Apparent racial incidents against Indians in the United States emerged as a front of diplomacy between India and the U.S. during the weekend. In a social media message, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday informed that she has asked the Indian envoy to Washington DC to take up the issue of security of the Sikhs with the American authorities.
“I have asked Sardar Navtej Singh Sarna, Indian Ambassador in Washington, to update you on this,” Ms. Swaraj said on her official Twitter handle in response to a request by Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.
Earlier, Captain Singh asked the Indian authorities to ensure security of the Sikhs in the U.S. “Indians, Sikhs in the US are not feeling safe, please take up their security with @realDonald Trump on priority @narendramodi ji @SushmaSwaraj ji,” Chief Minister Singh had messaged.
CM’s intervention
The Punjab Chief Minister’s intervention came following reports that a Sikh-American scholar at New York University was allegedly insulted by a teenager, in an incident that indicated racial hate. Simran Jeet Singh, a post-doctoral fellow at NYU’s Centre for Religion and Media recounted his experience of racial abuse in an article written for an American news outlet.
The complaint by the Sikh scholar is the latest in a series of apparent racial attacks that rattled India-U.S. people-to-people ties in recent months.
Earlier, Ms. Swaraj had instructed Ambassador Singh over Twitter to act after an Indian student Mubeen Ahmed was shot by unidentified assailants in California on June 4.
Mr. Ahmed was in a “very critical condition” following the shooting. But Ms. Swaraj announced later that he was “out of danger.”
