When Brown Tries to Be White …

While the Indian diaspora remains amongst the most affluent and progressive ethnicities across countries, it also faces issues of subliminal discrimination and immigration-concerns, as afforded on any ‘minority’ of the said foreign countries. Therefore, the diaspora has tended to lean overwhelmingly towards political persuasions that are inherently more inclusive, progressive, liberal, and egalitarian in outlook, versus the other options.

Curiously, they seem to reserve a very different sort of preference for the political parties in India, as validated by their visible enthusiasm, committed support and participation in events, by the so-called ‘nationalistic’ or majoritarian parties from India. The dichotomy of choosing political parties that are inherently more accommodative and amenable to ‘minorities’ like themselves in foreign lands, whilst valourising those parties that are not known to harbour similar spirit towards ‘minorities’ in India, is simply double standards.

But it is a choice made, and given their growing numbers and socio-economic wherewithal, the diaspora remains a very important constituency to woo, both in their adopted lands, as also back home in India.

Backslapping camaraderie, bluster (remember, Trump’s claim of 10 million people to welcome him in Ahmedabad) and theatrics besetting reciprocal events like Howdy Modi and Namaste Trump notwithstanding, over 70% of Indian American are believed to have voted for Joe Biden of Democrat Party, instead.

Similarly, beyond the arrival of the Rishi Sunak phenomenon, common causes of right-wing politics and much ‘cultural’ posturing between 10 Downing Street and 7 Lok Kalyan Marg, the majority of the Indian diaspora still votes for the Labour Party.

Put simply, when it comes to their own personal day-to-day interests and agenda, the Indian diaspora tends to prioritise the decidedly gentler, pro-immigration and pro-welfare appeal of dispensations that are non-discriminatory, non-nativist and support social concerns like National Health Service (NHS), subsidised education, and visa issues.

However, there is a counter-intuitive emergence of senior leadership from the Indian diaspora, within parties that have traditionally (even now) seen to be at the forefront of anti-immigration and nativist persuasions. These parties have historically tended to be less amenable to Indian diaspora concerns, in their adopted countries.

Interestingly, within the shade card of ideological puritanism, they tend to be of the hardline extreme. Perhaps their ultra-conservative positions and accompanying rhetoric, is a means of overcoming apprehensions owing to the pigmentation of their skin, ethnic background, and in order to speak convincingly to the wary base.

The self-declared Republican Presidential candidate in the United States, Hirsh Vardhan Singh, proudly asserts his ‘America first’, pro-life, constitutional carry etc., to an extent that has earned him the questionable moniker of ‘Trump on Steroids’!

Some of the most strident, shrilly and exclusivist positions adopted by the Rishi Sunak government in the United Kingdom are from the likes of Indian ethnicity like Suella Braverman and Priti Patel. Both have tried to outdo each other, in terms of damaging the immigration environment.

Towards this, all talks a la ‘proud of British Empire’, ‘mass and rapid migration’, ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘identity politics’ etc., is par for the course. To think that their arrival on the centre stage of British politics was celebrated in India as if they were ambassadors of the Indian perspective.

Yet the social media in India still has a virtual meltdown whenever a Rishi Sunak goes to a temple of his faith, as he did recently, which nicely coincided with India’s Independence Day! His statement, ‘I have come as a Hindu’ was widely and understandably shared.

Similarly in the US, for just 1% of the total population that is categorised as Indian Americans – there is a disproportionate number from the diaspora who fancy their chances in the Presidential Elections, next year. Unusually, all these candidates are from the Republican Party and almost all of them, of the hardline variety. From the former Governor to US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, to the rising star in GOP ranks, Vivek Ramaswamy.

As a confirmed millionaire with anti-woke stand (authored Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam), anti-climate change, anti-affirmative action, anti-establishment (called the Congress a ‘joke’), anti-immigration spiel, Vivek grandiloquently describes his style of revisionism as ‘hard truths’.

His appeal to the core bible-belt and those with redneck sensibilities by conflating the unrelated, with relish and animus reminds one of Donald Trump, only worse. He goes one up on Trump’s wall idea to suggest a cross-over offensive into Mexico to attack the drug cartels! Many are expectedly mesmerised.

Consider his brouhaha, “We are in the middle of a national identity crisis. Faith, patriotism, hard work, family. These things have disappeared. Only to be replaced by new secular religions in American life. Wokeism, transgenderism, climatism, Covidism, globalism, depression, anxiety, suicides. These are symptoms of a deeper void of purpose and meaning in our country.” The shrewd entrepreneur clearly knows the psychographics of the malleable constituents to whom he is knowingly dog whistling and appealing.

To be fair, Vivek Ramaswamy is not the first to set the ‘template-of the desperate’ to ingratiate himself to foreign land majoritarian, as that infamy ought to go to Bobby Jindal, yet another dyed in the wool Republican. Bobby (actually Piyush who also converted later) was a typical Indian American ‘success story’, but soon he discovered the virtues of shamelessly downplaying his roots.

He brazenly scorned the hyphenated identity i.e., Indian-American, and insisted on his conservative Americanness. He is yet to live down the backlash and memes of his rather whitewashed official portrait that was accused of race-baiting.

His denials of any malintent notwithstanding, it made for rather puerile attempts in a land and in a political party, where ‘White’ life matters, above all.

In any case, as naturalised citizens (or even born with foreign passports as second-third generation diaspora), each aspirant is entitled to their preferred partisan anchorage, and should not be begrudged. It is more important for Indian Citizens to retain a modicum of measure and restrain, whenever the diaspora succeeds.

They may or may not be pandering to the best interest of India, they may actually be playing downplay their Indianness, or like Suella Braverman be proud of the ‘British Empire’, despite the known consequences and costs to India and Indians, then.

Never forget that allusion to their personal faith like Rishi Sunak does with brilliant timing and cameras in place, also has to be contexualised to his stand on immigration, racism and other bilateral issues besetting Indo-British affairs, as it is happening under his watch. Reality is that drumming up the diaspora success also feeds into the political script of many in India, so a cosy arrangement of symbolism is elevated to suggest the substantial, which it never is.

Lt General Bhopinder Singh (Retd), is the Former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. Views expressed are the writer’s own.