The Indian government’s overseas assassination attempt on New York-based Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun sent shockwaves through the Indian American community. Suddenly, it felt less safe to criticize India’s policies from the United States. But it was just the tip of the iceberg in the Indian government’s much broader campaign of transnational repression.
The Modi-led Indian government and its supporters have unleashed a slew of threats to Indians residing abroad: allegedly killing Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada; conducting an Indian intelligence-associated smear campaign against U.S. human rights groups; revoking the overseas citizenship status of Indian American dissidents; and detaining the relatives of Indian Americans in retaliation for remarks they made abroad.
One anonymous U.S.-based scholar summarized the feelings of many in our community: “Everyone is terrified.”
As the leader of an organization openly critical of the Modi regime and a target of a pro-Modi smear campaign, I feel real apprehension about ever returning to my home country. The increasingly extreme actions of the Indian state make me concerned for my safety in the United States as well.
The U.S. Congress can and must take a stand against the Indian government’s aggressive transnational repression. To protect the freedom, well-being, and security of the United States’ diaspora communities, U.S. legislators should support the bipartisan Transnational Repression Reporting Act of 2024, introduced in Congress last week by California Representative Adam Schiff and co-sponsored by Representatives Daniel S. Goldman, David Valadao, Ilhan Omar, Barbara Lee, James McGovern, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Eric Swalwell.
Establishing an annual attorney general-led reporting process for all instances of transnational repression, the bill is poised to help not only the victims of the Indian government’s overseas attacks, but a wide range of U.S. citizens contending with threats from the governments of Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, and other regimes hostile to public criticism.
The bill would require the attorney general to catalog each case of transnational repression in an annual report, document the U.S. government’s law enforcement response in each instance, as well as the response of foreign governments after being confronted with their involvement. In gathering these facts and publicizing them each year, this report would raise the profile of victims of attacks from foreign governments among politicians and everyday Americans.
Doing so is crucial, as far too few Americans understand how widespread these threats are. Take the case of Iranian American journalist and feminist Masih Alinejad, who was nearly assassinated in Brooklyn two years ago when a hired killer showed up on her front steps with an assault rifle. Part of a murder-for-hire plot believed to be linked to the Iranian government, it totally upended Alinejad’s life.
Or take the numerous Chinese American anti-Xi-Jinping protesters in San Francisco last year, who were sprayed with chemicals and attacked with long poles by Chinese Communist Party-sponsored groups during the Chinese president’s U.S. visit in 2023. One pro-CCP group beat a man unconscious. Other Chinese Americans, including members of U.S.-based Uyghur rights groups, have described receiving threatening, violent messages from Chinese police officials for speaking their minds in the United States.
While the brazen killing of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul was well publicized, the plight of Prince Abdullah bin Faisal al Saud was not. Imprisoned by the Saudi Arabian government for a phone call al Saud made while in Boston, his arrest shows that even seemingly mundane actions in the United States can have dire consequences for those returning to their home countries.
When the Indian, Chinese, Iranian, Saudi Arabian, and any other government makes it dangerous to raise our voices in the United States, our First Amendment freedoms as Americans are at stake. When authoritarian organizations abroad export their tactics overseas, the lives of Americans are subject to authoritarian pressures here.
As technology and surveillance systems grow ever more invasive, making it easier to monitor and threaten foreign dissidents, the U.S. Congress must act quickly to stamp out transnational repression. Our elected legislators should lend their full support to the Transnational Repression Reporting Act of 2024 to protect the rights of all Americans.