Kamal Ghorui
Sahaas Kaul and Neha Suratran said much of the anti-India rhetoric at Frisco City Council meetings in Texas is manufactured from social media.
After their speeches at Frisco city council meetings pushing back the ‘Indian takeover’ narrative went viral, Indian-American Saahas Kaul and Neha Suratran spoke out at a recent podcast on what motivated them to take a stand for their community. While Kaul said the anti-India attack almost seems suspiciously coordinated, Suratran said activism influencers are coming to Frisco and speaking at these city council meetings only for their social media.For the past few months, the city council meetings of Frisco, Texas, have remained in the news for the anti-India rhetoric that originated there and spread across social media. Kaul and Suratran chose to counter those narratives and spoke out at the meetings.Kaul said these people are targeting H-1Bs because they know H-1Bs will not protest, as they have to protect their jobs and status in the US. But as a US citizen, Kaul has no fear, and so he chose to attend these meetings and defend the Indian-American community. He also said that after attending the first meeting, he found out that it’s only a handful of people, huddled together at these meetings, who are spreading the anti-India hatred — and not a huge section of people as it may seem on social media.Suratran said the ‘Indian takeover’ claim conveniently overlooks the fact that tech companies are also coming to Texas and Indians are contributing to the growth. She said city councils are not responsible for immigration at all, but these activism influencers are choosing these city council meetings only for X or Instagram so that it looks they are speaking to power and that they can make a real change.On one hand, these people are saying that Indians are not getting assimilated to American culture and on the other, they are claiming that there are only Indian-origin students in the Boy Scouts, Suratran said. Indian-Americans are paying for Medicare and Social Security while they benefit from neither, Suratran said, adding that there should be a discussion on H-1B fraud and abuse but that should not be mixed with one’s anti-India perception.
