Mumbai, October 21: Some diplomatic messages are delivered in joint statements. Others are delivered by letting a witness speak. On Tuesday, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the 26/11 memorial at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar chose the second route.

After the two laid wreaths at the memorial inside the hotel, Jaishankar introduced Rubio to Sunil Kudyadi, the Taj’s security chief, who was on duty on November 26, 2008, when ten Pakistani terrorists attacked the city. He then let Kudyadi tell the story in his own words.

What Kudyadi told Rubio

Kudyadi described how Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists held the hotel under siege for nearly 60 hours, and how staff risked their lives to help guests get to safety. The Mumbai attacks left 166 people dead, among them six Americans.

The scene mattered because of who was listening. The US lost citizens in the attack, and American officials have a long history of speaking about it. But the memory sits in a delicate place in the current relationship.

The Pakistan question

Reports from the visit say that Rubio, speaking to the press, defended Washington’s engagement with Pakistan, saying that the US keeps ties with it partly because of its nuclear status and its geographic location, while insisting that America stands firmly against terrorism and against any country that supports it.

That echoes a line he took a year ago in Kuala Lumpur, when he said that rebuilding the US strategic partnership with Pakistan would “not come at the expense of India”. India has watched the thaw between Washington and Islamabad closely, and Indian officials regularly press the point that cross-border terrorism has to be part of any conversation on regional stability.

Seen against that background, the Taj briefing was a pointed but polite reminder. It is also in line with the way India and the US have cooperated on 26/11 itself. Rubio and Jaishankar both welcomed the US extradition of Tahawwur Rana, a key conspirator in the attacks, to India in April 2025.

What else was on the agenda

The memorial stop was part of a packed day. Jaishankar and Rubio held talks on trade, energy, technology, defence and people-to-people ties, and exchanged views on regional developments, including the situation in the Middle East. “We shared views on further advancement of our ties,” Jaishankar said on X.

Rubio said they had discussed energy security and defence cooperation, and made clear that energy talks were not limited to Russian oil but covered India’s wider needs. Reports say he also pushed for an early India-US trade deal, and raised the possibility of more US and Venezuelan oil for India.

Jaishankar also attended a reception hosted by US Ambassador Sergio Gor, where he called for a strong partnership against terrorism “in all its forms and manifestations”.

Rubio was scheduled to meet industrialists Gautam Adani and N Chandrasekaran in Mumbai, and to travel to Jamnagar in Gujarat on Wednesday to see Reliance Industries’ refinery. He said the visit would help Washington understand the possibilities for energy cooperation.

Reading the moment

The visit comes at a time of what some reports describe as strains in India-US ties. The US has been tied up in trade negotiations and tariff questions with India, and in Washington, a group of lawmakers wrote to Rubio before his trip urging him to raise concerns about India’s handling of protests. I found no report that he raised the matter publicly during the Mumbai stop.

Against that backdrop, the choice of the Taj as a venue was a signal that India wants counter-terrorism to remain a central part of the relationship. Indian officials have not described it that way publicly, so this is an interpretation of the setting and not an official statement.

What to watch

The next steps are Rubio’s Jamnagar visit and meetings with business leaders, any announcement on the trade agreement, and whether the US adds substance to its words on Pakistan-based terror groups.

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