MUMBAI: Seattle-based
Indian-American economist
and ex-Seattle City Council’s
Kshama Sawant
, who faced two e-visa rejections last year and has been waiting for an
emergency visa
to meet her ailing mother for three weeks, has accused the Indian govt of “harassment” and is considering legal recourse. Sawant, 51, said her repeated attempts to visit her 82-year-old mother in Bengaluru have failed.
Sawant and her husband Calvin Priest first applied for an e-visa in May 2024. While her husband’s visa came through, hers was rejected.
The Seattle City Council, in 2020, passed a resolution, led by Sawant, condemning India’s Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens, calling it discriminatory. “We also won a resolution in solidarity with the farmers’ movement in India against Modi’s brutal and exploitative policies. We won a historic citywide ban on caste-based discrimination, the first-of-its-kind outside South Asia, despite opposition by Seattle Democrats…” said Sawant on X.
Sawant, speaking to TOI from US, said this could be the reason behind repeated rejections of her visa.
She even wrote to foreign minister S Jaishankar in June last year to make an appeal. The letter included a doctor’s note stating her mother, Vasundhara Ramanujam, is undergoing treatment for two years and her health is deteriorating rapidly. She did not get any response from the minister’s office. Sawant last visited her mother in 2022. She has now launched an e- petition seeking grant of her visa.
A govt source said granting a visa is a sovereign function and needs to be respected, adding that Sawant’s emergency visa application has not yet been rejected.
