South Lawn. There were thousands of people who came in, all sorts of people from Tennessee. There were people bused in from New Jersey, a very large crowd of Indian Americans on the South Lawn. There were musical performances. Anyway, the whole shebang. And this is because the U.S., the White House, President Biden is trying to strengthen his relationship with India, essentially to counter China.

And you heard the White House this week say over and over and over again, this visit is not about China. But in reality, it was about China. The U.S. is trying to basically secure its position and its allyship with India to try to counter China's influence in the Indo-Pacific region. And part of that was rolling out this red carpet and showing that the allyship and then the friendship essentially between the U.S. and India is stronger than ever. But Mara, there is so much grandeur around this visit, but the U.S.-India relationship

is really complicated. India, as I'm sure it likes to mention very often, is the largest democracy in the world. But Modi has a really complicated record on issues like free speech, on press access, on human rights, religious freedom. And that really wasn't the focus of this visit. No, it certainly wasn't. As a matter of fact, one fact that really jumped out at me was that Modi answered questions from the press. India is a very flawed democracy, but the geostrategic interests of the United States overruled that because President Biden would like Modi to take a side in the autocracy versus democracy fight, West versus Russia. India still buys weaponry from Russia in face of all the sanctions that the West has tried

to put on it. It has never taken a side in the Ukraine invasion. And that's why President Biden rolled out the red carpet. The question I have is, did he get any results? What are the deliverables? They talked about a wide, wide range of issues. They covered things about semiconductors. That's something that Biden and the administration has been talking about a lot recently. Jobs. Climate change was a big topic. And the thing that really wasn't on the table, like you said, Mara, was human rights and democracy and religious freedom. What about India's position vis-a-vis Russia and the war in Ukraine? Did Biden make any progress there? Biden sort of vaguely said that he and Modi talked about democratic values, and that was their kind of takeaway from that. But we didn't really get a lot of specifics on how much they got into the

conversation on Russia. Obviously, we know that India has not condemned Russia during this whole invasion of Ukraine, and that's something that has been a big issue from the U.S.'s side, but that's not something that we saw Biden really press on about yesterday. Can one or both of you put a finer point on this idea that this visit wasn't really about US-India relations, it was about China, and that they're trying to strengthen the US-India relationship to confront whatever the China threat may be from the Biden administration's view. But how do they do that? What is the dynamic here with China that they're trying to improve with India? Is it economic? Is it simply diplomatic? Is it about weapons or semiconductors? What is it?

Well, the question is, India has long had tensions with China. And I think the US would like to leverage that to make India part of its alliance in South Asia that will contain China. And I think they'll probably find it easier to do that than they will to change India's mind about the war in Ukraine. Do either of you see a domestic political angle here? Indian Americans are a small portion of the overall population, but they can be rather politically influential. Four million strong. Four million. I mean, still a fraction of the overall population, but they can be rather politically influential. Four million strong. Four million. I mean, still a fraction of the broader population and of the electorate. Definitely a small fraction. But I will say, I mean, there's a large showing of Indian Americans

that support mostly Democratic candidates. Polling shows that Indian Americans tend to lean blue and vote blue. And that's something that, you know, Republicans have also been trying to kind of chip away in recent years, especially when it comes to issues of education, crime, small businesses. There's all these issues that basically have Indian Americans kind of tied in the center sometimes. But all that to say, they're an influential voting bloc because they're reliable voters. And a lot of them, those who are financially privileged enough to do so, donate to campaigns. This is also something that, you know, you look at Biden's administration right now, there are a number of Indian Americans who have roles in his administration,

a number of Indian Americans who are running for office. Starting with Kamala Harris. Exactly, starting with Kamala Harris. And you look at the number of Indian Americans who are getting elected to Congress. This is definitely a group of Americans that are kind of everywhere, to be honest, not even just politics, but you look at these, you know, technology leaders that Modi is meeting with while he's here, CEOs, business leaders, a pretty influential group, generally speaking. And so there's definitely a reason to kind of throw out that red carpet and say, you know, let's throw this big party because a lot of people are paying attention.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the state dinner? Who was there, particularly from the Indian American community? Yeah, there was some notable celebrities, M. Night Shyamalan, the director, some Indian American actors, many business leaders. The CEO of Google is Indian American. He was there. But I will say generally, like, you know, there's been a lot of growth of Indian Americans in Hollywood. Some of these bigger name celebrities were not at this dinner. And it's not really clear if they were invited, if they were invited and then declined. But I definitely did see some folks who had been invited post on their social media accounts.

These are, you know, small business leaders, chefs, things like that, who posted and said that they weren't comfortable coming to the dinner because of Modi's record on human rights. That was something that they really took seriously and didn't want to participate in the state dinner despite getting the invite. So although human rights was not a big part of the meeting with Biden and Modi, they didn't want to make that a central point of this. It really stuck with a lot of people in the Indian American community and a lot of folks, not only just people invited, also folks in Congress, of course, were being very vocal about this. A lot of people paying attention. Okay, let's take a quick break. But Deepa, don't go too far. We're going to have you back for Can't Let It Go. Great. I'll be back. All right. More in a second. And we're back with NPR's Quill Lawrence, who covers veterans for us. Hey, Quill.

