There is nothing new about illegal migrants from India being detained and deported by the United States of America (USA). Illegal migrants by the very act have broken the country’s laws and can be thrown out at any time they’re caught. . But in the current case of deportation of 104 Indian citizens who were sent back in a US military plane on February 6 one sees a certain vindictive and mean motive signalling some message that the US president Donald Trump wants to send his “good friend” Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Why else would the US government feel the need to handcuff, chain at the ankles and round waist these men and women and release videos and photographs of them shuffling in a line as if they were trophy prisoners of some great war.
What it looks like is that the Trump government is trying to psyche out their Indian counterpart before the meeting of Trump and Modi which is slated for February 13 and put the latter on the backfoot even before the talks on various issues begin. So far, the Indian government has not been able to pull its act together to show that it is unhappy with the way its citizens, albeit illegal migrants, have been treated by the US government. Many, including the leading opposition leaders, were surprised that India could not even take the kind of strong actions taken on the same issue of deported illegal migrants of their countries like Brazil and Columbia, despite being much smaller economies.
The Indian government is trying to brazen through the shame of this massive failure of foreign policy through the External Affairs minister, S Jaishankar’s inane statement playing down the incident. But there are many questions to be answered by the Union Government as to why pre-emptive action was not taken to prevent this humiliation heaped on the nation’s dignity and pride.
At the same time it is a revelation of sorts that most of the illegal migrants were from the so-called “prosperous” states of the country, such as Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat. The opposition leaders have claimed that the job market is stagnant, which forces people to take any kind of risk, paying crores to shady agents and traffickers, to reach those foreign shores in search of jobs and prosperity, with the dollar-rupee exchange rates fuelling the imagination. The stark situation of its citizens exposes the claims that India is an economic giant and a global political magnate. With lakhs more illegal migrants waiting to be deported in the US, one only hopes that India’s political leadership is wise and strong enough not to allow any more such disgrace to be heaped on our collective persona.
