Attack on Indian-Americans

THE alarming verbal and physical attack on four Indian-American women in Dallas, Texas, on Friday is the latest in an ever-expanding list of crimes caused by racist and xenophobic sentiments in the US. The women were racially abused and physically smacked by a Mexican-American woman in a parking lot in Dallas. In a video recording that has gone viral, the woman, later identified as Esmeralda Upton, is heard telling the group: ‘I hate you Indians…. You Indians are everywhere…. Go back to India. You… people are ruining this country.’ She threateningly advanced towards the group, motioning as if to pull a gun out of her bag, and told them she would shoot them if they did not stop recording.

In April, a Sikh man was attacked with a hammer at his workplace in New York by a black man; the same month, a 75-year-old Sikh visitor from Canada was severely injured during another racism-fuelled hate attack. Though turbaned Sikh men and Muslim women bear the brunt of the anger of American bigots — the worst case in recent years was the attack on a Wisconsin gurdwara that left seven people dead in 2012 — surveys show that Indian-Americans face racism on a regular basis. A survey of 1,200 adults last year showed that one in two among them was subjected to some form of discrimination over the previous 12 months; nearly 60 per cent of the respondents said they suffered discrimination on the basis of their skin colour. Despite electing a black President and a coloured woman Vice-President, the US polity is far from egalitarian — blacks fare worse than other racial groups in employment, wealth, education, home-ownership, healthcare and incarceration. Black inmates were 33 per cent of the country’s prison population in 2018, while being below 13 per cent of the US population. It gets worse — blacks are killed by the police at more than twice the rate of white Americans.

Indian-Americans, a successful immigrant group, are prosperous and prominent because of the high-profile management positions they reach — and this triggers the bigotry of many other race groups. However, US law enforcement agencies must be congratulated for their efforts in bringing the perpetrators to book; Esmeralda Upton was arrested soon after her racist attack and is likely to be sentenced to a jail term. Such alacrity and certainty in punishment is something India must aspire for.