US-India is one of the greatest relationships…: Eric Garcetti

NEW DELHI: US Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, on Monday opened up on his journey as the US Ambassador to India on Monday, and said it has been one of the “personal honors” of his lifetime. Garcetti, who was visibly nostalgic, said that the relationship of the US with India was one of the greatest relationships they have ever known.

“My time serving as the United States Ambassador to India has put me at the front line to witness and to help drive how compelling, consequential and comprehensive this relationship now is. It has been one of the personal honors of my lifetime, but I know for our country too, this is one of the greatest relationships our country has ever known”, Garcetti said at the event titled ‘The United States and India: Building Bridges for our People’.

“The privilege to leave this team, which is now going to be in the hands of our amazing DCM, Jorgan Andrews, showing us how compelling this moment is. But the most smartest, the most hardworking, most committed public servants that I’ve ever had the honor of serving with, that is, been Mission India”, he added.

#WATCH | Delhi | Speaking on his tenure in India, US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti says, “My time serving as the United States Ambassador to India has put me at the frontline to witness and to help drive how compelling, consequential this relationship now is…But this last… pic.twitter.com/mrulTueZur

— ANI (@ANI) January 13, 2025

Garcetti strongly asserted that one in four foreign students in the United States are Indians. “I’m proud that since becoming ambassador, India has become the number one source of higher education students to the United States of America. Number two is not even close. Now 23 per cent exponential growth and 23 per cent growth last year alone and one in four foreign students studying at American universities are proudly Indian students enriching our universities and bringing something marvelous back to India,” he said.

Garcetti lauded the recent US-India Cultural Property Agreement, and affirmed US’ commitment for cultural exchange and cultural preservation.

“Our commitment to cultural exchange includes cultural preservation as well. You can’t write the future if you don’t know the past. America believes that too much of Indian culture has been taken away from India, in some cases stolen from India. So our mission got busy, and in July, we signed the landmark US-India Cultural Property Agreement,” he said.

“Agreements like this prevent the illegal trade of cultural property and simplify the process by which looted and stolen antiquities can be returned to their country of origin. We’ve also seen exceptional law enforcement cooperation in this area. Since 2016, the US facilitated the return of 578 priceless cultural artifacts here to India, where they deserve to be the highest of any country, with more than half of these antiquities returned during the Prime Minister’s official state visit just last year. I hope that more of these artifacts can be returned to India globally and in turn, then legally, those artifacts can continue to be loaned out to the world.

“As we saw when the Metropolitan Museum of Art did not just one, but their two such Indian exhibitions in the last 18 months, bringing that great culture to the world in New York City and beyond. This agreement follows on our long history of museum and cultural exchanges between our countries and private sectors, exchanges like the Getty Foundation’s collaboration with the CSMVS Museum, of course, in Mumbai, to bring antiquities as part of an ancient world’s now exhibit on display there,” he added.

The US Ambassador further said that Indian history is world’s history, and it should not be written out for any longer. “You see, Indian history isn’t just for India. We recognize Indian history is world history. It’s world heritage, and it’s been hidden and written out of history for too long. And so we’re proud to turn this page together and write a chapter that will return India’s great civilizational culture to the center, not just of this country’s, but of the world’s focus as well,” he said.

Garcetti summarized the countries’ progressive relations in the form of four Ps, representing a temple’s formation under a common ‘shikhara’.

“To summarise the progress we have made charting a blueprint for the future in what I call the four P’s…our efforts to preserve the peace, to pursue a joint prosperity, to protect our mutual planet, and to promote our common people. It’s like an Indian temple’s four cardinal points. Think of them as meeting under a common shikara, the central tower of this, our mission on a mission… People, it’s about you. It’s about us. It’s about the people that connect across oceans and cultures, religions, time, and geography for a common purpose to better the life of our two nations and the world that we inhabit,” he said.

He added that his tenure was marked with setting of new records in several fields; like record visitors, defence exercises, etc.

“And when I look back on my time in India, I know we will record so many accomplishments over the last two years. Record trade, record visitors, record defense exercises and military contracts, record students, record investments, record cooperation in space and on the seas, but equal to the accomplishments, the things we have done, maybe even larger, I will take home with me most deeply the people I have met and how you made me feel,” he said.

Garcetti, who is a native of Los Angeles, expressed his gratitude towards the ones who reached out to him to offer support while it is reeling under wildfires

“I’m a native of an amazing city called Los Angeles and I want to thank so many of you that have reached out to me in this past week as my beloved city of angels suffers from the most brutal wildfires we’ve ever seen. My own parents are displaced from our family home. Our eldest daughter and our grandchildren from a second fire are displaced from just blocks away from that. Thankfully they are all safe, but so many have lost everything and some have lost their lives. So I ask you to continue to keep them in your thoughts, keep them in your prayers, keep them in your good wishes, and thank you for the kindness you have shown me as an Angeleno in the midst of all of this,” he said.

He quoted Indian poet Kabir and said that one must make most of the present. “Kabir, the Greatest North Indian mystic poet, revered by Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and many more alike perhaps wrote much more poetically about this when he wrote, ‘Kal kare so aaj kar, aaj kare so ab, Pal mein parlay hoyegi, bahuri karega kab.’ Finish tomorrow’s tasks today and today’s tasks right now. When would you finish them if the world were to end in the next moment? In other words, we never know, as I’m witnessing in my hometown, and in our lives what the next day brings,” he said.

Talking about cooperation in the education sector, Garcetti said that the US and India are nurturing the students to give them the ability to tackle various challenges of present age.

“The United States and India continue to nurture the next generation of leaders, equipping them with skills and experiences they need to confront the world’s greatest challenges. The last two years have seen our US Agency for International Development (USAID) partner with India to strengthen state and national education programs, improving curriculum design, teacher training, digital learning schools in multiple languages across the geography of this country. We’ve made it a priority to expand access to education for girls and for students with disabilities,” Garcetti said.

“Together we’ve made a difference for more than nine million students. That’s more than the entire population of many countries that we have diplomatic missions in. And a particularly inspiring program has been USAID’s partnership with Sesame Workshop for the Learn Play Grow initiative. It is not India plus the US, but India times the US. And perhaps the most visible sign of our thriving and growing educational partnership is of course university students,” he added. (ANI)