Washington: Mystery solved.
President Joe Biden sat down with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday for important talks about the Indo-Pacific region. But first, leaders caught hold of the president’s own family ties with the subcontinent.
Biden recalled that soon after being elected to the US Senate for the first time, he received a letter from a Mumbai-based man, saying that his last name was also Biden. The president said he never got a chance to follow up.
Later, as vice president, Biden was in India and recalled being asked by the local press if he had any Indian relatives. He retells the story of the letter. The next day, Biden said, he was informed by the Indian press that there was at least some Biden in India.
And though we never accepted it… I learned that there was a Captain George Biden who was the captain in the East India Tea Company in India, Biden said. He appears to have been referring to the British East India Company, a commercial power that for centuries controlled trade in colonized India and parts of South-East Asia.
Biden, who often speaks of his Irish ancestry, quipped that the British relationship was “hard for an Irishman to accept.
Biden, who has previously told an anecdote to Indian audiences, said that Captain Biden had apparently stayed and married an Indian woman, but he was never able to give more details.
He joked that Modi “was in Washington to help me figure it out.
In fact, Modi told the President that he had looked into it and brought a document highlighting the President’s Mumbai connection.
“Did I belong?” Biden asked.
The prime minister confirmed that the 46th US president did indeed have family ties to the subcontinent.
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