It is something many of us have been thinking. But, as is often the case, it was Shashi Tharoor who put it best. You may recall that Tharoor recently led a delegation of Indian parliamentarians to the US to canvas support for India at a time of turbulence in our relationship with America.
While he was there, he noted, “One of the points we raised was why the Indian-American diaspora has been so silent about all of this.” The delegation met US legislators, and one congresswoman told them that “not one phone call has come to her office from any Indian-American voter asking her to support a change of policy.” This was echoed by other members of Congress.
Obviously, Tharoor was surprised because he added, “If you care about the relationship with your motherland, then you also have to fight for it, speak for it and make more of an effort to press your political representatives to stand up for India.”
Tharoor is not the only one. Many of us have been taken aback by the silence of the diaspora. A few American politicians of Indian origin — Ro Khanna, Nikki Haley — have spoken up. But at a time when India needs as many advocates as it can get in the US, it is rare to find an Indian-origin politician who has made the issue their own. Not Kamala Harris. Not Vivek Ramaswamy. And not many others.
Indian-Americans overestimated their importance
Nearly all those PIOs who once told us how wonderful Donald Trump was, and how good he would be for India, are now strangely subdued as Trump follows policies clearly detrimental to India’s interests, or jeers that India has a “dead economy.”
Trump’s Indian-origin chamchas and cheerleaders got both the man and his attitudes wrong. Now they shy away from calling him out or using their much-vaunted leverage to make him change course. Many of these same people had long claimed that the Indian diaspora was hugely important and influential in US politics, and that Democrats were bad for India-US relations while Republicans and Donald Trump and his supporters, in particular, were well-disposed towards us.
Clearly, they overestimated their own importance and influence. It is now open season on India and Indians as far as the American right-wing is concerned. (And no, the haters don’t bother with terms like ‘Americans of Indian origin.’ To them, we are all just Indians.)
Of course, the issue is complicated. When you leave your country and make your life elsewhere, you must try to identify with your new country’s interests and leave your old country’s politics behind. It’s even harder if you are not white.
During the Second World War, Italian-Americans and German-Americans had to work extra hard to demonstrate their loyalty to the US rather than to the countries of their ancestors. But they had it easier than Japanese-Americans — 12,000 of whom (most of them US citizens) were imprisoned for no crime other than their ethnicity.
So yes, I understand why Indian-Americans might hesitate to appear too pro-India in the current climate. But you don’t always have to choose between one country and the other.
Millions of American Jews, for instance, are openly proud supporters of Israel and advance its interests without worrying about being seen as anti-American. They do not fall strangely silent when Israel is under pressure, as so many once vocal Indian-Americans have in recent months when Trump has gone after India. (It helps that American Jews are what Indian-Americans sometimes pretend to be: the most politically powerful ethnic and religious minority in the US.)
Conveniently side-taking and side-stepping
One reason we are so surprised by the unwillingness of the diaspora to speak up for India is because, in recent years, so many Indian-Americans have chosen to openly identify with Indian politics or take sides in our discourse. When Indians at home point out that, as Americans, they are in no position to lecture those of us who have chosen to stay in India and advance our country’s prospects and interests, they respond that even with US passports they still care about their motherland, admittedly from several thousand miles away.
Personally, I don’t believe people who leave India lose the right to comment on our internal affairs. Ideas of belonging go beyond passports. I welcome and respect contributions from Americans of Indian origin who want to tell us how India should be run. They are perfectly entitled to be heard.
My concern is different. When people of Indian-origin who have nothing in common with each other except their foreign passports trade on their ethnicity to form voting blocs to influence US politics and organise “Howdy” rallies (such as the Houston event in 2019) where the likes of Trump are venerated, don’t they think they should also do something to advance India’s interests especially when the Prime Minister of our country is a star speaker?
Were they Indians then, when the going was good? And are they Americans now, when things aren’t so smooth?
Indian-Americans have two choices. They can do what American Jews have done with Israel and support India’s interests while being completely loyal to America. Or they can point to their passports and say that, as Americans, they cannot be expected to advance India’s political and economic interests.
Both positions are fine. But you can’t identify with our politics in good times and then walk away in bad times.
If you do, then every time you comment on Indian politics or tell us which Indian politician you support, people in India will not take you seriously. The importance of the Indian diaspora lies not so much in the fact that it is a diaspora, but in that it is supposed to be Indian.
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist, and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)