SFI condemns Trump admin's attack on foreign students, draws similarity to 'witchhunting in India'

NEW DELHI: Alleging that the Donald Trump government in the United States (US) is cancelling admissions and revoking visas of Indian students for protesting its involvement in Israel-Palestine war, the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) has urged the government and the external affairs minister to intervene in the matter.

Condemning the alleged attack on the Indian student community, SFI said, “Freedom to express dissent and gather in protest is the inalienable right of the student community. The denial of this right and the brutal punishment imposed for its exercise is a tell-tale sign of a fascistic regime, one that the Indian student community is not alien to.”

Even those on student visas and having green-card holders are being subjected to “fascist Trump regime”, with universities also taking the government’s side and not supporting students, the federation complained.

The students’ association compared the administrative and state-sponsored attacks on students to "witch-hunting" in India by the Narendra Modi government. “The witchhunting of student protesters in the US is eerily similar to the attacks faced by the student activists in India by the Modi govt whenever they have raised their voice against tools of systemic oppression like tremendous centralization, privatisation, communalisation, discrimination on the basis of caste, class, religion, gender etc. Authoritarianism bleeds the same colours of oppression everywhere, be it India or the US,” the student association said.

'Attack on Indian student community'

The student body expressed shock and concern towards the mishandling of Indian students who “might have spent countless years of their lives working in academia to reach where they are today” by the state and their universities, just because they “refused to turn a blind eye” to the genocide.

According to the student group, an Indian student from Chennai, Ranjani Srinivasan, who was pursuing PhD in Urban Planning from Columbia University is also among the students whose admissions were cancelled. SFI extended its solidarity to the scholar and other students who “were subjected to this violence because of their refusal to bow down to imperisalist war crimes.”