India slams Vance for ‘offensive’ remarks on foreign workers
The Indian government has condemned US Vice-President J.D. Vance for using the term 'indentured servants' to describe foreign workers in the US tech sector. India labeled the remarks as offensive and historically insensitive, while Vance defended his stance as a measure to protect American jobs.
Why it matters
The diplomatic friction underscores the sensitivity of immigration policy and the economic tensions between the US and India.
Vance used a term associated with a colonial-era system in which workers were forced into labour overseas.
Listen India’s government criticised US Vice-President J.D. Vance for “deeply offensive” remarks in which he referred to foreign recruits at software firms in the US, many of whom are Indians, as servants.
Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling on Oct 8 suspended some of India’s biggest IT services businesses, as well as Microsoft and Adobe, from a longstanding immigration initiative as part of a crackdown on alleged abuse of the H-1B worker visa system.
Vance urged US companies to hire more American workers and to “stop importing an indentured servant to do a job that an American worker would happily do”.
In India, the term is associated with a colonial-era system in which workers were forced into labour on plantations and farms overseas under exploitative conditions.
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