India Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in the United States this week to meet with President Trump and his new Director of National Intelligence, former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI).
With the photos below, Modi wrote on X: “Met USA’s Director of National Intelligence, @TulsiGabbard in Washington DC. Congratulated her on her confirmation. Discussed various aspects of the India-USA friendship, of which she’s always been a strong votary.”
A votary is a devoted follower. “A person who is bound by solemn religious vows, as a monk or a nun,” Dictionary.com says, or “an adherent of a religion or cult; a worshiper of a particular deity or sacred personage.” Both Gabbard and Modi are Hindus.
The definition also includes the less religion-oriented version of a “person who is devoted or addicted to some subject or pursuit,” listing a “jazz votary” as an example. Synonyms include admirer, devotee and fan.
Met USA’s Director of National Intelligence, @TulsiGabbard in Washington DC. Congratulated her on her confirmation. Discussed various aspects of the India-USA friendship, of which she’s always been a strong votary. pic.twitter.com/w2bhsh8CKF
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 13, 2025
In her opening statement at her Senate confirmation hearing with the Select Committee on Intelligence on January 30, Gabbard addressed those who opposed her nomination, and vowed to keep her political views separate from her official duties.
Gabbard said: “Those who oppose my nomination imply that I am loyal to something or someone other than God, my own conscience, and the constitution of the United States, accusing me of being Trump’s puppet, Putin’s puppet, Assad’s puppet, a guru’s puppet, Modi’s puppet, not recognizing the absurdity of simultaneously being the puppet of five different puppet masters.”
While India has become a global power and the world’s fifth-largest economy under Modi’s watch, the Prime Minister has been criticized for blurring the line between religion and state.
According to a April 2024 AP report: “Hindu nationalism, once a fringe ideology in India, is now mainstream,” and “nobody has done more to advance this cause than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, one of India’s most beloved and polarizing political leaders.”
Modi has been accused by some of “stoking the othering of Muslims via disinformation, hate speech, opening old religious wounds, manipulating a servile media, silencing progressive voices and empowering Hindu supremacist vigilante groups.”
A 2019 article by Evan Hill in The Nation described Gabbard’s foreign policy as one “that favors authoritarianism cloaked as counter-terrorism, nationalism cloaked as anti-interventionism, and Islamophobia barely cloaked at all.”
Neal Christie, executive director of the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations (FIACONA), said of Gabbard’s DNI nomination: “I want to celebrate and affirm her service. At the same time, we cannot deny the financial support she’s received from the RSS. We cannot deny her blessing of the RSS and the Modi government.”
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