00:00Mitali, we will come back to you definitely and as more results would also trickle in
00:04from some nondescript village in United States, we will be bringing you up to speed with that
00:10but before that, let me welcome Pradeep Kumar, former diplomat and visiting fellow scholar,
00:16George Washington University in Washington DC.
00:19Mr. Kapoor, thank you so much for joining us here on One India.
00:24Before we get into the diplomatic arena and the circles of the relations between India
00:31and Washington DC, how, in your opinion, Washington, it's almost 6, 10 minutes past 6 o'clock there
00:39in Washington, how do you think those living in the capital city, it's a busy affair since
00:49early morning or is it a lukewarm response from their side?
00:53Well, currently, Pankaj, I am in India on a visit, just landed yesterday but in Washington
01:02DC, there was a lot of mail-in voting and in tens of millions, about 77-78 million have
01:12already voted but the enthusiasm for voting in this election is very high on both the
01:20sides. So, the colleges like where my wife teaches in Washington DC area, the professors
01:29and the students and the faculty and the staff, they have been given half a day off to go and
01:35vote. So, even if they have put in their votes by postal ballot, they still get half a day to enjoy.
01:43In the other university, University of Maryland, where I used to teach earlier,
01:47they have watch parties, for example, when the counting starts. So, till the late night,
01:52till the preliminary indications come out about the election trends, there will be continuous
01:59watch parties. So, there is a lot of enthusiasm for both the candidates but if we were to take
02:07it on a comparative scale, then I would say that currently, the voter enthusiasm is probably
02:15a little more for the Democrats, for Kamala Harris, not necessarily amongst the Indian
02:21origin people, the Indian diaspora which is evenly balanced between the two candidates
02:26but amongst a lot of the other segments of the population, there is slightly higher
02:32enthusiasm for Kamala Harris. Also, the number of volunteers who are registering for canvassing for
02:41Kamala Harris is more than for Donald Trump in this election. The fundraising which is happening
02:49is also significantly higher for Democrats and for Kamala Harris. People like Elon Musk are
02:55supporting Donald Trump but there are people like George Soros and other woke elements and the
03:03deep state and the military industrial complex and the liberals, they are all supporting Kamala
03:11Harris. So, she has got a lot of the backing including of the Islamists. For example,
03:19Tim Walz, the vice president candidate, he has signed a document with the Muslims
03:25that Muslims will get an equal share in the governance of US after the elections. Now,
03:32those are documents which are not coming out very much in the mainstream media or in the narrative
03:39or in the discussions but they are going to pose a very significant challenge in case Kamala Harris
03:45wins. My current reading on the ground when I was there till yesterday in Washington DC
03:52is that very likely that Kamala Harris is going to win by a big margin and the opinion polls
03:59may be proved wrong as they were proved wrong in India. They kept on saying all the western
04:04mainstream media kept on projecting about the Indian elections that Modi is going to win big,
04:12Modi is going to get more than 350 seats and they sort of try to create a sense of complacency
04:19and saying that you are winning anyway, nothing will happen to that and that sort of thing they
04:25have done to Donald Trump and the Republicans. The Democrat machinery is very well oiled,
04:30very streamlined, very efficient and they are miles ahead of the game than the Republicans
04:37in this way. They are also able to put out their narrative and their stories and their
04:43facts or non-facts and their truths and lies in a very effective manner to the people.
04:50The Republicans are not able to cope with all that. So, they are a decade ahead of
04:54the Republicans in that game also. So, to that extent they have a good chance of winning
05:00currently and I think that she will win with a big margin. But then for her with all those IOUs
05:08which they are signing left and right and centre, how far they will be able to govern effectively,
05:15how far they will be able to look after the US interest, how far they will be able to cope with
05:20the breaking US forces, how far they will be able to cope with taking India-US relations forward
05:28without interference because for example, just as a simple example I will tell you,
05:33Josh Shapiro, the Governor of Pennsylvania, was a very good candidate for Vice President
05:39and he was far ahead of Tim Walz and the support he had from within the Democratic
05:44Party was very, very high. But then the woke element, the Islamists and the others,
05:51they got into the act because he's a Jewish person that he will not be good for America
05:57because of Israel-Palestine, Israel-Gaza issues and they mounted a massive campaign.
06:03So, the whole decision to select a Vice President candidate got delayed for many days
06:08and Kamala Harris did not have the courage or the capacity to go against that sort of
06:16inputs or massive assault onto her choice. Joe Biden still had some capacity to do that,
06:26how much capacity she has and sometimes you grow in the chair, you sort of assume that position
06:31and you become bigger in persona and character and capacity but Joe Biden had that because
06:37I was told by White House, a friend of mine that when Prime Minister Modi was visiting US,
06:44there was again a massive campaign being launched by all these forces which I've listed,
06:47George Soros, the wokes, the Islamists, the Khalistanis, the leftists, the liberals,
06:53the progressive Democrats and people like Rahul Gandhi from India who signed on the same letter,
07:00same draft, same template against Modi's visit. What Joe Biden did was he kept on listening to
07:06them for a long time then he got very upset with all the disruptions and he told his staff that I'm
07:12not interested to get distracted by all these things, I want to focus on the visit in a very
07:19positive way. So, he focused on the visit and it became a very big visit for India and a very big
07:24visit for US. I was there at the White House, we saw the way Joe Biden treated Prime Minister Modi
07:30and the way the whole Indian diaspora was treated. Now, what will happen next
07:35if she owes so much to so many disparate elements, entities, groups, agencies, etc.
07:44So, in the State Department, for example, there are a lot of people who have ideas which are
07:49absolutely against India-US interest. They will give a lot of money in tens of millions or even
07:56more for human rights studies in India, human rights efforts in India, religious freedom studies
08:01in India, religious freedom conferences in India. So, while there are a lot of sectors of the US
08:09thought leadership which are very clear like many of the academia, many of the think tanks,
08:15National Security Agency, Department of Defense, the military people who have a very great interest
08:22in forging the relationship with India, in expanding that footprint. But there are people
08:27in agencies like the State Department who are very antithetical to that. So, those elements
08:32under Donald Trump cannot really thrive. Whereas, with Kamala Harris, they may have a field day and
08:38that may not be very good for US, for India, for US-India relationships and for the world.
08:44Back to you, Pankaj. Right, absolutely. Mr. Kapoor, the analysis you gauged that Mr.
08:53Kapoor has put up is very relevant, especially what is happening just in the proximity of United
09:00States, in Canada. Aur yeh jo fringe elements ki agar hum baat karein, yeh jo hum baat karein,
09:05you know, the separatist elements, those who are also finding a voice in countries like this,
09:12at times during state visits of Prime Minister Modi, these things do come up. And we have seen
09:19in the past as well how invariably India has been given an upper hand as far as any ruling
09:26dispensation is concerned in United States. Don't miss out. Log on to OneIndia.com for more updates.
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