Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi on Monday suggested that the recent reference to the word ‘Brahmin’ by US President Donald Trump’s aide Peter Navarro in the Indian context was not accidental but deliberate, adding that such usage could not have come “out of the blue”.
Chaturvedi said that while she was aware of the “Boston Brahmins” reference in the US, the invocation of the term in India’s context by a senior White House adviser carried a different and deliberate political weight.
“The usage of the word Brahmin (yes elite Boston Brahmins US context am aware) by someone senior in US Administration cannot come out of the blue in India’s context, this was deliberate. So please sit out on explaining this one,” she posted, further calling Navarro’s remarks “shameful and sinister”.
Her sharp rebuttal came after Navarro, the White House trade adviser, launched a fresh tirade against India for continuing to purchase Russian oil.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Navarro claimed that Brahmins in India were “profiteering” at the expense of the people and that this “needs to stop”. While acknowledging Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “great leader,” Navarro said he could not understand why the Indian leader was cooperating with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping “when he’s the biggest democracy in the world”.
“So I would just simply say, the Indian people, please understand what’s going on here. You got Brahmins profiteering at the expense of the Indian people. We need that to stop,” Navarro said.
Navarro’s remark that “Brahmins are profiteering at the expense of the Indian people” sparked outrage across India, with many describing it as casteist and an extension of an anti-India narrative.
Some political leaders, however, argued the reference was rooted in American history. TMC’s Saket Gokhale pointed out that Navarro was from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the term “Boston Brahmin” traditionally referred to wealthy New England elites.
“Classic case of ignorance (and I don’t mean Navarro). In New England (esp Boston & around where he’s from), the term ‘Brahmin’ is used for someone extremely rich,” Gokhale said. Congress MP Karti Chidambaram also suggested netizens had overreacted by equating the term to caste.
“‘Boston Brahmins’ is a term used to describe the elite of society in common parlance,” Karti Chidambaram said while sharing a clip of Peter Navarro’s remarks.
Despite these clarifications, Chaturvedi maintained that the deliberate use of the word in India’s context by a senior US official was troubling.
“Peter Navarro’s invocation of a particular caste identity in India to make his point, even if it is to imply the ‘privileged lot’ vis-a-vis the rest, is shameful and sinister,” she said.
Navarro’s rhetoric comes amid escalating trade tensions between Washington and New Delhi after President Trump imposed a 25 per cent reciprocal tariff on Indian goods, followed by an additional 25 per cent duty targeting India’s purchases of Russian oil. India has described the measures as “unjustified and unreasonable”.
In his Fox News appearance, Navarro defended the tariff barrage, saying the US had “50 per cent tariffs now on India” and a little over 50 per cent on China. He accused Indian refiners of buying discounted Russian crude, refining it, and selling it to Europe, Africa, and Asia “at a big premium”, calling India “nothing but a laundromat for the Kremlin”.
“India is the maharaja of tariffs. They have the highest tariffs in the world. They export us a bunch of stuff, but they won’t let us sell to them. So who gets hurt? Workers in America, taxpayers in America, Ukrainians in cities getting killed by Russian drones,” Navarro alleged. He further claimed India’s actions were “killing Ukrainians” and accused New Delhi of bankrolling Moscow’s war machine.
In previous remarks, Navarro had described the Ukraine conflict as “Modi’s war”, declaring that “the road to peace runs partly right through New Delhi”.
He has accused India of “getting in bed with authoritarians”, claiming the country’s crude imports are filling “Vladimir Putin’s war chest”. He has also branded India a “strategic freeloader”, criticised its weapons purchases from Russia, and accused it of seeking unfair technology transfers from American firms.
At one point, Navarro even shared a photograph of Prime Minister Modi meditating in saffron robes, seen as a swipe at India’s civilisational identity. His language has since hardened, with recent comments portraying India as destabilising the global order by aligning with Russia and China.
Meanwhile, India has repeatedly defended its purchase of Russian crude, insisting that energy procurement is guided by national interest and market realities. Since Western sanctions on Moscow began after the Ukraine invasion, Russia has emerged as India’s largest supplier of crude oil.
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