A 109 per cent surge in anti-South Asian slurs online, the growing scrutiny of immigration enforcement, and a contentious caste-discrimination debate expose three fault lines in the civil rights protections available to a community of 5.41 million. Add the threat of losing access to ancestral India through OCI cancellation, and the question of belonging becomes considerably more complicated, says Manu Shrivastava.
The American dream carries a contradiction for millions of Indian Americans. They have become citizens, entrepreneurs, technology professionals, academics, doctors, elected representatives and employers across the United States, yet their belonging can still be challenged by racial hostility from outside their community and inherited social hierarchies within it. Their passports may establish their American citizenship, but online abuse can still cast them as foreigners. Meanwhile, for those who retain family, property and professional connections to India, the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card can become an additional point of vulnerability when political expression collides with the discretionary powers of a foreign government.