Indian-origin US anti-caste activist says visa to see ailing mother in Bengaluru denied a third time
Kshama Sawant, a former councillor from United States’ Seattle, said the Indian consulate told her that her name was on a ‘reject list’.
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Indian-origin anti-caste activist Kshama Sawant said on Friday that the Indian government had once again denied her an emergency visa to visit her ailing mother in Bengaluru, claiming that her name was on a “reject list”.
In a post on X, the United States-based activist said that the Indian consulate in Seattle granted her husband Calvin Priest an emergency visa but denied hers for a third time. The officials also refused to give her an explanation for the rejection, she said.
Sawant was an elected representative on the Seattle City Council from 2013 to 2023.
“My socialist City Council office passed a resolution condemning [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi’s anti-Muslim anti-poor CAA-NRC [Citizenship Amendment Act-National Register of Citizens] citizenship law,” Sawant said, claiming this to be the reason why her visa was rejected. “We also won a historic ban on caste discrimination.”
In 2020, Sawant introduced a resolution in the Seattle City Council against India’s Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register for Citizens. The resolution was passed in February that year.
The Citizenship Amendment Act aims to provide citizenship to undocumented migrants from six minority religious communities, except Muslims, from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the condition that they have lived in India for six years and had entered the country by December 31,...
