Yet another Indian origin mother-son found murdered in New Jersey home! It can’t be a co-incidence that so many Indians have been killed within a short span of time. Sometime back we heard the news of Indian-origin convenience store owner Harnish Patel, 43 years of age, of Lancaster in South Carolina being shot dead in his yard, two days of that a 39-year-old Sikh man being injured when an unidentified person shot him outside his home and shouted “go back to your own country”. 10 days before that was the Kansas techie.
Sadly, this form of hate violence is becoming far too common. Since the presidential election, when Donald Trump got elected, organizations have documented upticks in reports of bias and harassment of immigrants and Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Arab and South Asian communities. President Trump’s criminalization policies that target immigrants, Muslims and people of color through bans, walls and raids have only exacerbated this climate. The message that is being carried across to the public is that certain people don’t belong in America.
Given this context, it is not surprising that reports of harassment and discrimination towards Jewish community centers, homes and mosques also continue to rise. One is forced to believe that increase in crimes against Indians seems to be related to economic prosperity of Hindus and Jews. As we know that both Jews and Indians are extremely prosperous communities in the US.
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So the message through various incidents in Mr Trumps America is that colour and religion are becoming very important in the formerly liberal democratic country. And that the white Americans will not tolerate the immigrants that are of different colour or religion. This has not been the tradition of the United States of America, which started off as a country of immigrants. It is a melting pot where everyone is welcome.
We will call it government-sanctioned hostility unless the pattern changes and the government acts. Unless the pattern of government-sanctioned hostility toward communities of color, Muslims, and immigrants radically changes, condemnations of hate violence can only go so far. And Indian-Americans in particular should demand more than words from the administration. While negotiations are on at the country level, Mr Trump seems to have made up his mind to perpetuate government-sanctioned hostility amongst the communities.