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New Delhi: Seven months into his presidency and on the verge of imposing steep import tariffs, US President Donald Trump has nominated senior White House official Sergio Gor as ambassador to India, with an additional mandate as special envoy for South and Central Asia – a move that revives sensitivities in New Delhi over being linked to Pakistan.

Making the announcement on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote on Friday night that he was “promoting” White House Director of Presidential Personnel, 38-year-old Sergio Gor to be the next United States Ambassador to India, and Special Envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs.

The State department’s bureau of South and Central Asian covers 13 countries in the region, which means that Gor would be supervising not just India, but also neighbouring Pakistan.

New Delhi has long been prickly about any such hyphenation. 

Before President Obama formally appointed Richard Holbrooke as special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009, early talk of extending his mandate to India had already drawn strong resistance from New Delhi. Officials lobbied hard to ensure that India was kept out of his title and portfolio, fearing any reference would open the door to outside involvement in Kashmir.

According to a December 2008 US diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, then foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon had told US officials that a “special envoy would be deeply unpopular and could negatively affect the gains in our bilateral relationship made over the past eight years”.

A week later, in January 2009, then foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee conveyed his unease to outgoing US ambassador David Mulford, saying he was “deeply concerned about any move toward an envoy with a broad regional mandate that could be interpreted to include Kashmir.”

Mulford wrote in his cable that Mukherjee had warned such a mandate “would be viewed by India as risky and unpredictable, exposing issues of vital concern to India to the discretion of the individual appointed. A special envoy smacks of interference and would be unacceptable.”

As The New Yorker later noted, the backlash was so strong that Holbrooke joked he would finish his assignment without ever uttering the “K-word.”

India’s position on the inclusion of this expanded mandate for the newly nominated US envoy is not yet clear.

At an event in New Delhi on Saturday, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar was asked about Gor’s nomination. He said he had “read” about the appointment but declined to offer........

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