Former Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant has claimed that the Indian government has denied her a visa, preventing her from visiting her ailing mother in India. In a post on X, Sawant stated, “India’s PM Modi & the BJP government are denying me a visa to see my ill mother. I’m not alone. Modi has retaliated against other activists & journalists, denying or revoking entry into India.” She linked the alleged visa denial to her past criticism of the Indian government, particularly her opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
She further added in her X post, “My socialist Seattle City Council office took an unwavering stand against India’s right-wing, anti-worker, anti-Muslim PM Narendra Modi & his right-wing nationalist BJP party. Modi & the BJP have waged sustained attacks on workers, farmers, Muslims, and other oppressed groups in India, including with the anti-Muslim, anti-poor CAA-NRC law, which denied citizenship to millions. Working people and my office passed the first U.S. resolution condemning CAA-NRC. We faced opposition not only from the U.S. Democratic Party but also from Modi’s Indian consulate in San Francisco itself, which publicly opposed us. We also won a resolution in solidarity with the farmers’ movement in India against Modi’s brutal and exploitative policies. We also won a historic citywide ban on caste-based discrimination, the first of its kind outside South Asia, despite opposition by Seattle Democrats, and right-wing, pro-Modi groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Hindu American Foundation. Donald Trump is now beginning his promised mass deportation campaign, including workplace raids. This continues the steady escalation of attacks on immigrant workers in the U.S., which has been carried out by both Democrats and Republicans. Working people & the Left internationally need to fight against the right wing and the billionaire class, and their brazen tactics of repression and attacks on immigrants, activists & movements, including with strike action and civil disobedience. Fight against Modi, BJP, Trump, Republicans, Democrats & all the capitalist parties.”
Kshama Sawant has been ranting for days about her visa rejection and wrote, “India’s Modi government has rejected my visa THREE TIMES to visit my 82-year-old mother who is very sick. Seattle’s Indian Consulate gave my husband visa again. They say my name is on a “reject list.” They refuse to tell us why. Now they’ve threatened to call the police on us.”
Kshama seemed to have understood something. She wrote, “A Consular officer said I’m being denied a visa coz I’m on Modi govt’s “reject list.” It’s clear why. 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.”
Later, a video was uploaded where she and her husband seem to be on a ranting spree with both taking turns to speak. Kshama even quoted Mahatma Gandhi and civil disobedience as they stood outside the Indian consulate in Seattle. She said, “All we are asking for is an explanation. Why am I on a reject list? Why has my visa been denied, rejected three times? That’s all we are asking. We’ve asked the Consulate General Prakash Gupta to arrive here or for these officers to call the Ministry of Home Affairs in the Modi government. They have phones right here; they have mobile phones and yet they say they can’t call.”
The husband then said, “They pretend this as a completely neutral thing that they’re denying Kshama a visa for no particular reason. They’ve given no reasons after 3 visa rejections and it’s very very clear that this is political rejection by the Modi administration, but they don’t want to say it. So, they are giving us all kinds of process bullshit and saying if you emailed this or emailed that, if you did this differently, if we did that differently, at the end of the day, they are refusing to give some reason as to why they are denying Kshama the ability to visit India to see her mother who’s dying.”
Kshama continued, “And when we started agitating here asking we want an explanation, we’re not going to leave without an explanation, that officer tells me to be respectable. He says be respectable. And I ask him how respectable it is for the Modi government to deny an 82-year-old woman who has a lot of illnesses who is worried about her life and wants to see her daughter, to deny her the right to see her daughter, that’s respectable?”
The husband continues, “And you can see how respectable they are, they are people trying to take videos and they are trying to physically take people’s phones away and grab them out of their hands.”
Kshama continued ranting, “They are threatening to call the police on us. They kept saying this is not the way. We said aren’t you from the same country that I was born in, the country of Mahatma Gandhi, a country of civil disobedience which was integral to India’s revolution for independence from the British empire?”
The husband’s rant continued, “What kind of government denies someone a visa to see their mother who is dying? What kind of government retaliates against someone simply for criticizing it and refusing them 3 times to grant them a visa because of criticism of that government, what kind of reactionary government operates in this way?”
It is noteworthy that the CAA, introduced by the Indian government, is aimed at granting citizenship to persecuted minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, not revoking citizenship as Sawant suggested.
This denial of a visa comes amid Sawant’s history of controversial political actions. In February 2020, Sawant was behind a Seattle City Council resolution condemning India’s CAA and NRC. The resolution, which passed unanimously, reaffirmed Seattle as a welcoming city, expressing solidarity with the city’s South Asian community, regardless of religion and caste. It opposed the CAA and NRC, calling them discriminatory to Muslims, oppressed castes, women, indigenous, and LGBT people.
The resolution called on the Indian Parliament to repeal the CAA, halt the NRC, and ratify various UN treaties to aid refugees. Ahsan Khan, president of the Indian American Muslim Council, praised the move, stating that Seattle’s decision should serve as a message to those undermining pluralism and religious freedom. Thenmozhi Soundararajan of Equality Labs also expressed support, framing Seattle’s action as part of a global outcry against the CAA.
In February 2023, Sawant sponsored another controversial resolution, making Seattle the first city in the United States to officially recognize “caste” as a protected category under its non-discrimination policy. The ordinance was criticized by Hindu organizations for singling out South Asians, potentially leading to bias against the community.
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