Hi. So back in 2011, the Pentagon officially ended the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that allowed gay and lesbian troops to serve as long as they did not acknowledge their sexual orientation. Quill, you've been reporting on the legacy of that policy and all of the people it affected. But let's start with this. What drew you to this story and to reexamine this policy? Yeah, I mean, I have to admit much to my shame that when I was reporting on this during the years of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and then I certainly reported on the end of the policy, which was pretty well considered a complete success. Integrating gay and lesbian troops turned out to be just no big deal for the military. And then I kind of took my eye off that ball. But this spring, we got a letter just from a listener, an email sent in saying, I still don't have my benefits. People who got put out during Don't Ask, Don't Tell still don't have their VA benefits. And when I started looking into it, it was kind of the tip of a giant iceberg that when that policy was repealed, there wasn't a lot of repair done.

This policy, as you noted, I was really struck by your reporting at how many lives it upended. Can you talk about the numbers of people affected and what was it like for those people when they got caught. Yeah, so it's hard to say an exact number. Most advocates estimate that since the end of World War II, 114,000 troops were put out of the military for their sexuality. And it's hard because not all the discharge papers say for homosexual conduct. They would sometimes, if they wanted to put someone out, they would sort of try and make a really good case of it and add other infractions, real or imagined, on there. Or sometimes they were put out for indecent behavior, something like that. So it's hard to sort of go back and forensically figure out exactly how many, but that's the number they use. And the consequences were honestly kind of a scarlet letter when you have

an other than honorable discharge. It means you don't get VA benefits. And it's also hard to get a civilian job if you've got what they call bad paper, because on a lot of job applications, I mean, we civilians don't really notice this, but a lot of job applications say, have you ever served in the military? And if you say yes, it says, what was the character of your discharge? And oftentimes, it was probably better to lie and say you never served than to sort of open up that box. Well, why did you get a less than honorable discharge? Oh, you're gay, etc. You know, one of the things in your reporting that also struck me is that even for those who sort of succeeded in the don't ask, don't tell regime,

people that successfully hid their sexuality over the years, there's still a toll with that as well. Yeah. I mean, people talk about what if you were a gay JAG officer, an army lawyer, for example, and you end up spending your career putting people out of the military for being gay when you're also forced into this closet by the policy. One main character we spoke with in the story you'll hear is retired Lieutenant Colonel Bob Alexander. And when he joined up in college in ROTC,

he decided he was going to follow the rules, even though he was starting to realize he was gay. I just decided that I would just follow the rules in terms of not acting on my sexuality, which meant that for the first, let's see, 12, 14 years, I was a lone celibate not dating. And he managed to stay in up to his 20 years, and that was when the policy was repealed. He talks about sitting in this meeting where suddenly all these senior Air Force officers are saying, well, how are we going to handle gay service members? And he said, you know what?

I'm a gay service member. Send one to me. And that's how he came out. Well, Quill, I have a question about the years since the policy is over. It's been 12 years. I'm wondering how that's gone for the military, but also I'm wondering about the politics of this. There's so much reaction, backlash against LGBTQ people now, big campaigns by Republicans against wokeness, including in the military. Is there a push among conservatives to not have gay members serve openly in the military? I think there's real whiplash about this. At the 10-year mark after this policy,

the Joint Chiefs put out a study saying it was all unnecessary, overblown. It was seen really as a complete success. But in just the last couple of years, particularly around trans troops, there's been, as you say, a lot of politics. Just the other day, the House Armed Services Committee spent 90 minutes discussing how Republican proposals to eliminate any hint of diversity, training, inclusion. There's been all sorts of controversy about drag performances on bases. There have been controversy about the VA raising pride flags over VA buildings. And it's a shockingly different atmosphere from just a couple of years ago. But at the same time, Quill, the Pentagon is trying to make it right with many of those soldiers who were dishonorably discharged because of their sexuality. How successful are they at that effort?

Right. And there's just a little point of language there, and this gets terribly complicated. But a dishonorable discharge is for treason and things like that. A bad conduct discharge is for a felony. And then these are things that are in this category of other than honorable discharges. But anyway. No, that's good. That's good distinction. Yeah, yeah. The Pentagon has done a lot of outreach. And they've, Pentagon officials have said to me, if there's someone out there who wants an upgrade and doesn't realize that it's available to them, we don't know how, because everyone should know this by now. The numbers tell a different story. The Pentagon says that a lot of these discharges were honorable discharges under Don't Ask, Don't Tell. And it says that it has a 90% rate of upgrading people who come to their

