Modi Govt Tongue Tied at Trump's 'India is Hell Hole' Post; US-Israel War Sends India's Urea Bill Skywards; Gavai & the Godman
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by MK Venu, Pratik Kanjilal, Sidharth Bhatia, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sushant Singh, Seema Chishti, and Tanweer Alam | Contributing writers: Kalrav Joshi, Anirudh SK
If you like our work and want to support us, then do subscribe. Sign up with your email address by clicking on this link and choose the FREE subscription plan. Do not choose the paid options on that page because Stripe – the payment gateway for Substack, which hosts The India Cable – does not process payments for Indian nonprofits.Our newsletter is paywalled but once a week we lift the paywall so newcomers can sample our content. To take out a fresh paid subscription or to renew your existing monthly or annual subscription, please click on the special payment page we have created – https://rzp.io/rzp/the-india-cable.Snapshot of the day
April 23, 2026
Siddharth Varadarajan
Donald Trump today reposted a racist rant by a supporter on his social media timeline that included a reference to India and China as “hellholes”. The Ministry of External Affairs, noted Christopher Clary, would have been well within its rights to summon the US ambassador “and ask if the US President agrees with the posted letter that India is a “hellhole” (p.1) or that India is attempting through migrants to turn the US into its “colony.” However, it was only last week that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had told Trump “the people of India love you” so the US president’s reference to India has left the leaders of Bharat tongue-tied. The Modi government usually bristles when the insults come from Pakistan or even Europe but all the MEA spokesperson had to offer this afternoon when asked by a reporter about Trump’s post was this astonishing response:
“We have seen some reports. That is where I leave it.”
Sensing this was playing badly with even the BJP’s supporters, the ministry decided later in the evening that it needed to say more but its second take too was delightfully vague, so as not to upset Trump:
In response to further questions on a social media post that had referred, among other things, to Indians, Official Spokesperson Shri Randhir Jaiswal said:
We have seen the comments, as also the subsequent statement issued by the US Embassy in response. The remarks are obviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste. They certainly do not reflect the reality of the India-US relationship, which has long been based on mutual respect and shared interests.
In case you are wondering what response the US embassy came up with that mollified the MEA, here it is: “The President has said “India is a great country with a very good friend of mine at the top.” In the end, it was left to the Iranian consulate in Hyderabad to put out what the Vishwaguru was unwilling to say:
As usual, memesters are running away with the scene:
The US Navy said it boarded a “stateless vessel” in the Indian Ocean overnight and “carried out a maritime interdiction and right-of-visit boarding of the sanctioned M/T Majestic X, transporting oil from Iran,” the US Department of War said on X. It added that the vessel was operating within the USINDOPACOM (United States Indo-Pacific Command) area of responsibility.
Tamil Nadu and West Bengal voted today, with both states governed by regional parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP is seeking to unseat the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Voter turnout reached 91.78% in West Bengal’s Phase 1 and 84.69% in
