PM Modi’s gift of a diamond worth Rs 17 lakh...was it necessary?

Any gift costing more than US $480 or approximately Rs 41,000 is to be declared by government officials in the United States, according to federal law. The more expensive gifts are transferred to the national archives or put on official display. So what made Prime Minister Narendra Modi gift outgoing first lady Jill Biden a diamond worth approximately US $20,000 (Rs 17 lakh) and more?

While news agencies reported that the diamond was the most expensive gift received during 2023 by the US President and first lady, the question really is if it helped in promoting India’s interest. Significantly, US audit had reportedly found that the Indian prime minister had presented gifts worth US $50,000 "to the Trumps", which were not declared by the Trump White House. The gifts were presented during President Donald Trump’s first term in office between 2017 and 2020.

Information available in the public domain indicates that during PM Modi’s official visit to the White House in 2017, the Indian PM had gifted the Presidential couple the following:

· A handmade wooden chest crafted in Hoshiarpur, famous for its intricate inlays

· Tea and honey from Kangra, Himachal Pradesh

· A traditional, handcrafted Himachali silver bracelet for first lady Melania Trump

· Hand-woven shawls from Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh

Modi had also gifted a carved sandalwood box, a book titled The Ten Principal Upanishads, a statue and an oil lamp worth a total of US $6,232 to President Joe Biden. In November 2022, Modi had gifted him a painting worth US $1,000. He also gifted the US President a folio containing the 1965-dated original commemorative postage stamp issued to mark the death centenary of Abraham Lincoln.

Typically, Indian media or auditors do not ask hard questions about ‘gifting protocol’. Who decides what gifts are to be given and to whom? Is there a price-cap or is the sky the limit? Is there any method in the madness? Are gifts, paid for by Indian taxpayers, accounted for and details placed in Parliament? 

The seeming anomalies are several. While national security advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval gifted a US $485 (Rs 41,000) silver jaguar statue and a US $638 wooden elephant structure to his American counterpart Jacob Sullivan in January and July of 2023, respectively, additional NSA Rajinder Khanna gifted a silver elephant sculpture worth US $3,980 (Rs 3.41 lakh) to US homeland security advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall in September 2022. In the previous month, he had also gifted a silver candlestick and a silver picture frame worth a total of US $515 to US deputy NSA Anne Neuberger.

Significantly, Sullivan, the outgoing US NSA, is visiting India again this month, two weeks after he met Indian external affairs minister S. Jaishankar in the US and days before the second Trump presidency begins on 20 January.

The wild variations remain unexplained. If a gift worth US $600 is deemed appropriate, why would anyone choose to spend nearly US $4,000 on a gift to another official? Were there special reasons and circumstances to justify the additional NSA’s far more expensive gift than NSA Doval’s?

It is not as if US Presidents expect expensive gifts from foreign governments. President Biden himself received far less expensive gifts during 2023, including a commemorative photo album valued at US $7,100 from South Korea's recently impeached President Suk Yeol Yoon, a US $3,495 statue of Mongolian warriors from the Mongolian prime minister, a US $3,300 silver bowl from the sultan of Brunei, a US $3,160 sterling silver tray from the President of Israel, and a collage worth US $2,400 from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Do expensive, pricey and shining gifts serve to boost the ego of the giver, or do they also help in furthering national interest? Indian taxpayers are not asking the question. One suspects that they quite approve of the imperial gesture by the Indian PM, befitting his status as Vishwaguru!