Shackled And Shamed: How Trump’s Deportation Drama Unmasked Modi’s India – OpEd

In a stark echo of colonial subjugation, Indian immigrants without valid papers in Donald Trump’s America now find themselves shackled, detained, and deported like indentured laborers of a bygone era. Their plight embodies the profound humiliation of a nation whose leader, Narendra Modi, boasts of ‘Vishwaguru’ status while bending the knee to America’s despotic whims.

The irony is chilling: as Trump weaponizes immigration to feed his base’s nativist fervour, Modi’s government remains conspicuously silent, betraying these immigrants in favor of consolidating ties with Washington—an act of fealty reminiscent of native elites appeasing colonial masters.

For all the rhetoric of national pride, Modi’s deference to Trump’s hegemonic rule reveals the grim truth of India’s status in global politics. Far from championing the cause of vulnerable Indian workers abroad, the Modi government prioritizes the interests of the country’s monopoly capitalist class, which sees U.S. patronage as a gateway to economic expansion. This Faustian bargain—sacrificing the poor at the altar of elite ambition—mirrors the colonial era when the British Raj collaborated with Indian landlords to maintain a rigid, exploitative hierarchy.

Colonial Echoes and Modern Anti-Immigration Rhetoric

The imagery of shackled Indian deportees being marched onto a military aircraft is evocative of British colonialism, when Indians were routinely treated as subjects unworthy of dignity. Frantz Fanon’s analysis of colonialism describes how it not only physically dominates but also socially and psychologically conditions the colonized to accept subjugation as inevitable. Trump’s mass deportation strategy—an extravagant shift from the traditional practice of using chartered flights—functions as a deliberate reinforcement of colonial narratives.

Historically, anti-immigration discourse in the West has borrowed from colonial tropes. In 1927, American historian Katherine Mayo’s infamous book “Mother India” painted Indians as barbaric and incapable of self-rule, invoking sexual violence and caste divisions to justify Western superiority. Nearly a century later, the same rhetorical devices are weaponized against Indian immigrants—now branded as job thieves, social degenerates, or cultural misfits unwilling to assimilate. The shackling of deportees aims to cement the perception that these immigrants are criminals, despite the fact that their only crime is seeking economic refuge in a land that once welcomed their upper-caste, upper-class compatriots with open arms.

Compare this to Colombia’s response. When the U.S. attempted to deport similarly shackled Colombians, their government intervened, refusing to accept them in such a state. Colombia even deployed its own Air Force planes to retrieve its nationals, ensuring they were returned with dignity. This contrast raises a troubling question: Why is India, the world’s largest democracy, incapable of a similar assertion of sovereignty and self-respect?

Trump’s America: A Deportation Regime that Preys on the Helpless

Under Trump, immigration policy transformed into an instrument of calculated cruelty, targeting the most vulnerable for political gain. His draconian crackdown on undocumented immigrants disproportionately affected Indians, particularly those from lower-income backgrounds who sought economic refuge in the U.S. Many now languish in ICE detention centers, forced into inhumane conditions, awaiting deportation to a homeland that offers them little protection.

Modi, self-styled as the global protector of Hindus and the architect of a ‘New India,’ has done nothing to shield them. His silence is not mere oversight but a deliberate political choice. While the U.S. deports Indian workers en masse, Modi’s government is more concerned with staging spectacles like the ‘Howdy Modi’ rally, where the Indian Prime Minister beamed alongside Trump in a vulgar display of political theatre. The subtext was clear: Modi’s India will tolerate any indignity, provided the ruling class’s economic ambitions remain unscathed.

The Political Economy of Humiliation: Who Benefits?

At the heart of this complicity lies India’s monopoly capitalist elite—the Ambanis and Adanis—who seek to integrate more deeply into Western financial circuits, leveraging India’s growing economy to extract concessions from the U.S. administration. They have no interest in challenging Trump’s xenophobic immigration policies because their focus is on securing corporate investments, defense deals, and access to American markets.

For this class, the fate of Indian laborers—exploited both at home and abroad—is collateral damage in their pursuit of global economic clout. They champion policies that exacerbate inequality in India, forcing many to migrate in search of better livelihoods, only to be criminalized in the host country.

The colonial analogy is striking: just as British economic policies displaced millions of Indians—forcing them into indentured labor in sugar plantations across the Caribbean, Fiji, and Mauritius—today’s neoliberal order, under the stewardship of India’s ruling elite, compels migration into conditions of semi-bondage. The cycle of exploitation persists, only with new overlords.

Modi’s Nationalism: An Empty Shell in the Face of American Power

Modi’s brand of muscular nationalism—routinely invoked to silence dissent within India—evaporates when confronted with American power. The Indian government’s meek response to Trump’s travel bans, visa restrictions, and mass deportations exposes the hollowness of its self-proclaimed global assertiveness.

Contrast this with Mexico, which, despite economic dependence on the U.S., has fiercely resisted Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, demanding dignity for its diaspora. India, in contrast, has made no serious diplomatic efforts to advocate for its workers, instead choosing to curry favor with Washington through strategic alignments and arms deals.

The hypocrisy is glaring. When Indian students face racist attacks abroad, the government issues a perfunctory statement. When Indian workers are detained and humiliated, there is deafening silence. Yet, Modi’s BJP does not hesitate to whip up nationalist hysteria when it suits domestic political needs—whether in Kashmir, against Muslim minorities, or in stoking animosity towards Pakistan. The message is clear: nationalism is a tool of domestic control, not a principle of international advocacy.

The Moral Cost of Modi’s Compliance

The degradation of Indian immigrants under Trump’s America is more than a diplomatic failure; it is a moral catastrophe. It reveals the deep contradictions in Modi’s vision of India’s global stature: a country that claims to lead the world but cannot even protect its own citizens from humiliation abroad.

The silence of India’s ruling establishment is not just about Trump—it is about their fundamental alignment with the forces of global capital. The same government that criminalizes dissenting voices in India is complicit in the criminalization of Indian laborers abroad. The same state that strips citizenship from minorities under the Citizenship Amendment Act refuses to acknowledge the rights of its own immigrants when it does not serve the interests of the elite.

Reckoning with the Stakes

The humiliation of Indian immigrants in America under Trump’s anti-immigrant policies is not just their tragedy—it is a national disgrace. Modi’s complicity in this degradation exposes the hollowness of his nationalist posturing and reveals the real beneficiaries of his foreign policy: India’s monopoly capitalist elite.

Until India prioritizes the dignity of its people over the ambitions of its ruling  capitalist class, it will remain shackled—not by colonial masters, but by its own internal contradictions. The question remains: Will the Indian people accept this continued servitude, or will they demand an India that defends its own, at home and abroad?