New Delhi: After multiple visa rejections to travel to India, former Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant has accused the Indian government of “political retaliation” against her for her vocal criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Her 82-year-old mother, Vasundhara Ramanujam, has been ill for two years, and Sawant has been attempting to visit her since May 2024. Despite multiple attempts, her visa applications have been rejected without explanation.
Her latest request for an emergency visa to visit her mother was denied on 9 January. Earlier she tried twice in May and June 2024.
She has now launched an online petition demanding that the Indian government grant her a visa. Sawant is also considering legal action to challenge the denial.
In a post on ‘X’, Sawant accused the Indian government of retaliating against her and other activists for their opposition to Modi’s policies.
“Modi has retaliated against other activists & journalists, denying or revoking entry into India. My socialist Seattle City Council office took an unwavering stand against India’s right-wing, anti-worker, anti-Muslim PM Narendra Modi & his right-wing nationalist BJP party,” she wrote Sunday.
Sources in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) familiar with the matter said that granting a visa is a sovereign function and her visa application is still under process. Moreover, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) looks after granting visas.
Sawant, in her post, alleged that the Modi administration had waged sustained attacks on marginalised groups, including Muslims, farmers, and workers, and criticised the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for denying citizenship to millions.
The Indian-American politician urged international working-class movements to resist such “tactics of repression”, adding, “Fight against Modi, BJP, Trump, Republicans, Democrats & all the capitalist parties.”
Kshama Sawant is an economist, who served on the Seattle City Council from 2014 to 2024. A member of the Socialist Alternative party, she was the first and only member of the party to be elected to public office.
In 2013, she made history as the first socialist to win a citywide election in Seattle since Anna Louise Strong in 1916. Sawant narrowly survived a recall election in December 2021, winning by just 310 votes, or 0.76 percent. It was Seattle’s first recall election since 1975.
In January 2023, Sawant announced she would not seek re-election and would focus on promoting the Socialist Alternative campaign Workers Strike Back to organise workers.
The next year, she revealed that she had left Socialist Alternative and founded her own party, Revolutionary Workers. Detailing her criticism against the incumbent government, Sawant wrote on ‘X’ that her office “passed the first US resolution condemning CAA-NRC”.
“We faced opposition not only from the US Democratic Party but also from Modi’s Indian consulate in San Francisco itself, which publicly opposed us. We also won a resolution in solidarity with the farmers’ movement in India against Modi’s brutal and exploitative policies,” she wrote.
“We also won a historic citywide ban on caste-based discrimination, the first of its kind outside South Asia, despite opposition by Seattle Democrats, and right-wing, pro-Modi groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Hindu American Foundation.”
Sawant is not the only person to face visa issues for her critique of the Narendra Modi-led government. In February 2024, academic Nitasha Kaul, a London-based scholar, was denied entry to India at Bengaluru airport despite holding Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status. Kaul said her “access to India was denied over criticism of government policies”.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Kshama Sawant is a clown. Only socialists and certain journalists at The Print take her seriously.
Why does The Print not report on the thousands of Indians whose visa applications are repeatedly rejected by the US Consulates in India? Their heart bleeds for champagne socialists like Kshama Sawant but is totally indifferent to the plight of ordinary Indians.
Excellent news indeed!
Scum like Ms. Kshama Sawant must not be allowed into India. As a sovereign nation, it is upto us to decide whom to grant visa and when. She is a US citizen and has been actively involved in deeds inimical to the sovereignty and integrity of India. Also, her PIO/OCI card must be canceled and all associated privileges withdrawn with immediate effect.
Let me provide a detailed biography of Ms. Sawant:
She was a very average student with great political ambitions in college. Gor married to an Indian working jn the US. After marriage accompanied her husband to the US. While in the US, she again started taking interest in politics. In the process she came in contact with various people. She started having an affair with a senior socialist leader (a white American). This led to her being divorced by her Indian husband. Later she married her activist partner. However, this marriage too was short lived. As per reports, her political ambitions led her to another affair with a more senior socialist leader.
Such is her commitment to socialism that she just can’t resist the charm of senior socialist male leaders (all of them white Americans btw).