US Ambassador Garcetti dismisses concerns about democracy in India
Biden administration's top diplomat in New Delhi on Thursday dismissed concerns being raised in certain quarters about democracy in India and observed that in many ways Indians are better than the Americans. At an event organised here by the Council on Foreign Relations, a top American think-tank, US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti told the audience he was confident that «10 years from now India is going to be a vibrant democracy as it is today in terms of free and fair elections».
«Again there's things that probably are worse and there's things that are better. They have a law, you can't go more than two kilometers to vote. So there''ll be one guy who lives in the mountains as a monk (at) someplace. They will walk for two days to bring the voting machine, execute the vote,» he said, responding to a question expressing concerns over the status of democracy in India.
He said that during elections times in India, there are people who check trucks to make sure that nobody has cash going around. «There's probably walk-in money, as they call it in some cities here in the United States, Philadelphia, that's like a tradition where cash kind of gets you votes and things like that. So, I've been impressed with certain things they do that are better than us.»
He, however, added there are things that «we keep our eyes on. And I just disagree that we don't speak out about them»,
«We put them out. It's not the only thing. I mean, some people want us to only say
