By: Pramod Kumar
Trump’s ongoing India visit is a very special occasion for the Indian-American US officials Ajit Pai and Kash Patel.
Ajit Pai, the first-ever Indian American Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and Kash Patel, special assistant to the president and senior director for counter-terrorism, are part of the official delegation of president Donald Trump.
Ajit Pai travelled to India on board the Air Force One along with President Donald Trump around five decades after his parents landed in the US.
He has wondered how his parents would have reacted years ago had they been told that their son would one day accompany the US president to India.
“If I could go back in time to 1971, just after my parents’ weddings, I wonder what those two young adults would say if you told them that just one generation later their son would be representing the top levels of the United States government visiting the country in which they had grown up,” said Pai.
“I have a feeling that they would say what they often do now and a belief I carry in my bones, only in America,” Pai said in a video posted on Twitter.
In 1937, my maternal grandfather was issued this passport to work as a clerk in Bahrain, where my mother was born in 1945. Today, I’m honored to be here representing my country, remembering my family’s past, and hoping to build an ever-stronger bond between two old allies. pic.twitter.com/7CCfUdiOTw
— Ajit Pai (@AjitPaiFCC) September 6, 2019
Pai said during his India trip, they will be discussing issues of mutual interest like 5G and bridging the digital divide.
“We will aim to deepen the friendship between the worlds oldest democracy and its largest,” he added.
Pai said his mother grew up in Bengaluru while his father was raised in Hyderabad.
Shortly after their wedding in 1971, they came to America with just $8, a transistor radio and the “faith that the American dream would be within reach”, he said.
“Like so many immigrants, they sacrificed to give me opportunities they did not have. And it was my grandparents who instilled in us the value of hard work and the vision to dream big,” he said.
Kash Patel travelled to India with Trump and gave a speech with his parents in the crowd watching him.
