Indian Media’s Focus on Epstein’s Sex Crimes Misses the Larger Issue

From the Editor’s Desk

February 3, 2026

The Indian media has responded to the Epstein email by focusing on his status as a sex crimes convict, framing the issue largely in moral terms. But this misses the real concern raised by the wealthy American financier’s claim that India’s Prime Minister followed his advice in visiting Israel to strengthen ties with the United States. Suppose, for a moment, Epstein had never been convicted of any crime. Would the assertion still trouble us?

To begin with, statecraft rests on two foundational principles. First, decisions concerning foreign policy are made by those who hold formal authority within the state, such as elected leaders or constitutionally authorised officials. Second, those decisions emerge through established institutional procedures that involve strategic, military, diplomatic and economic considerations. These processes are designed to ensure that public decisions reflect national interests and are not shaped by private influence.

In this context, Epstein’s claim signals something structurally serious, that a private individual with no recognised role in Indian diplomacy, whose affiliations and interests were not publicly accountable, influenced the Prime Minister’s decision to engage in a major diplomatic gesture toward the United States and Israel. Modi’s 2017 visit to Israel was a significant move in Indian foreign policy, one that marked a departure from earlier balancing strategies in West Asia and signalled a deeper alignment with the American-led bloc.

Whether Epstein had a sex crimes background is unrelated to this specific issue. The core concern is institutional. The idea that someone operating outside India’s constitutional framework could have helped shape a decision of such magnitude raises questions about the integrity of the foreign policy process.

In constitutional democracies, foreign policy lies within the domain of the executive. However, the legitimacy of the executive’s actions depends on the assumption that its decisions arise from institutional briefings, intelligence inputs, national interest assessments and internal debates. If an unelected private financier claimed that he gave advice that directly shaped India’s first-ever Prime Ministerial visit to Israel, the concern is a possible breakdown of formal channels of decision-making. The issue is that someone who was not accountable to Indian citizens claimed a role in shaping Indian foreign policy.

Political theory offers a basic concept to make sense of this. A government is considered legitimate when its decisions are seen to follow rules, laws and formal procedures, rather than personal preferences or private deals. Foreign visits are expected to reflect a country’s official policy, not gestures designed to flatter another country’s leader or carry out the advice of unofficial actors. In international relations, actions by a head of government are supposed to come from declared strategy and public reasoning, not backroom suggestions or performances aimed at pleasing foreign powers.

In international relations, non-state actors often seek influence. That includes lobbyists, diaspora groups, global capital networks and, sometimes, intelligence intermediaries. But democratic governments are expected to maintain a professional distance from such actors. They may receive inputs, but decisions must come from recognised, accountable structures. Here, the implication is that India’s diplomacy was framed around performative loyalty to Washington, not its own geostrategic priorities. That is the real issue.

By allowing the debate to revolve around Epstein’s sex crimes alone, we are turning a question of political accountability into a moral distraction. The real question is not “Why did someone like Epstein say this?” It is “How does a person like Epstein know that this kind of influence is possible, and why was he confident enough to claim it in writing?”

The Epstein files also include messages from Indian billionaire Anil Ambani to Epstein the same year, in which Ambani allegedly discusses India-Israel relations and seeks Epstein’s help in connecting with senior figures in the U.S. administration ahead of Prime Minister’s visit to Washington. This instance raises the same concern that a politically connected businessman allegedly turned to a private, unaccountable figure to seek influence over diplomatic affairs.

Perhaps the reason for the Indian media’s blind spot lies in its prevailing culture of coverage, where most developments are framed either through the lens of the Left-versus-Right political clash or reduced to something sensational. This lack of academic scrutiny often sidelines the deeper institutional or procedural questions that form the heart of the issue.

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