Seattle City Council member of Indian origin Chhama Sawant has alleged that she has been denied an Indian visa to visit her ailing mother. Sawant, who helped pass a law to end caste discrimination in the US state of Washington, said that for this reason she has been placed on the Indian government’s ‘visa denial’ list. She has been denied a visa for the third time since last year.
Sawant and members of her organization ‘Workers Strike Back’ staged a protest at the Indian Consulate in Seattle against this action of the Indian Consulate. On the other hand, the Indian Consulate officials called the local police to deal with the protest. Bibi Sawant said in a post on ‘X’ that my husband and I are at the Indian Consulate in Seattle. They gave her an emergency visa because my mother was very ill, but canceled my visa, clearly saying that my name is on the ‘cancellation list’. Chhama says My Socialist City Council office passed a resolution condemning Modi’s anti-Muslim, anti-poor, anti-citizenship law (CAA-NRC). We also won a historic ban on caste discrimination.
CAA stands for the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 passed by the Indian Parliament and NRC is the National Register of Citizens. The Seattle City Council, based on a resolution introduced by Sawant in 2023, included caste discrimination in the city’s anti-discrimination laws, making Seattle the first American city to ban caste discrimination and the first city in the world outside South Asia to pass such a law.
The law, which outlaws discrimination on the basis of caste, received overwhelming support from South Asian communities in the US. However, the movement also faced opposition from some Indians and Americans. They argued that such a law would defame a particular community.
It is worth mentioning here that Chhama Sawant, who was born on October 17, 1973, in a middle-class family in Mumbai, had completed her university studies and gone to the US for higher education, where she obtained a master’s degree from North Carolina State University. While living in the US, she started working on issues of social justice and workers’ rights. She started her political career with an organization called Socialist Alternative, which promotes socialist ideology and struggles against capitalism. In 2013, she was elected as a member of the Seattle City Council. During her tenure, she took many important steps for increasing the minimum wage, controlling housing rents and workers’ rights. In 2020, a resolution was passed in the Seattle City Council under the leadership of Chhama Sawant against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) brought by the Modi government. This was the first such step in the US. This resolution was supported by hundreds of Hindus, Muslims, Christians and various American labor organizations. The Modi government was very angry with this. The Indian Consulate in the US had also tried to stop the voting on the resolution. In 2020 itself, Chhama had passed a resolution against caste discrimination in the Seattle City Council. When the issue of linking caste with name came up, Chhama Sawant had fought together with anti-caste organizations. RSS and BJP supporters living there were against this resolution. The Seattle City Council also passed a resolution against the three black agricultural laws brought by the Modi government. Sawant believes that when you become a Marxist, a socialist and a fighter for the working class, every wing of the international establishment becomes an enemy, be it in the US or in India.
Chamma’s mother lives in Bengaluru and is very ill. Chamma had applied for an e-visa from June 26 to July 15 last year. Foreigners are granted e-visas for tourism, meeting friends and relatives, medical treatment and short-term yoga programmes. The Indian government refused to grant the visa on May 26 without giving any reason. When she applied again, her husband was granted a visa, but Chamma was again denied without giving any reason. Chamma has also written to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar that she needs to be with her mother, but has not received any response. The Modi government, which has been raising slogans of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas and Sabka Vishwas’, is reflected in the Sawant case, showing how much it believes in the daughter of its country. It is clear that the Modi government is against those who are fighting against caste discrimination, whether in India or in any other country in the world.
