No phone call: Shashi Tharoor Slams Diaspora about silence on India-US legs

Congress Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday expressed concern about the surprising silence of the Indian-American community on issues that tightened India’s ties with the United States because he welcomed a five-member American congress delegation in the capital.

“I want to emphasize that one of the points we have raised was why the Indian-American diaspora was so quiet about this,” Tharoor told reporters after the meeting. “One of the conference women said that not one phone call came to her office from an Indian voter who asks her to support a policy change, and this is something that is surprising.”

Tharoor said that the visiting legislators-all Democrats, four from California, and led by the Indian origin congressman Ami Bera Uitten “enormous interest in India” and repeated two-part support for the strategic partnership between India and US.

The Member of Parliament of the Congress noted that although the delegation had ‘spoken very warmly and positively about the relationship’, it was equally important for the diaspora to become more vocal. “If you give the relationship with your mother country, then you also have to fight for it, speak for it and make more effort to press your political representatives to stand up for India,” he said.

The background of the meeting is a series of recent setbacks in bilateral relations, including the American decision to impose a one-off $ 100,000 compensation on new H-1B visa applications, higher rates for Indian exports such as clothing and precious stones and sanctions that influence the development of India’s development in Iran in Iran.

Nevertheless, Tharoor emphasized that the visitors ‘already friends were from India, well removed on India’ and that their reassuring a strong basis for the partnership reflected despite policy frictions. “The most important message that came out of them,” he said, “was that much American opinion, also in the American congress, was very strongly dedicated to the Indian relationship.”

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