US Second Lady Usha Vance described the India-US relationship as “very personal” to her, highlighting a moment of “great opportunity” in the evolving bilateral ties. Reflecting on her recent visit, she recalled how meeting Prime Minister Modi left a lasting impression on her children, who endearingly saw him as a grandfather figure.
“Well, of course, it is a very personal relationship because I have family members who are in India, and I have many family members here in the United States, and I did grow up visiting India and visiting those family members, and they grew up visiting me,” Vance said during a fireside chat here on Monday at the eighth edition of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) Leadership Summit.
"So that's always been a relationship that I've personally thought of as very important,” she said at the event attended by lawmakers, prominent government, business and community leaders from the Indian diaspora and the US.
She was responding to a question on her personal perspective about the US-India relationship during the fireside chat conducted by USISPF Chairman and Founder and CEO of JC2 Ventures, John Chambers.
Vance said, “The way that I think about it more broadly is I think this is a time of great opportunity. And I think if my husband were here, he'd say the same thing. Obviously, the United States and India - the relationship has ebbed and flowed at times. There are times when one country's needs and one country's goals are different from the other. But right now, I think, in the next four years and in the future, the fact that there is this established Indian-American population here, and so many people in India who know the country and know the people who are here doing great things, having great opportunities.”
Vance recalled that when the Second Family - Vice President J D Vance, herself and their three young children, visited India in April, “I was struck by the number of people who came up to me to say how much they loved our country, how they visited family, how they visited just for pleasure, that they were hoping for a close relationship looking forward. And I think these personal ties actually really have something to do with it.”
“It was a trip of a lifetime. My children had never been to India. They grew up just knowing so much about this country- the story, the food, but they had never actually seen it. It was mindblowing from their perspective… Meeting the PM was very special. My kids saw him; they saw an Indian man with a white beard and white hair, and they immediately put them in the grandfather category,” Vance said while recalling her recent trip to India.
"They just love him. And he really cemented his status by giving our five-year-old a birthday present that day,” she said.
She recalled that when the Vance family visited PM Modi’s residence in Delhi, her kids ran up to him and were hugging him. “He was just incredibly kind and generous to them.” She noted that the conversation between her husband and the Prime Minister was “very productive” and “it was a real opportunity for us to kind of cement that personal relationship that they have, which I think is only to the good.”
Vance further said that her children had never been to India before because of the pandemic and her husband's political schedules but they have grown up knowing “so much about this country, the stories, the food, the relationships with grandparents and friends, but they had never actually seen it. So it was just sort of mind-blowing from their perspective." Noting that for her and her husband, “it just could not have been any more special” as the family had the opportunity to see some of the greatest sights in north India.
“We're looking forward to our next trip and trying to get to the parts of the country where my family is from as well,” she said, referring to Andhra Pradesh where her parents Krish Chilukuri and Lakshmi Chilukuri are from.
“It just was sort of one hit after another,” Vance said as she spoke fondly of the “most incredible food”, peacocks, seeing the Taj Mahal, puppet shows, with puppeteering from all over the country, including from Andhra Pradesh, where her family is from.
“There were bits from the Ramayana. There were sort of comedic bits with animals. And it was a huge hit.” Vance said that when the family was at the Prime Minister's residence, her son was “just so taken by everything and then taken by the entire cart of mangoes that was available for him to eat that he announced to the Prime Minister that he thought he could maybe live there and started making his plans…He just loved it.” She said that her children talk about the visit to India “all the time.
“They've been all over the place, and they've had wonderful opportunities to see the world, but this was really special to them,” she said adding that her oldest son Ewan was really taken by the sculptures in the temple that he visited and thought it was incredible craftsmanship. Vivek, the Vances’ middle child, was very excited to meet elephants, peacocks, camels and “just any animal that he could kind of get his hands on.” She said that her daughter Mirabel really enjoyed her time in an auto rickshaw.
"That was maybe the highlight for her. The Secret Service was very generous and allowed us to kind of drive in an enclosed area for a few minutes. So we had a lot of fun with that.”
At the leadership summit, the USISPF also presented the 2025 Global Leadership Awards to IBM Chairman Arvind Krishna, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla and Hitachi Executive Chairman Toshiaki Higashihara “for their outstanding contributions in strengthening the US-India-Japan economic partnership.” This is the first time that business leaders from the QUAD grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the US will be honoured at the USISPF summit.
The USISPF is an independent not-for-profit institution focused on strengthening the US-India partnership.