Biden’s ‘Xenophobic’ Slur Wrongs India and Japan
India has welcomed immigrants, including persecuted ones, for thousands of years.
My letter to The Wall Street Journal Editor.
Your editorial “Joe Biden’s Japanese Diplomacy” (May 4) is right to rebuke President Biden for his uncharitable description of our friends, Japan and India, and then to offer a nuanced explanation of Japan’s immigration policy. For some reason, however, the editorial doesn’t give the same courtesy to India.
India is one of the world’s most pluralistic societies, the birthplace of four indigenous religions. India has welcomed immigrants, including persecuted ones, for thousands of years. Jews, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, Muslims and Christians have called India home for hundreds of years. More recently, India received with open arms the persecuted Sikhs of Afghanistan. India also enacted a law that fast-tracks immigration of the persecuted minorities of the Islamic Republics of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
India isn’t a treaty ally of the U.S. like Japan. Still, with one of the fastest-growing economies and a robust and thriving democracy, it is our valued strategic partner in the Indo-Pacific. It deserves fair treatment, too.
Avatans Kumar
