Peter Navarro’s latest comment has set off a storm. On Fox News, while attacking India’s oil trade with Russia, he slipped in a line that was neither accidental nor harmless: “Brahmins are profiteering off the Indian people.” Some in India immediately saw it for what it was, a casteist and racist slur. Others, sadly, tried to whitewash it. Their excuse? Navarro, the brown Sahibs say, was only borrowing from the old American phrase “Boston Brahmins,” a nickname for the Protestant elite of New England.
Let’s not kid ourselves. That defence is intellectual gymnastics of the worst kind. Navarro wasn’t reminiscing about Harvard professors or the Cabot family. He was talking about Indians, to Indians, in the most loaded way possible.
Boston Brahmins vs Indian Brahmins
The Boston Brahmins were a cultural metaphor, wealthy WASP aristocrats of 19th-century Massachusetts. They had Harvard degrees, old money, and a sense of superiority. The word “Brahmin” in that context was borrowed imagery, nothing to do with Hinduism or caste.
Now put that beside Navarro’s outburst. He accused India of being a laundromat for Russian oil and said Brahmins, not elites, not oligarchs, but Brahmins were profiteering. Then he added the clincher: “at the expense of the Indian people.”
This was not metaphor. This was not poetry. This was caste language, fired like a bullet into a billion-strong nation.
The Casteist Edge
Navarro’s framing is dangerous because it does three things at once:
a) It imports caste into foreign policy. Instead of debating tariffs and oil flows, he recasts the problem as one of caste dominance.
b) It stereotypes Indians. A complex trade strategy is reduced to a caste conspiracy.
c) It racialises diplomacy. An American official tells India that its caste system is to blame for profiteering, justifying punitive tariffs in the process.
This isn’t clumsy wording. It’s deliberate provocation.
Enter the Brown Sahibs
And yet, here’s the truly shameful part. Instead of calling him out, a few Indian commentators rushed to explain away the insult. They claimed, with a straight face, that Navarro probably meant “Boston Brahmin,” not Indian Brahmin.
This is the brown sahib reflex—the colonial hangover where English-educated elites bend over backwards to excuse Western condescension.
Brown sahibs thrive on:
a) Explaining India to the West in Western terms,
b) Apologising for Western insults instead of challenging them,
c) Pretending that every attack is just a “misunderstanding.”
By defending Navarro, they aren’t clarifying. They’re grovelling. They’re saying: “Don’t worry, master didn’t mean it like that.”
Anti-Indian to the Core
Let’s be brutally honest: to defend Navarro here is to stand against India. It means siding with a foreign official who weaponised caste for his own agenda. It means legitimising a precedent where casteist language becomes fair play in global diplomacy.
Such defenders are not moderates. They are not intellectuals. They are anti-Indian, plain and simple.
Because what is at stake isn’t just one insult. If this is tolerated, tomorrow it will be senators, analysts, and trade negotiators tossing caste terms around to weaken India’s negotiating position. And every time a brown sahib waves it off as a metaphor, the wound deepens.
Why It Cannot Be Ignored
India has lived with caste wounds for centuries. For an American trade adviser to exploit that history on international television is not only offensive—it is reckless. It hands ammunition to every critic who wants to paint India as hopelessly divided and caste-ridden.
Worse, it tells the world that casteist rhetoric is acceptable currency in discussions with India. That is a slippery slope no self-respecting nation can afford.
To The Brown Sahibs
Navarro was not talking about Boston’s elite. He was not making a literary flourish. He was pointing at India and saying its Brahmins were robbing the people. That is casteist. That is racist. And it is unacceptable.
But even more disgraceful than Navarro’s outburst are the Indians who leapt to defend him. They are the modern brown sahibs—polished in accent, impoverished in pride. Their loyalty lies not with India, but with the Western gaze.
Navarro’s words must be condemned. And so must the servile instinct that tries to excuse them. Because every time we let this pass, we lose a little more of our dignity on the world stage.
