SEATTLE (TIP): Kshama Sawant, an Indian-origin Seattle City Council member, has alleged that she was denied the Indian visa to visit her ailing mother. She claimed to be on a “visa reject” list for having passed a law in Washington state to end caste discrimination.

This is her third visa rejection in the past year.

Facing rejection, Sawant and members of her organization, ‘Workers Strike Back’, staged a sit-in protest at the Indian Consulate in Seattle, calling it “peaceful civil disobedience”.

Indian Consulate officials called the local police. Sawant posted on X, “My husband & I are in the Seattle Indian Consulate. They granted him an emergency visa for my mother being very sick, but rejected mine, literally saying my name is on a ‘reject list’.”

She added, “They are refusing to give an explanation. We’re refusing to leave. They’re threatening to call the police on us.”

The Indian Consulate in Seattle posted its version on X, “The Consulate was forced to deal with a law-and-order situation arising from the unauthorized entry by certain individuals into the Consulate premises after office hours.”

They said, “Despite repeated requests, these individuals refused to leave the Consulate premises and engaged in aggressive and threatening behavior with the Consulate staff. We were compelled to call in relevant local authorities to deal with the situation. Further action is being initiated against the trespassers.”

In another X post, Sawant claimed, “A Consular officer said I’m being denied a visa because I’m on the Modi (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) government’s ‘reject list’.”

She said a resolution she moved in the Seattle City Council led to her being placed on the visa ‘reject list’. “It’s clear why,” she added. “My socialist City Council office passed a resolution condemning Modi’s anti-Muslim anti-poor CAA-NRC citizenship law. We also won a historic ban on caste discrimination.” The CAA refers to the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, passed by Parliament, and the NRC is the National Register of Citizens.

In 2023, the Seattle City Council, based on a resolution moved by Sawant, added caste to the city’s anti-discrimination laws, becoming the first US city to ban caste discrimination and the first in the world to pass such a law outside South Asia.
(Source: PTI)