The second batch of US deportees arrived in India today, sent back in ignominy as part of the new Trump administration’s moves to crack down on illegal immigration. The second batch of returnees -- people who are alleged to have entered the United States illegally -- has included two people from Goa -- the details of whom are yet to be made available.
Nonetheless, social media is filled with scorn heaped upon those who have been deported with the overriding emotion being: “Who told them to enter the US illegally?” However, such an argument must see the other side too.
For starters, one must keep in mind the manner in which the deportations are currently taking place. The deportees are being flown back by military transport planes, they are pictured being made to walk in handcuffs and foot cuffs and the images of the deportation are being beamed across the world but with special focus on domestic audiences and Trump’s core constituency -- the Make America Great Again (MAGA) -- which is nothing but another term for Make America White Again. The use of military planes to project the image of power and the dominance of the deporting country has also not gone unnoticed.
However, not all countries have taken such tactics lightly. Countries in South America including Colombia and Mexico refused permission for US military planes to land while Brazil took strong exception to the handcuffing of its citizens. The president of countries like Colombia spoke up for the rights of their citizens and called for them to be treated with dignity while a minister of Brazil said it was blatant disrespect.
There is no doubt that all people -- including prisoners -- have to be treated with dignity. However, the Indian government has failed to speak up for the treatment meted out to Indians being deported and have only cowered in the face of the US. India is a country with a long history of standing up for Human Rights, especially the rights of people from the third world. As a country that is among the foremost in the global south, the onus was on India to speak up against the USA’s practices.
It is each citizen’s responsibility to respect the laws of the countries s/he is living in but, if he doesn’t, it does not mean the deportees be treated like prisoners of war. That India hasn’t uttered even a whimper of a protest isn’t good optics. It reflects a country that is unwilling to upset what it clearly recognizes to be a more powerful partner, rather than one it can see eye to eye with. At the end of the day, despite his tall claims of being 56 inch chested, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seen to be cowering in the face of conflict rather than standing up for India’s interests.
That’s a huge departure from past Prime Ministers like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Manmohan Singh who stood up to and negotiated with first world countries like the US on equal terms and most importantly raised their voices for the third world.
