India’s political class and its deep ties to the US

At a time when the world order is shifting on its axis, it is worth noting how some nations helming this transformation have shaped their psychological and legal approach to their own citizens who built lives and careers in the US. Leaders of three such nations, China, Russia, and Iran, visited New Delhi for the BRICS summit on September 12–13. BRICS is fundamentally a grouping of major and emerging non-Western economies.

Many vignettes emerged from the New Delhi meet, including the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi tightly gripping the hands of Chinese premier Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, while the Iranian delegation led by President Masoud Pezeshkian went on a charm offensive.

These three nations are at the forefront of changing the world order. Iran and Russia are literally engaged in war while China is metaphorically soldiering on as the great economic power that has challenged US hegemony.

These nations do not trust citizens who build lives and assets in the US. Article 2 of the Law on the Procedure for Appointing Persons to Sensitive Positions in Iran now prohibits those “who themselves, their children or their spouses have dual citizenship”; China refers to them as “naked officials”; and Putin’s Russia sacks officials whose children are settled with assets outside the motherland. The Iran story is quite fascinating as there has been some level of conflict within the Islamic Republic on the ramifications of the law in recent years. The backdrop is that Iran permits dual citizenship,, unlike India, but there are categories of individuals who can no longer serve in sensitive positions if their family has assets and incomes in foreign nations above a certain threshold.

The Iranian parliament passed such a law in 2022. It was an issue in Iran as former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who was in office from 2013 to 2021, could no longer hold that post. Iranian media reports said that his two children were automatically given US citizenship as they were born there while he served as part of the Iranian delegation to the UN. His children reportedly now live in Iran, but an attempt to bring him into office as Pezeshkian’s Vice President for Strategic Affairs was aborted after an amendment to the 2022 law was defeated in Iran’s parliament in November 2024.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (centre) with Mohammad Fathali, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to India (left of the President) in New Delhi on September 12. Pezeshkian was in Delhi for the BRICS summit. | Photo Credit: SAHIBA CHAWDHARY/REUTERS

Imagine a galaxy of Ministers in India being asked if their children are holding employment in a foreign nation or benefiting from economic aid in foreign universities while that country is seeking favourable arrangements with India. Or anyone questioning the reality that the political class seeks votes in India but sends its children abroad. No Indian would be asked to quit office because his children are beneficiaries of the system of another country, nor would the conflict-of-interest principle ever be examined when it comes to the US.

By the same token, it is possible that questions would be asked if Indian Cabinet Ministers started sending their children to study in China, which now has some of the top-ranked universities in the world. In broadcast media debates, China can be cast as an enemy (due to its links with Pakistan and border issues) but never the US.

This, at a time when US tariffs have extracted a cost from many Indian small-scale industries that exist in small town clusters. Periodically, India is also threatened by the US with the possibility of economic boycott over purchase of Russian oil.

But the umbilical and psychological cord attaching middle-class and wealthy Indians to the US is strong. It is even more pronounced among adherents of right-wing Hindutva ideology, who had envisioned an India-Israel-US axis dominating the world. They have, in recent months, particularly during the BRICS Summit and its aftermath, sought to correct that positioning as it is now looking delusional.

Still, a political party and system packed with Ministers whose children are embedded in the West will continue to lecture Indians on patriotism and nationalism. We will also not make this a topic of conversation as even some liberals and left-leaning individuals who critique colonialism/capitalism/imperialism are ready to jump through hoops for a US visa-cum-job. One could even justify this by saying they are the victims of centuries of colonisation.

Russia, on the other hand, banned high-ranking officials from holding stocks, assets, and properties abroad as far back as 2013. The laws keep getting modified, tightened, or not applied, but the idea that someone with a stake in the US should not hold high office in Putin’s Russia is very much there.

In an interview in 2024, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, said that officials from other countries had told him that when they were voting in the UN, American officials reminded them that their children were studying at US universities and had accounts in American banks. The same year Reuters reported that Russia was tightening rules about foreign travel by officials; one official was reportedly forced to resign after it came to light that his son was studying in the US.

Still, it would be fair to expect the Russian attitude towards the US to be influenced by the Cold War and, in the current era, the Ukraine war, which has escalated since 2022. The Chinese win wars by other means. They have a bureaucratic category called “naked officials”, which actually translates from the mandarin phrase luoguan. In February 2026, South China Morning Post reported that China had tightened restrictions on officials with family members living overseas as part of a sweeping anti-corruption drive. The newspaper quoted a Communist Party insider saying that there now was also a category of “quasi naked officials” whose children are living abroad but whose spouses are in China. The idea, apparently, is not to penalise people for living abroad but to ensure they do not hold sensitive posts and offices.

What is always of interest to Indian readers is the fact that Pakistan does permit dual citizenship for its nationals, but those holding two passports are prohibited from high office. India does not permit dual citizenship, but neither do we scrutinise the fact that top Ministers have an umbilical cord to the US via their children.

In an ideal world, there should be no boundaries or borders (remember the classic song “Imagine” by John Lennon). We should all, without visas and permits, be able to travel across the globe singing of universal peace and unity. But the reality is that wars and geopolitcal strategies crush economies of other countries, lead to encroachment of territories, and even result in genocide.

As a beneficiary of a few fellowships from institutions in the West, I can hardly complain about the quality of the education/opportunities they offer. But I have never sought to settle in foreign nations nor become embedded in think tanks and institutions; nor have my parents held public office.

Also, the sight of Ministers’ children getting degrees from Ivy League universities is obscene against the backdrop of Indian students and job applicants protesting over paper leaks, activists highlighting the pathetic state of government schools, and the visible decline in the quality of education in Central universities.

Saba Naqvi is a Delhi-based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.

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