Are Indian Americans Failing Their Motherland? Both Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and Hindu Advocate Suhag Shukla Miss the Point

The esteemed Shashi Tharoor’s recent criticism of the Indian diaspora in the U.S., for not doing enough to oppose Trump’s latest policy assaults on India (such as steep tariffs and a massive hike in H-1B visa fees), fails to account for the unprecedented circumstances of political engagement under Trump 2.0, where all bets are off.

Broadly speaking, it would be right to point out that the Indian American community should be more actively engaged in politics, especially given its outsized success. Cocooned in a bubble of privilege, many among us have grown complacent, lulled into a false sense of security that breeds passivity—even as threats to the American dream continue to mount, particularly for immigrants of color. 

That said, it must also be acknowledged that Indian Americans hold political office in numbers quite large relative to the minuscule percentage of the U.S. population we represent. Furthermore, according to AAPI Data, this community recorded the highest voter turnout (70%) among Asian Americans in the 2024 election. Organizations such as The U.S.-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) have had a long legacy of political engagement in the service of Indo-U.S. relations, with significant achievements such as advocating for the historic U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement in 2008 and supporting the establishment of the U.S. Senate India Caucus in 2004. Several chambers of commerce and similar organizations throughout the country are diligently working with Indian consulates, academic institutions, and other trade organizations to promote trade between the two nations.

None of the reasons Tharoor speculated, including dual loyalties and a need for assimilation, seems to have held Indian Americans back from political engagement, whether domestic or in the area of U.S.-India relations.

A more likely reason for the passivity of the diaspora in recent months in pushing back against Trump’s agenda against India may lie in the grim new normal: an environment where dissent and mechanisms of resistance have been rendered powerless by an authoritarian Trump, who is further enabled by a feckless Congress and a partisan Supreme Court. 

Does Tharoor really believe that at a time when the systematic destruction of the American democracy is going unchallenged, the mainstream political establishment would care about its bilateral relations with India?

Like many other demographic groups, Indian Americans have come to realize that the traditional tools of civic engagement that Tharoor alluded to—campaign donations, petitions, and public discourse—feel futile against a brazen, ruthlessly transactional, power-obsessed president. Does Tharoor really believe that at a time when the systematic destruction of the American democracy is going unchallenged, the mainstream political establishment would care about its bilateral relations with India, and more so when bigger players like China and Canada are facing similar assaults from this Trump administration?

Defensive, Deflective Hindu Reaction

While Tharoor’s criticism of the Indian diaspora may simply reflect a failure to consider the vastly transformed ground realities in the political landscape of America, the response from Suhag A. Shukla, co-founder and executive director of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), comes across as defensive, deflective, and clouded by ideological blind spots.

Shukla begins by questioning Tharoor’s claim that a U.S. Representative told a delegation of Indian MPs that her office had “not received a single call protesting against the administration’s assault on India.” Shukla took issue with this telling observation, writing that Tharoor made this “sweeping claim” about the Indian American diaspora based on the words of just one representative out of more than 500 members of Congress. But let’s turn the tables: can she cite even a single representative or senator who has publicly acknowledged a significant number of Indian Americans contacting them to protest Trump’s policies toward India?

The rest of her article is laced with pedantic banalities such as, “Just as India and Indian citizens have a duty to pursue their national interest, the United States and its citizens, including Indian Americans, have a duty to pursue ours,” along with the gratuitous reminder that whatever Indian Americans do must be “always within the strictures of U.S. law. It is disingenuous, even dangerous, to suggest we do otherwise.” 

These are red herrings—because nowhere in Tharoor’s piece does he suggest that Indian Americans should act against U.S. interests or in violation of American law.

Shukla points out that the diaspora is not a monolith… and then goes on to suggest the existence of a monolithic “mainstream” of Indian Americans—one that, in her presumption, HAF represents. Her portrayal of American Ivy Leagues and “a South Asianist activist-media-academia ecosystem” as compromised simply because they oppose HAF’s agenda echoes the Trump camp’s attempts to discredit and weaken universities like Harvard. In both cases, the strategy appears to be the same: to dumb down public discourse because, seemingly, one’s agenda cannot withstand an informed and evolved opposition. If that weren’t the case, HAF would do better to engage on the merits of the issues rather than resorting to broad-brush attacks on those who dissent.

The most hypocritical part of Shukla’s rebuttal to Tharoor is her claim that Indian Americans are not proxies for India. She conveniently overlooks the fact that right-wing Indian Americans—the very demographic HAF surreptitiously champions—were more than willing to play that role when they supported Trump in the last election. Seduced by his feigned chumminess with Modi, groups like Hindus for America First PAC, Republican Hindu Coalition, and others had no qualms about their craven support of the most blatantly anti-immigrant presidential candidate in modern history—one who had openly promised on the campaign trail to slash H-1B visas and raise tariffs on India. With India and Hinduism having friends like these in the diaspora, who needs enemies?

For all its lofty claims of championing Hindu American voices, HAF has been deafeningly silent in the public arena when it comes to confronting the real, overarching threats facing Hindu Americans. I haven’t seen a single article, statement, or advocacy effort from HAF addressing Project 2025—arguably the most ominous threat to minority religions in the U.S. 

And no, the Hindu American Foundation cannot, in good conscience, hide behind the disingenuous “get out of jail free” card of claiming to be apolitical. While that stance may apply to not endorsing specific parties or candidates, it cannot serve as carte blanche to shirk the core responsibility of an advocacy organization. Putting up a spirited fight to tweak school textbooks, as HAF did in California, while remaining silent on an existential threat like Project 2025 is, frankly, an exercise in majoring in the minors.

Overcoming passivity and poor representation, Indian Americans must chart a path toward meaningful political engagement—one that serves the best interests of our adopted homeland while fostering a strong, mutually beneficial relationship between India and the United States.

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Parthiv N. Parekh is the editor-in-chief of Khabar (www.khabar.com), an Atlanta-based monthly print magazine.