According to the Pew Research Center, Indian Americans are a model minority. Even among Asian Americans as a group – long seen as a model minority for their academic and commercial success, rightly or wrongly – Indian Americans stand out. They have the highest academic qualifications, the lowest number living in poverty, and the highest median income even among Asian Americans. Much of this is because we send the most privileged of our citizens to the US, but even then, the numbers are striking, and suggest why in a large number of fields – from government, to bureaucracy and academia – Indian Americans have become a force to reckon with despite their small population.
It is striking, therefore, that at a fundraising event at the start of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, US President Joe Biden mentioned India – along with Russia, China and Japan – as “xenophobic”. Even more striking is that reportage on the statement largely falls under the category that India and Japan are key allies. Not one publication of record has actually questioned Biden’s characterisation, and the Guardian pointed out that India’s new Citizenship Amendment Act excludes Muslims.
This sort of broad negative language for India as a society by a head of state of a friendly country is unheard of. In fact, during the height of the diplomatic spat between India and the US over the Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, the US government made no disparaging remarks about India as a society or country. And, in fact, the only such comments to be found were on the social media posts of a couple posted at the US Embassy that India expelled.
At that time, in 2013, the United Progressive Alliance government was beleaguered by accusations of multiple scams, inefficiency, a slowing economy, and the charge that it was led by a ‘weak PM’. Nonetheless, Dr Manmohan Singh, and India, were widely respected globally, where such mentions of xenophobia would never arise. Today, with the BJP leading its election campaign with anti-Muslim bigotry, such comments are so unsurprising that nobody even bothers to suggest that Biden got it wrong.
The only response by the Government of India was a weak rejoinder by the Minister of External Affairs, S. Jaishankar.
By saying, “I think we should be open to people who have the need to come to India, who have a claim to come to India,” he only highlighted what Biden had said. Saying that India “should be open” is very far from saying, India “is open”.
Few would dispute that one of the most persecuted groups in South Asia are the Rohingyas, and yet, India’s treatment of Rohingya refugees has been appalling. Worse, by emphasising who have “a claim to come to India”, Jaishankar’s reply begs the question of who determines such claims, and on what basis, if not on the blood and soil language that drives xenophobia.
Most importantly, Jaishankar declined to name Biden, and there is no sign of a demand for a retraction or apology. The US ambassador has not been summoned and the MEA has not even called in a lower-ranking diplomat for a serious discussion. Of course, the discretion – some might call it cowardice – of the Indian government may be explained by the newest revelations on the Pannun affair. Not only would it be unwise to challenge the US President when such a sword hangs over the head of the highest-ranking members of the Indian government – the alleged assassination of a Sikh in Canada and the attempted assassination of another in the US serves to heighten the image that India is not just xenophobic, but murderously so.
But if the Indian government is silent, what of Indian Americans – those rich, educated, highly placed people that were at the centre of India’s soft power projection? From politicians, to bureaucrats, to the CEOs of Google and chairperson of Microsoft, all we hear is a deafening silence.
As much pride that India and Indians seem to take in them, they no longer seem to take a similar pride in what India has become. In 2015, Narendra Modi was criticised for his remarks that earlier people were ashamed to be Indian, and wondered what sin they had committed to be born here. Now, with his catastrophic ten years in power, he seems to have actually managed to make Indian Americans ashamed to be seen to defend India.
