Our hearts beat for US deportees but turn against Rohingyas entering India. That’s hypocrisy

The Print
Karanjeet Kaur
11 February, 2025 

This public sympathy, unprecedented for “illegal” migrants, stems from the knowledge that in a different reality, the deportees’ gamble might have been our own.

Refugees standing in a queue at a refugee camp | Commons

The sight of dozens of crestfallen Indians exiting the ramp of the US military plane that landed in Amritsar last week, cast a pall of gloom over the news cycle. But for me, the defining image of India’s deportation crisis isn’t the 104 Indians bound and handcuffed by US officials—it’s the Punjabi politicians who voluntarily appeared in chains outside Parliament.