Not now daal-ing, says MAGA, as Montana governor comes to India to sell pulses

United States Ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, with Montana Governor Greg Gianforte and delegation members, in New Delhi TOI correspondant from Washington: In Montana, ‘traffic’ is when you have to wait for three deer and a stray cow to cross the highway, so goes the joke about a state where “just down the road” can mean a two-hour drive with no cellphone service. Yet for Montana Governor Greg Gianforte, one road this week stretches 8,000 miles, from the Big Sky State to India, home to 1.4 billion potential customers.Gianforte, a Republican, arrived in New Delhi on Monday at the head of a delegation of more than 30 Montanans representing agriculture, higher education, critical minerals, manufacturing, photonics, quantum technology and bioscience. The mission runs through October 9 and continues to Sri Lanka, and its major commercial pitch is deliciously simple: buy our daal, dahlings.Montana is America's largest producer of lentils and chickpeas and India is the world's largest consumer and importer of pulse crops. In 2025, however, India's purchases of Montana peas, lentils and chickpeas were for chicken feed, only about $14 million, which, along with commercial aircraft parts, ma...