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‘Not proxies of Indian govt’: Suhag Shukla responds to Tharoor’s comments on diaspora apathy
Hindu American Foundation’s exec director said the Congress leader's remarks misrepresented the diaspora’s civic engagement and credibility in the US.
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Pranavi Sharma - Tue, 07, Oct 2025
- 01:07 EDT
- 17
Hindu American Foundation executive director Suhag A Shukla and Indian MP Shashi Tharoor. / X
Hindu American Foundation executive director Suhag A Shukla has criticized Indian National Congress MP Shashi Tharoor for suggesting that the Indian-American community has remained “silent” on issues shaping India-US relations. In an article published in 'The Print', Shukla said Tharoor’s remarks mischaracterized the diaspora’s political engagement and ignored the realities of how it operates within the US system.
“There are 535 members in the US Congress—100 senators and 435 representatives. But the honourable Shashi Tharoor had made sweeping claims about the Indian American diaspora based on the words of just one in that cohort,” she wrote, referring to Tharoor’s recent comments citing a Congresswoman who said she had not received any calls from diaspora members over US President Donald Trump’s policies.
Shukla, who co-founded HAF, said the diaspora had long worked to strengthen India-US ties but did so “without a full picture, without any formal role in shaping India’s policies, and always within the strictures of US law”. She added, “It is disingenuous, dangerous even, to suggest we do otherwise.”
Defending the community’s dual identity, Shukla said civic engagement in the US does not conflict with cultural or emotional ties to India. “Just as India and Indian citizens have a duty to pursue their national interest, the United States and its citizens, including Indian Americans, have a duty to pursue ours,” she wrote. “This recognition is not a betrayal of our heritage, but a simple fact of citizenship.”
After @ShashiTharoor’s recent hypothesis over ostensible Indian American apathy in @IndianExpress, here’s my response.
— Suhag A. Shukla (@SuhagAShukla) October 6, 2025
Hope folks actually read the whole piece—then we can have a real conversation https://t.co/FVRVEXksNW
Shukla also referred to ongoing legislative pressures faced by Indian and Hindu Americans, including California’s SB509 and proposed federal bills targeting “transnational repression.” She warned that such laws could enable “mass surveillance and profiling” under vague terms. “Statements like Mr Tharoor’s don’t merely misrepresent the diaspora; they embolden those who never believed we were true Americans to begin with,” she wrote.
Acknowledging Tharoor’s stature, she said his “words carry weight” and “must be measured.” Shukla concluded, “Indian Americans do not exist to serve as proxies for the Government of India. We exist as Americans—citizens endowed with rights, responsibilities, and loyalties rooted in this soil.”
Responding on X after her article, Tharoor welcomed Shukla’s comments. “I welcome the pushback from @SuhagAShukla,” he wrote, adding that if his remarks “got Indian-Americans thinking, I am happy.” Tharoor said that while their challenges differ from those of Jewish and Cuban Americans, “that doesn’t mean that within the rules of US democracy, they can’t make their voices heard—as these other groups so effectively do.”
I welcome the pushback from @SuhagAShukla (& there’s another one coming from @vivekwadhwa in tomorrow’s @IndianExpress). If my questions about the silence of the diaspora have got Indian-Americans thinking, I am happy. Their challenges are indeed different from those of… https://t.co/RPRNPb3uLz
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) October 6, 2025
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