Hardeep Singh Puri to be back in Parliament: Epstein files forgotten | LME 175 | Pooja Prasanna

Look at this photograph. 

Hardeep Singh Puri, now India’s Petroleum Minister, sitting across a table from Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who counted some of the world’s most powerful people among his associates.

Puri says he met Epstein only three or four times, as part of official delegations. That gets demolished with this photo.

And emails and other records suggest a more extensive relationship.

And this goes beyond Epstein. Puri spent decades as a diplomat, moving through the world of global think tanks, billionaires and influential power brokers, long before he joined the Union Cabinet.

Despite all the outrage- Puri has just been renominated to the Rajya Sabha by the BJP.

So, who is Hardeep Singh Puri, and how did he build this network of access?

And what do his interactions with Epstein tell us about it?

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So, who was Hardeep Singh Puri before he became a Union minister?

Because Puri didn’t enter politics from nowhere. He had already spent nearly four decades inside the corridors of state power.

He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1974 and went on to serve in diplomatic postings in countries including Brazil, Japan and Sri Lanka. It was really at the global level that Puri built his network.

Take the late 1980s. Between 1988 and 1991, as countries were negotiating the GATT Uruguay Round, the talks that eventually led to the creation of the World Trade Organization, Puri was the coordinator of the UNDP/UNCTAD Multilateral Trade Negotiations Project.

What did that mean?

He was advising developing countries on some of the most consequential trade negotiations of the time. In other words, he was sitting right at the intersection of international trade, finance and corporate policy.

And then his career went even higher.

In May 2009, Puri became India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.

During that four-year stint, he wasn't just sitting in committee rooms—he was running them.

India had a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council in 2011 and 2012, and Puri actually presided over the Council twice, in August 2011 and November 2012.

At the same time, from January 2011 to February 2013, he chaired the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee.

Think about the kind of access that gives you.

You’re dealing with foreign ministers, senior diplomats, defence officials and policymakers from some of the most powerful countries in the world.

This is how networks are built.

And when a diplomat like Puri retires, something interesting happens. The official position disappears. But the relationships, the credibility and the access built over decades don’t necessarily disappear with it.

Puri retired from the foreign service in February 2013.

And that’s when his story takes a very interesting turn.

Puri entered what political analysts call the "liminal zone". He moved into a world that operates somewhat differently from formal diplomacy.

Think international think tanks, private advisory boards, policy forums, billionaires, investors and former diplomats. People who may no longer hold government positions, but still have something extremely valuable: access.

And Puri was soon right in the middle of that world.

By June 2013, he had become Vice President of the International Peace Institute, or IPI, in New York. He was also the Secretary-General of its Independent Commission on Multilateralism.

The IPI was headed at the time by Norwegian diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen, who was one of the key figures involved in the 1993 Oslo Accords.

And there’s another name you need to know here.

Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein had links to the IPI and its network. There are extensive email exchanges between Epstein and Rød-Larsen in the documents that have since become public, including discussions about meetings and high-level dinners.

Rød-Larsen and his wife are also currently under investigation in Norway over allegations relating to corruption in foreign affairs.

So why does all of this matter when we are talking about Hardeep Singh Puri?

Because Puri had just moved from representing the Indian government officially to operating in a private network where diplomacy, business and elite social connections increasingly overlapped.

And right at the center of that IPI network, funding policy initiatives and hosting private dinners, was Jeffrey Epstein.

Look at this photograph.

Hardeep Singh Puri, sitting across a table from Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who cultivated relationships with some of the most powerful people in the world.

Puri has said he met Epstein only three or four times, and that these meetings happened as part of official delegations.

But the photograph raises questions about that account.

Why was Jeffrey Epstein interested in Hardeep Singh Puri in 2014? And why was Puri corresponding with him?

Epstein was not merely a disgraced financier; he was a collector of human capital. He used think-tank funding, dinner invitations, and private introductions to buy proximity to state power.

There were at least 62 email exchanges between Puri and Epstein and references up to 14 meetings between 2014 and 2017 alone.

Let’s start with one exchange from September 2014.

Epstein introduced Puri to LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, describing Puri as “your man in India”.

Puri was preparing to meet Hoffman in San Francisco. And before that meeting, he wrote to Epstein asking for advice.

“You, my friend, make things happen. Any advice?”

Now, that is not simply two people saying hello.

There is a former Indian diplomat, preparing to meet a major Silicon Valley figure, asking Epstein for advice on how to make that pitch.

And there’s another exchange that is even more revealing.

In October 2014, Epstein asked Puri for help getting an Indian visa expedited for an associate who was attending a wedding.

Puri did not simply respond by directing him to the usual visa process.

He forwarded the request to a senior official, writing: “Grateful if you could have this done on a priority basis.”

And then there is the tone of their correspondence.

On December 24, 2014, Puri sent Epstein Christmas greetings and asked him to get in touch when he returned from his “exotic island”. Puri also offered to bring him books that might “excite an interest in India”.

In another email, Puri wrote: “Indeed, telepathy. Give me a shout when you are back.”

Now, none of these emails by themselves establish why Puri maintained this relationship with Epstein.

But they do tell us something important.

This was not simply a case of Puri being in the same delegation as Epstein a handful of times.

There was correspondence. There were introductions. There were requests for help. And there were attempts to facilitate things for each other.

And that brings us back to Puri's explanation.

He has said he met Epstein only three or four times, primarily as part of official delegations.

But the records now available show a much more sustained interaction between the two.

Then there is another question.

How much did Puri know about Epstein at the time?

Because by 2014, Epstein's criminal history was already public.

He had pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor, served a 13-month sentence and was a registered sex offender.

There were also public allegations by then that he had sexually abused underage girls.

So when Puri met Epstein in New York, this was not a meeting with an unknown businessman whose past had yet to become public.

And there is one more important piece of context.

Puri retired from the IFS in February 2013.

He joined the BJP in January 2014.

And in 2017, he entered the Union Cabinet.

And that is really what this story is about.

How power works when people move between government, diplomacy, think tanks, business and private networks.

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Produced by Megha Mukundan, script by Pooja Prasanna, camera by Ajay R, edit by Dharini Prabaharan