Former Chief Economic Adviser Krishnamurthy V Subramanian has told the Indian National Congress that it must shed the perception of being anti-national if it wants to be taken seriously, after party leader Rahul Gandhi sided with Elon Musk in the row over Starlink’s satellite internet licence in India. Subramanian published the remarks from his account on X, in a post reported by The Hindu BusinessLine on October 8, 2026.
Key facts
- Subramanian said the Congress “must change the perception of being anti national”, tagging both Gandhi and the party.
- Musk asked on X why Starlink still has no licence to operate in India, saying it is licensed in more than 165 countries and has spent five years complying with every law and requirement of the government of India, then asked whether Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani is the “real boss” of India.
- Gandhi — Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress MP for Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, per his Wikipedia profile — replied by welcoming Musk to India and telling him to wait until he discovered “the other guy”.
- Musk answered that reply with “Thank you, Rahul. This is indeed troubling”, the outlet reports; the exchange is set out in our earlier report on Rahul Gandhi’s reply to Musk.
- The Indian government on Thursday rejected the allegation that Starlink’s satellite internet services were being blocked by domestic business interests.
- Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Friday that India does not allow monopoly in any sector.
What Subramanian said
His post opened by telling the party that when foreigners say Gandhi lacks respect for his own country, it is time to sit up and take note. He framed the Congress’s difficulty as a problem of perception that it had failed to correct. BusinessLine placed the intervention a day after Gandhi’s response to Musk’s post about Ambani.
The government’s position
The government has hit back at Musk over the claim that Starlink’s satcom services are being blocked, and says demonstrating compliance with security norms is an absolute must for every satcom licensee in the country. Scindia said that despite the buzz around one “particular” company, three players have received satcom licences and can start operations after individually meeting security requirements and milestones.
What the ministries say
In a statement, the telecom ministry said the security assessment forming part of that process is currently under way in respect of all three licensees, while Minister of State for Communications Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani said the issue lay with the Ministry of Home Affairs and was not specific to any one company. Scindia has already traded blows with the Congress over the licence row, and the ministerial line matches India’s insistence that there is no monopoly in satellite internet.
Starlink availability and pricing in India: what has to clear first
Starlink holds one of the three satcom licences the Indian government has issued, alongside Reliance Jio’s satellite venture Jio Satcom and Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb, the same article states. A licence by itself does not switch on service: on the ministry’s account, each licensee must first clear the security assessment now under way, satisfy spectrum-related approvals and meet its own operational milestones before commercial operations can begin.
Why there is no India price yet
Until those clearances land, SpaceX cannot open subscriptions, publish India pricing or sell dishes to Indian households, and the reporting gives no indication that the ministry or the company has attached a date to the remaining steps. For an external benchmark, SpaceX lists its US residential plan at $120 a month plus a one-off $349 for the standard kit on starlink.com — a US tariff for a US market, not a guide to any Indian price, which would be set only once the company can sell here. The launch timetable, and the price list that would follow it, therefore rests with the government rather than with SpaceX, which is what makes the political temperature around the licence commercially consequential.
Sourcing, and what the reports do not say
The political claims above rest on a single news report — The Hindu BusinessLine’s October 8 article — together with the posts Musk, Gandhi and Subramanian published on X and the statements attributed to the Ministry of Communications. The X accounts are linked above for identification; the quotes themselves are taken as reproduced by the paper, and no second news outlet has been used to corroborate them. The Wikipedia profile is cited only for Gandhi’s current offices, and starlink.com only for the US price. No source gives a date for the conclusion of the security assessments or spectrum approvals, or sets out proposed Indian prices or coverage for Starlink.
Frequently Asked Questions
What else did Subramanian say about where the Congress party gets its support?
In the same post on X, quoted by The Hindu BusinessLine, Subramanian told the Congress that over the past decade its support had usually come from outside the national borders. He added that if even that support was waning, alarm bells must ring, and urged the party to overcome its delusions and see reality.
Was Subramanian speaking for the Indian government?
The Hindu BusinessLine identifies him only as a former Chief Economic Adviser and does not report that he was speaking for the government or for any institution. The remarks were made in a personal post on X in which he tagged Gandhi and the Congress party.
Has the Congress party responded to Subramanian’s post?
No response from the Congress is recorded in The Hindu BusinessLine’s report. Nothing in the reporting indicates that the party or Gandhi replied to him.
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