Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always been effusive about the strength of the Indian-American community. Speaking at New York's Nassau Coliseum to adoring crowds, he proclaimed, “I have always understood the capabilities of the Indian diaspora... For me, you all have been strong brand ambassadors of India. This is why I call you Rashtradoot.” Modi has never missed a chance to showcase the diaspora as living proof of India's soft power and reach. At every major overseas event, he would call Indian-Americans the bridge between the world’s oldest and largest democracies, telling audiences: “You all have come seven seas apart, but nothing can ever take the love of India away from your hearts and souls... This sentiment is what keeps us united, and this is our biggest strength, no matter where we go in the world.”
Such rhetoric has not just been sentiment. Modi’s political rise as the chief minister of Gujarat and his campaign to become the prime minister were built on this foundation. After 2014, it also became the basis of his foreign policy. The grand spectacles — Madison Square Garden, Howdy Modi, Namaste Trump — relied on Indian-Americans turning out in force. Each cheer, each handshake of Modi with an American president, was meant as proof that India had arrived, that its diaspora was no ordinary, immigrant cohort but a strategic asset, an emotional and economic bridge to power in Washingtom D.C. The world was told that Indian-Americans were now the richest, most educated minority, as likely to be in the White House as in the Silicon Valley. Domestically, the message was that India had influence in America because of its people, and Modi was the catalyst who was activating this force for the nation.
Equally significant was the belief in India’s support on the Hill, beyond party lines. Few have hammered home the idea of Congressional affection for India as relentlessly as the external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar. He would regularly praise the bipartisan support for India on Capitol Hill, pointing to how successive American presidents, whether Democrat or Republican, touted the importance of the US-India relationship. The story inside the Beltway, repeated by think-tank panels to embassy parties, was that India’s cause would always find friends in the Congress.
Examples were plentiful. The Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans was one of the largest foreign policy caucuses on Capitol Hill. Indian festivals were marked each year inside the halls of power. In successive resolutions, New Delhi could count on a broad swathe of lawmakers, from both parties, to keep the US relationship on track even when the White House wobbled.
Today, this entire policy has come apart. Donald Trump’s decision to impose 50% tariffs on Indian goods has exposed how hollow India’s claims to real influence are. Then came the decision to impose an exorbitant fee on H-1B visa applicants, which adversely affects Indian IT workers. Wealthy Indian-Americans have largely stood by in silence even as business and strategic interests are being directly hurt. The same corporate titans — Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Arvind Krishna — once paraded as the face of civilisational India’s rising power, attended Trump’s Silicon Valley dinners but did not protest his punitive tariffs on their own land of birth. Instead, they were effusive with praise for Trump. The halls of the Congress have not echoed with outrage at Trump’s trade war with India. Most have simply turned away or, worse, raised their own doubts about India’s democratic trajectory.
The few exceptions only prove the rule. The Democrat, Ro Khanna, himself of Indian origin, spoke out against the tariffs, sharply rebuking Indian-American Trump supporters for their silence. Progressive lawmakers like Pramila Jayapal have made headlines less for solidarity with India and more for their consistent criticism of Modi’s domestic record: the attacks on press freedoms, the treatment of religious minorities, and the erosion of judicial independence. Rather than bipartisan solidarity, what India has seen on the Hill is a growing impatience with its steady slide towards illiberalism. The kind of support Modi and Jaishankar boasted of has melted into indifference and, in corners, opposition.
The Indian diaspora’s supposed influence has turned out to be all flash and little substance. The crowd sizes at stadium events, the high-profile meetings arranged through community groups, produced no policy shift. When Trump’s tariffs came, there was no mobilisation, no coordinated outreach to lawmakers, no open letters, no press conferences, or celebrity activism from Indian-American business or cultural leaders. Not even the informal lobbying seen in previous crises. Unlike the Jewish-American community, renowned for its capacity to mobilise, fundraise and frame debates, Indian-Americans as a collective have proved public-spirited mostly in matters of philanthropy and business, not hard politics.
Why did Modi’s grand strategy fail? Partly, it was always fantasy. Over the past decade, the Modi government mistook symbolic representation for real clout. Having many CEOs and doctors is not the same as having power networks capable of shaping policy outcomes in the US. Many Indian-Americans are either not citizens, not voters in key districts, or simply uninterested in lobbying for the Indian government on controversial matters. They are perhaps afraid of Trump’s wrath and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s operations; this seems to be the case with the very voluble Hindutva organisations. Indian-origin lawmakers are answerable to their own voters and party coalitions, not to the Indian embassy.
On the Hill, the bipartisan bonhomie presented each year at Diwali celebrations hid deeper fractures. Democrats are increasingly at odds with India’s slide into majoritarian politics. The progressive Democrat, Rashida Tlaib, has openly questioned India’s actions in Kashmir and its treatment of Muslims. Jayapal was boycotted by Jaishankar after her statements on the nationality law and on Kashmir. Republicans, meanwhile, see India as useful in the chess game against China but have no particular fondness for its domestic manoeuvres. And Trump's inner circle values brute negotiation, not sentiment.
Worse, the ecosystem Modi banked on beyond politics — think tanks, academia, civil society — has also pulled back. America’s top think tanks offered only the mildest of rebukes when India was attacked by Trump. Most US human rights groups have grown tired of New Delhi ignoring their reports or even harassing their researchers. Stories of transnational repression and attacks on Sikh activists and religious minorities have led them to be treated as India’s enemies, with their OCI cards being cancelled or their families in India being harassed. It was highly unlikely that they would speak up for Modi now.
Compare this to Israel, the model Hindutva fantasists so often invoke. The Israeli lobby works not only through money and events but also through decades of structured engagement across party, professional and grassroots lines. There is always a mechanism ready to deliver a response on Capitol Hill. Hindutva efforts, by contrast, have prioritised optics over institutions, religion over values, and Modi over India. At this crunch time, they offer only awkward silence.
Trump sees India as another negotiating opponent, not a privileged partner. Capitol Hill sees India as just another country with an authoritarian streak, no different from Hungary or Turkey. Indian-Americans are successful, wealthy and visible, but not willing to be mobilised as a real political force for their country of birth. Modi’s noisy rallies and lavish community events may have led to asset-building headlines but they have not built anything of substance. For a foreign policy premised on diaspora and bipartisan bonds, this is a very public reckoning. The assets Modi so loudly counted on were never tested before. When the time came, they failed.
Sushant Singh is lecturer at Yale University