The five Indian American members of Congress, who Prime Minister Modi affectionately referred to as the “Samosa Caucus” during his trip to DC in June, just released a joint statement after receiving a classified briefing from the Justice Department about that month’s alleged assassination attempt. They ominously warned that “we are concerned that the actions outlined in the indictment could, if not appropriately addressed, cause significant damage to this very consequential partnership.”
For background, an unnamed Indian official and an Indian drug trafficker were charged late last month with attempting to assassinate a Delhi-designated terrorist-separatist with dual American citizenship inside the US after the premier’s visit, which coincided with the killing of a similarly designated Canadian. India launched a formal enquiry to investigate the incident, but it’s already treated as guilty by the Mainstream Media, and Biden just declined Prime Minister Modi’s invitation to visit India next month.
Although National Security Advisor Sullivan said that “scheduling demands” were behind this, it was argued here that the comparatively short notice that was given just six weeks ahead of that country’s Republic Day celebrations was undiplomatic, which puts India in a very difficult position. The “Samosa Caucus’” latest demands of India will serve to further worsen growing mistrust between these two strategic partners since those officials aren’t in a position to tell their ancestral homeland what to do.
They’re all Democrats, thus meaning that they’re aligned with their party’s liberal–globalist ideology that’s at the core of this dispute after it was twisted to justify hosting Delhi-designated terrorists-separatists on faux “democracy” and “human rights” pretexts despite this threatening Indian security. None of them are therefore neutral, instead functioning as Indian faces of the American Establishment’s narrative, whose purpose in this context is to launder anti-Indian claims on an identity politics basis.
Average folks might be misled into thinking that there’s credence to these charges after the “Samosa Caucus’” joint statement since they’re preconditioned by “political correctness” to think that co-ethnics are reluctant to criticize their ancestral homeland unless the situation is truly serious. Such is the perception when it comes to Cuban American and Jewish American members of Congress, for example, the first of whom regularly criticize their ancestral homeland while the latter rarely criticize Israel.
Sharing these observations shouldn’t be spun as legitimizing them, however, since all that’s being conveyed is a description of how average folks might interpret this joint statement in the larger context. India is generally seen as a friendly and even fun country by most Americans, who respect the contributions of its diaspora to their society, many of whom are entrepreneurs and well educated. That’s why they’ll probably be shocked at how seriously the “Samosa Caucus” is treating this situation.
Its five members are in a position to help rebuild mutual trust after last month’s charges were published, which they could have done by remaining neutral per the American standard of “innocent until proven guilty”, but instead they’re already treating India as guilty just like the Mainstream Media is. Letting the case run its course while continuing to work on the improvement of bilateral ties across all domains would have been a more pragmatic way of reacting to this scandal than what they ultimately did.