Indians in the US are victims, not targets
By
T.P.Sreenivasan
In
this age of post truth, impressions rather than facts matter and there is a
tendency to jump to alarming conclusions, based on signals. So there is nothing
surprising about the three attacks on Indians in the US being put at the door
of President Donald Trump. After all, he is the one who has poisoned the minds
of his people against foreigners, imposed restrictions on arrival of immigrants
and restricted the H-1 B visas, whose beneficiaries are mostly Indians. But
objective facts show that the Indians were unintended victims rather than
targets.
The
Kansas shooting that killed Srinivas Kuchibhotla and injured his friend, Alok
Madasani occurred in a bar, which they had adopted as a hangout. A local man,
who was known for his drinking habits and petty crimes, Adam Purington was
telling them, half in jest that they did not belong to the US. This irritated
not only the Indians, but also other customers and they threw him out of the
bar. An enraged Purington returned after a while and shot at not only the
Indians, but also a young white man, who tried to apprehend the culprit.
Purington was charged with premeditated first degree murder and attempted
murder.
The
authorities considered the attack a possible hate crime and it reverberated in
the US and India, raising
Fresh alarm about a climate of hostility
towards foreigners in the United States, where President Trump had made
clamping down on immigration a central plank of his “America first” agenda.
The White House strongly rejected the notion that there might be
any connection between the shooting and the new administration’s sharp language
about immigration and President expressed concern. In his address to the
Congress, the President said that the “shooting in Kansas City ...
remind us that while we may be a Nation divided on policies, we are a country
that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms.”
“People
are devastated,” said Somil Chandwani, a friend of the two victims who lives in
Overland Park, Kansas. “I wouldn’t say they are angry. They have a sense of
insecurity at the moment. People are trying to find answers.” The charge sheet
gave no details about the motive of the shooting.
The
word, India, did not figure in the conversation between the two Indians and
their attacker, but there was a mention of illegal migrants and the Indians
said they were legal residents, who had studied in the US. It was the fact that
the attacker was thrown out by the other customers that enraged Purington and
not necessarily any words or action of the Indians.
The
silver lining on the incident was that the young white man, who tried to rescue
the Indians and took a bullet was duly rewarded by the local residents and
Kansas declared March 16 as an “Indian American Appreciation Day”. The incident
was clearly isolated and did not reflect a sentiment in the locality. There
were also reports that the attacker said later that he had shot two Iranians.
Within
a few days, two more attacks took place, one in Lancaster, where Harnish Patel, who had lived in the US with his family
for 14 years, was shot and killed outside of his home. A Sikh man was also shot
in Kent, Washington, while he was in his drive way, working on his vehicle. The
victim, Deep Rai was also allegedly told to go back to his country at one time.
These three attacks have naturally
deepened the fear among South Asian and immigrant communities that President
Donald Trump’s aggressive rhetoric and executive orders encouraged violence
against them. But there is no evidence that the Indians have been specifically
targeted. The average Americans are fairly ignorant of geography and the
differences between various nationalities. Similar incidents took place after
9/11 terrorist attacks and the victims were Sikhs, who apparently were mistaken
for Muslims. The headgear was enough to make them look like Osama Bin Laden!
They were unable to distinguish between Iraqis and Kuwaitis at the time of the
Gulf war. An American was heard boasting to his neighbours that his son had
gone to finish off the Arabs. He was not aware that the US was fighting to
liberate one nation of Arabs from another nation.
Undoubtedly, the
immigrants have not been particularly popular in the US, except among the city
dwellers, who knew their worth as doctors, teachers, intellectuals and more
recently, IT experts. Outsourcing was seen as an evil by the unemployed in the
villages, prompting even President Obama to say that the US should have
business in Buffalo, not in Bengaluru. But he did not do anything to halt
outsourcing, which was a win-win situation for both the US and India. Even
President Trump will not be able to do without immigrants, particularly the
Indians in the IT industry.
Many people have been
asking what India can do to prevent tragic incidents involving Indians. It can
do precious little, except to condemn the incidents, insist on proper
investigation and payment of adequate compensation. If the victims are US
citizens, our leverage is even less. As long as there is no systematic
targeting of Indians or condonation of such incidents by the Government
agencies, there is no reason even to protest. The case was different in 1998,
when the US Government itself denied visas to Indians and repatriated
scientists, in protest against our nuclear tests. The Khobragade incident was
also deplorable to the extent that an Indian diplomat was arrested and
humiliated with State Department connivance. Our concern about the possible
implications of the present Government policies shall remain unexpressed as
this cannot be proved either way.
There are reports that
fewer Indians are travelling to the US, even fewer are going for education
there and alternate destinations are being explored. But, hopefully, normalcy
will be restored, once the current period of uncertainty in US policies is
over. The American dream will outlive the present dispensation for
civilizational reasons.
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