discharge review boards, but they've only upgraded 1,375. That's as of March, with potentially tens of thousands of veterans out there who were put out of the military for this. Plus, there are a lot of people who were put out, as we said before, for other reasons. The VA has a simpler process where they can just, for their purposes, say your discharge was honorable. And they have a 73% rate of upgrading people who come to them. But advocates tell me that the numbers who have come forward are still tiny. And we spoke with one veteran who had been homeless. He went into a tailspin when he was kicked out of the military for being gay. It meant he was instantly outed to

his family. It ruined his family life. He turned to drugs and alcohol, and he ended up homeless for 20 years until he was finally approached by the retired lieutenant colonel I mentioned earlier, who told him, you know, we can upgrade your benefits. And this is how they described the conversation. They told me, you know what, we don't leave our wounded in the battlefield. You served your country for two years. And regardless of your discharge, we don't want to see you suffering. So we handled getting Stephan his access to the VA. And it was a simple letter from them saying, it just said, for the purposes of VA, we find your service to be honorable.

Getting a letter from the VA thanking me for my honorable service was like, it's spiritual for me. It matters to have your discharge considered honorable. But is there also an element of restitution here with a different classification of discharge, sort of what other options are available for these people? Yeah. I mean, the easiest and quickest is for them to go to the VA. And VA has been urging people to come forward and been telling them that if you were put out under this policy, we want to upgrade you. That would get them healthcare. It could get them access to VA housing if they're homeless. It can get them a VA disability benefit, including for the trauma, the PTSD that they might have from this experience. So there are also a lot of veteran service organizations that work on this.

But veterans I've talked to say it's very traumatic. And it's so important to them. We covered some years back the story of a Marine who wanted his upgrade. He was dying of cancer. He died a couple of weeks after he got it. But it was so important to him to have some Marines come to him and say, but it was so important to him to have some Marines come to him

and say, your service was honorable. It's almost impossible to overstate how much this marks people at that point in their lives when they have joined the service to serve their country and they were told your service wasn't honorable. All right. Quill Lawrence, thank you so much for reporting on this and for coming on the podcast to talk about it. Oh, great to be on. Thank you. Let's take a quick break. And when we get back, it'll be time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back.

And it's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go. The part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we can't stop talking about, politics or otherwise. And Deepa, welcome back. Hello. And I'm just going to start and say it. I could not let go the story of the sub this week. It captivated the country, our newsroom. Of course, it ended very tragically and sad.

But, man, I think every detail of that story was just so interesting and tragic and grand. And it really was sort of an epic tale. The thing that I will say about this, though, and part of the reason why I can't let it go, I do think there is something about people taking these like crazy exploration risks that captivate our imagination, right? I think there's something like, I don't know, there's something kind of brave about people that decide to do those things and we need people like that because I am not one of those people. I am an extremely risk-averse person. So I'm always amazed that people would even get in something like that to begin with, let alone take the risk. I'm definitely not able to let go the part about the video game controller. That will live in my mind rent-free for the rest of my life.

Although apparently, as I read many of the details of this this week, it's not an uncommon thing for submarines to use those video game controllers. Like that's one of the least weird parts of that story. That's just wild. All right. So Mara, what can't you let go of this week? What I can't let go of goes under the headline, Supreme Court justices are not great politicians. This is Sam Alito.

And there was a ProPublica story about to drop with the headline, Justice Samuel Alito took luxury fishing vacation with GOP billionaire who later had cases before the court. The headline says it all. Alito was asked for comment by ProPublica before they published. He decided not to comment, but instead he published what you could call a pre-buttle, an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal before the ProPublica piece came out, where he protested his innocence. Actually, he doth protested a lot, saying, yes, there was wine at the retreat, but it didn't cost $1,000. Yes, he flew on his private jet, but the seat would have gone empty if he hadn't sat in it. That part made me laugh. If not me, who?

Right. That's right. And who among us hasn't taken a luxury fishing vacation with a GOP billionaire with business before us? But the bottom line of this is that it totally wet people's appetites to find out what this story was about. He gave ProPublica a ton of publicity. It was like the opposite of what you would do in a crisis communication situation. Right, the absolute opposite. All right, Deepa, why can't you let go of this week? We were talking about rolling out the red carpet for the Indian state dinner,

but the red carpet should also be rolled out for the U.S. Women's National Team. Super excited about the Women's World Cup. This team is just plainly very badass, and I'm super excited to watch all of them basically just really kill it this year. I don't think that the women's team gets enough credit. I wish that the more attention was paid to how excellent they are. Yeah, I agree. They are just extremely hyped. There was like a cool video that came out to kind of introduce the team that had a lot of celebrities. The White House also did something. So I think they are getting more attention, as they

should, because they're going to win. They're going to take first place. Can't wait to see it. Very excited to watch. And I think we know what you're doing this summer. Yes, exactly. Well, that is a wrap for us today. Our executive producer is Mathoni Matori. Our editor is Eric McDaniel.

Our producers are Elena Moore and Casey Morrell. Research and fact-checking by our intern, Lee Walden. Thanks to Christian of Calmer and Lexi Shapiro. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the white house.

And I'm Mara Eliason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.