BETHLEHEM, Pa. — India’s ambassador to the United States, Vinay Kwatra, spoke to Lehigh University students Wednesday about the two countries’ collaboration on things as diverse as defense and artificial intelligence.
More than 130 attendees came to the fireside chat, part of the Lehigh University-United Nations Partnership’s Ambassadorial Speaker Series, which highlights leading voices in global diplomacy and international affairs.
Past ambassador speakers have been from countries including Iraq, South Korea and Sudan.
Lehigh alumnus Richard Verma, former U.S. ambassador to India and the university’s inaugural President’s Distinguished Fellow, moderated the conversation with the ambassador.
Ambassador Kwatra has four decades of experience in the Indian Foreign Service, working on diplomacy and international affairs.
He is a former foreign secretary of India and also previously worked in the Indian prime minister’s office, where he helped with translating.
Additionally, he served as India’s ambassador to both Nepal and France. He also was India’s permanent representative to UNESCO.
Among 'most consequential' relationships
Kwatra on Wednesday spoke about the Indian diaspora in the United States, which Verma said sits at about 5 million people.
“I think you will find people of Indian descent having made their mark on the society,” Kwatra said. “They are community builders.”
"You’ve got people of all spectrums of the economic ladder, you’ve got people who just arrived.”Richard Verma, former U.S. ambassador to India, Lehigh alumnus and the university’s inaugural President’s Distinguished Fellow
People of Indian descent in the United States largely work in medicine, hospitality and the technology industries, Kwatra said.
Verma said not all people of Indian descent in the United Sttes are chief executive officers or tech leaders, though.
“You’ve got everyone,” he said. “You’ve got people of all spectrums of the economic ladder, you’ve got people who just arrived.”
Verma said former President Joe Biden called the U.S. relationship with India “among the most consequential in the world.”
Verma previously served as deputy secretary of state for management and resources under Biden.
'We will level up with each other'
The positive relationship between the United States and India kicked off about a decade ago, Kwatra said.
Specifically, he discussed the significance of a 2016 speech that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave to Congress about the two democracies’ impacts on each other.
In the speech, Modi highlighted the cooperation between the countries.
Kwatra said the speech represented a “turning point in the relationship” between the United States and India. He said the two countries have since “overcome the hesitations of history."
India historically allied itself with the Soviet Union and then Russia, as well as Brazil and China — a group of nations that avoided the “U.S. orbit,” according to reporting from CNN.
But as of that 2016 speech, things changed, and the United States and India began speaking more freely with one another.
“If we are in the room together and we don’t agree with [each other], we will level up with each other,” Kwatra said.
“We will tell you the position we are coming from, and this is the reason we can do or cannot do [something]. Same with the other side, also.”
Areas of cooperation
Kwatra said some of the pillars of collaboration between India and the United States are counterterrorism, defense and security, education, energy and critical emerging technologies, such as semiconductor development and artificial intelligence.
“All these areas which I mention, the confidence and cooperation are mutually beneficial."Vinay Kwatra, India’s ambassador to the United States
“All these areas which I mention, the confidence and cooperation are mutually beneficial,” Kwatra said.
Kwatra said energy, trade and AI are all interconnected areas of potential growth between the countries.
AI, he said, is a “new space of cooperation,” involving four components: computers, data, user case scenarios and STEM talent — those workers trained in science, technology, engineering and math.
On energy, India imports 85% of its needs, Kwatra said. In the past 10 months, India’s imports of U.S. oil have increased 60% to 70% compared with last year, going from $5 billion spent to $9 billion thus far this year, he said.
When it comes to trade, Kwatra said India and the United States are working to increase their bilateral trade from about $200 billion to $500 billion by 2030.
“We are continuing to stay very intensely engaged with the U.S. administration to find a mutually beneficial trade understanding,” he said.
Rish Kumar, 24, a Lehigh international student from India, said Kwatra’s talk helped him realize “how deeply” the United States and India are working together, even if they don’t agree on everything.
Kumar, a financial engineering graduate student, also said he related to the ambassador because of their shared Indian background.
“Just meeting someone at that high of a position and just getting a sneak peek into how things function at the top level of diplomacy in India — that was very eye-opening,” he said.
