Ram Madhav’s US Remark Sparks Row: Strategic Autonomy?

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BJP leader’s comments on oil and tariff concessions to the US trigger backlash before he issues a clarification.

By TRH Op-Ed Desk

New Delhi, April 28, 2026 — A candid admission by a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader at a Washington think tank has exploded into one of the sharpest foreign policy controversies of the Modi government’s third term, reigniting a fierce debate over India’s strategic independence in the age of Donald Trump.

Ram Madhav, speaking at the Hudson Institute’s New India Conference on “New Paths Forward for US-India Relations” alongside former US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, told the audience: “India agreed to stop buying oil from Iran. We agreed to stop buying oil from Russia despite so much criticism from our opposition. India agreed to a 50% tariff without saying too much. So where exactly is India not doing enough to work with America?”

The remarks, made on April 24, sent shockwaves through India’s political establishment and the BJP’s own ecosystem. Within hours, Madhav issued a retraction on X, writing: “What I said was wrong. India didn’t agree to stopping import of oil from Russia anytime. Also, it vigorously protested 50 per cent tariff imposition. I was trying to make a limited counterpoint to the other panellist. But factually incorrect. My apologies.”

But the apology did little to douse the political fire.

Geopolitics analyst Manish Anand, in a detailed monologue for the YouTube channel of The Raisina Hills, argued that the controversy cuts far deeper than a slip of the tongue. “Ram Madhav is not just any BJP leader — he was the party’s general secretary when Modi came to power and was part of strategic meetings after Pulwama,” Anand said. “He was the RSS’s representative inside the BJP. His words on foreign affairs have always been read as reflecting the RSS’s thinking. So, when such a person makes these statements on American soil, at this level of a platform, you cannot simply dismiss it as a mistake,” Anand noted.

Anand pointed to a pattern of what he described as studied silence from New Delhi. “When Trump imposed 50% tariffs, India didn’t protest loudly. When America asked India to cut Russian oil, the signals were confusing. When Iranian political leadership was eliminated, India said nothing. When American missiles killed 163 children inside Iran, India still said nothing,” he said. “Decades of strategic autonomy in foreign policy — something we had earned as a legacy — appears to be getting compromised,” stressed Anand.

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Opposition parties wasted no time. Congress, Samajwadi Party and others framed Madhav’s original statement as a confession.

Anand, however, raised a more structural concern: a possible divergence between the RSS and the Modi government on the direction of India-US ties. “The RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Kisan Sangh has informally expressed discomfort over agricultural import concessions being offered to America,” he noted. “The RSS and the Modi government do not appear to be on the same page on this issue. And Ram Madhav’s statement, even if he later retracted it, reflects that discomfort from within,” added Anand.

The analyst also flagged India’s strategic investment in Chabahar Port in Iran as a casualty of this drift. “Chabahar is our gateway to Central Asia and Russia through the North-South Corridor. The ambiguity around India’s Iran policy now puts that entire infrastructure investment under a cloud,” Anand said.

As one commentary noted, what began as a boast about accommodation ended as a hurried claim that no real concession had occurred — leaving both narratives in the air simultaneously, and India’s strategic credibility caught in the crossfire.

(Views expressed in the article are those of Manish Anand, who hosts discussions on geopolitics.)