New Delhi: Days after a video surfaced of a young Indian man being pinned down and handcuffed at New York’s Newark airport, Rajasthan cabinet minister and BJP MLA Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore, while defending New Delhi’s response to US deportations of Indian nationals, said even America cannot control its president Donald Trump.
At a press conference on 11 years of the Modi government, in Bikaner Tuesday, Rathore fired a sharp retort when asked why New Delhi hadn’t taken a more forceful stand against the treatment of Indians overseas.
“Yeh jo antarrashtriya diplomacy hai, uske andar lagatar hamari Ministry of External Affairs doosre deshon ke saath baat karti hai (The Ministry of External Affairs is in constant touch with other countries when it comes to international diplomacy),” he said. “Aur is case mein America ke saath baat kar rahi hai. Abhi hum jab baat kar rahe hain, usse kuch din pehle hi hamare External Affairs Minister America mein the. Nishchit roop se yeh saari baatein ho rahi hain (In America’s case, our external affairs minister (S. Jaishankar) has just concluded a visit to the US, all these conversations are definitely taking place).”
He went on to say: “Jis Rashtrapati ki aap baat kar rahe hain, usko America hi nahi control kar paaya. Toh Bharat toh baatcheet kar hi raha hai (The President [Trump] you’re referring to, even America couldn’t control him. So of course, India is engaging in dialogue).”
Without naming Trump, Rathore appeared to draw a contrast between India’s steady diplomatic engagement and America’s own internal challenges during the Trump presidency, which saw frequent and often sudden shifts in immigration policy.
His remarks come amid outrage over the latest incident, which follows a spate of deportations of Indian nationals from the US. In February, there was an uproar over visuals of Indians being deported in handcuffs, with even their legs chained as they were being brought back in a US military aircraft.
Jaishankar had at the time said that the use of restraints has been standard operating procedure by US authorities since 2012.
Nearly 16,000 Indians have been deported from the US since 2009, for attempting to enter the North American country illegally, the external affairs minister had informed the Rajya Sabha then, adding that New Delhi is engaging with the US to ensure Indians deported are not “mistreated” in any manner by American authorities.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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