‘If you care, speak for it, fight for it’: Shashi Tharoor asks why diaspora silent about India-US setbacks

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor asked why the Indian-American diaspora was silent about the multiple setbacks in the New Delhi-Washington’s relationship, and asserted that if they cared about the relationship with the motherland, then they would have to speak up and fight for it.

A parliamentary panel, headed by Tharoor, raised Washington’s adversarial decisions with regards to India with a visiting delegation of lawmakers from the US. All the visiting five Congress members from the US are Democrats, and have been critical of Trump’s decisions.

“I do want to stress that one of the points we raised was why the Indian-American diaspora has been so silent about all of this. One of the Congresswomen said that not one phone call has come to her office from any Indian-American voter asking for her to support a change of policy, and this is something that is surprising and that I think we all need to reach out to the Indian-American population saying, ‘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’,” he said.

Speaking about the meeting, Tharoor said that the delegation had "tremendous interest in India”. “I think the most important message that came out from them was that a lot of American opinion, including in the US Congress, is very strongly committed to the Indian relationship, the strategic partnership, that India is valued and that they remain determined to strengthen that relationship despite the recent setbacks that we are all familiar with, the H1-B visa setback, the 50 per cent tariff setback, the sanctions on the Chabahar Port and various other things which have made life a bit difficult in the Indo-US relationship currently."

This comes after Trump decided to hike H-1B visa fees to $100,000, making it practically unaffordable for most applicants. The biggest beneficiary of the H-1B visa are Indians. Apart from that and the 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods, Trump also removed the sanctions waiver granted to Iran’s Chabahar port, which is being developed by India.