Politicians making wild, sensational, and unsubstantiated statements in the run-up to the elections is quite common. But US President Joe Biden broke all records by claiming that several countries including Bharat are “xenophobic” because they do not welcome immigrants.
The US President made these controversial remarks at a campaign fundraising event last week where he claimed that Bharat, Russia, China, and Japan don’t want immigrants.
Biden claimed that the American “economy is growing” because “we welcome immigrants… Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they are xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants”, he said.
The head of a state making provocative statements about the economies of other countries and labeling them xenophobic to showcase the apparent superiority of another country is unheard of. The US President’s comments go against all diplomatic protocol; how can the US expect to maintain cordial diplomatic relations with countries whose economic growth its President casually denounces and levels against it the serious charges of “xenophobia”.
Xenophobia literally translates into fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners. Thus, Joe Biden essentially accused people of Bharat, China, Japan, and Russia of being racist. Imagine a prominent Bharatiya leader making such a statement, accusing the US of xenophobia in the context of rising hate crimes in the US. There would have been indeed a huge controversy by now. The woke US media would have written heaps of articles denouncing Bharat’s “Hindu majoritarian populist” government.
The western media has been peddling a dangerous and poisonous narrative about the Modi government. It routinely accuses the Modi government of being Hindu majoritarian, fascist, and suppressing the rights of minorities. Joe Biden’s casual comment calling Bharat “xenophobic” is a part of the larger anti-Bharat western narrative. Notice the countries he chose to condemn – Bharat, China, Japan, and Russia. None of these countries are typically western. Russia is a European country yes, but it hardly fits the framework of a typical western country. Thus, the comments showcase the US President’s own deep seated “xenophobia” if anything, that he thinks he can get away by making such casual comments targeting other countries and no one would bat an eyelid.
Bharat has taken a strong exception to his comments. Refuting Biden’s comments, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar emphasized that Bharat has always been open and welcoming to people from different societies. Rejecting the US President’s remarks that the Bharatiya economy was faltering and not doing well, S Jaishankar clarified, “ First of all, our economy is not faltering”. Further emphasizing how Bharat was open and welcoming to people from all over the world, he gave the example of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) enacted by the central government and said it provides opportunities “for people who are in trouble”.
“India always has been a unique country. I would say actually, in the history of the world, that it’s been a society which has been very open. Different people from different societies come to India”, he said.
Japan also reacted to the US President’s comments labeling the country as “xenophobic”, calling these as “unfortunate” and “not based on an accurate” understanding of the country.
The White House could be seen in a damage control mode after the US President’s absurd comments were criticized both by Bharat and Japan. It tried to downplay Biden’s comments by stating that the US President meant no offense and was merely highlighting the immigration policies of the US. But obviously, this is a feeble attempt at diplomacy considering the kind of damage Biden has already done by labeling countries, some of which have close strategic partnerships as xenophobic.
The US elections might still be a couple of months away but the Biden government is already under extreme pressure internally, facing anger over its immigration policies and also overwhelming criticism from its Arab-American voter base over its handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict and the subsequent pro-Palestine protests in US universities. As Biden tries hard to maintain his pro-Israel policy amidst the wave of criticism, the comment hailing the crowning glory of the US immigrant culture at the expense of demeaning countries like Bharat, China, Russia, and Japan could be seen as a desperate election gimmick by Biden trying to clutch on to the last straw as it were.
Immigration has become a huge election issue in most western countries, and not just the US. With most of these countries struggling with rising prices, inflation, and low economic growth, immigrants are being widely perceived as taking away the resources of the country. That is perhaps the reason why many white working-class Americans support Trump. His promise to bring in tough immigration policies and put a curb to the US policy donating billions of dollars to other countries as war aid, has instilled hope in the working class. The general perception amongst the US white working class is that the US government spends billions of dollars meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and giving space to all sorts of immigrants while neglecting its own people and their economic woes.
While Donald Trump’s prominent voter base is said to be amongst whites without a college degree, Joe Biden’s voter base consists predominantly of college-educated white voters along with Hispanic, Black, and Asian voters. Thus, it is obvious that Joe Biden is precariously dependent on immigrants and the university-educated white voter base to secure a win in the upcoming elections. That’s why, ironically enough, while he doesn’t have that much of a radically different Israel policy than Trump, Biden has to continue making the right noises to keep his voter base amongst the illusion that he is tough on Israel.
That is why even as the US police has arrested thousands of pro-Palestine protestors from the campuses of US universities and Joe Biden has categorically stated that the protests would do nothing to change his Israel policy, the US President issues such statements labeling Bharat and others as xenophobic in a desperate bid to be seen as “immigrant-friendly”.
An article recently published by the Firstpost offers an excellent refutation of the US President’s comments labeling Bharat as “xenophobic” and the possible motivation behind such comments. “That Biden would club India among economic laggards is surprising. India’s economy grew by a six-quarter high of 8.4 percent in the October -December quarter of fiscal 2024, beating all estimates, and the government now expects the real GDP to grow at 7.6 per cent in 2024, up from the 7.3 per cent projected in January. India’s growth forecasts range between 6.6 per cent to 7 per cent this fiscal despite some uncertainties in an election year.
India is a civilizational nation-state as well as a young and expanding nation. It is an incredible melting pot of myriad religious, linguistic, ethnic, and cultural identities. Bharatvarsh through millennia has offered refuge to people from all corners of the world. As external affairs minister S Jaishankar, speaking to reporters on Biden’s remarks about India, said, “We are the most open society. To date, I have never seen such an open society, such a pluralistic society, such a diverse society””, says the article.
As External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar rightly pointed out, Bharat has enacted a special law called CAA for granting citizenship to persecuted minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. It is strange that the western media spreads disinformation about measures like CAA, insinuating that the law is discriminatory against Bharatiya Muslims rather than highlighting the actual intent of such laws. It’s thus natural that when the western media could be seeped in xenophobia when it comes to Bharat, it should come as no surprise that the US President would make such highly absurd statements about Bharat calling us “xenophobic” to prove the supposed superiority of the US when it comes to welcoming immigrants.
It’s ironical that the US projects itself as some kind of a haven for immigrants and yet, thousands of Bharatiya students struggle to find employment in the US after graduating from the US universities. The only kind of immigrants the likes of the US welcome are the highly skilled immigrants like doctors, engineers, etc. who contribute massively to their economy and fill the gap by taking up jobs, their own citizens are not skilled enough for. Many such highly skilled immigrants also provide such services at a way lower price than an average white American highly skilled worker would. That is one of the main reasons immigrants are lucrative for the US economy.
How many humanities and social sciences graduates from Bharat has the US given work permits to? So many Bharatiya students come back home unemployed after spending a fortune on securing fancy humanities and social science degrees from fancy US universities. Why doesn’t the US exactly welcome those kinds of immigrants?
The point is the US is not doing some kind of charity for highly skilled immigrants by welcoming them. It’s as much a need of their economy as it is of the US. Bharat, on the contrary, has been at the receiving end of huge immigrant influx from the likes of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh, who are mostly a grave security threat to the country. That is why the Bharatiya government has toughened its stance regarding illegal immigrants. Even the US and other western countries are facing the same situation regarding illegal immigrants. It’s an important election issue for them. So the west has no right to lecture Bharat on its immigration policies.
