So what is similar between injustice in Minneapolis and India?
- Independent Ink
- Jan 25
- 4 min read
In the US, Right-wing outlets often frame protesters as anarchists or criminals, while in India, government-aligned media brands dissenters as anti-nationals or foreign agents. The fourth estate, once a watchdog, has in many cases become a lapdog.
By Kuhu Singh
In the US, protesters are often charged with vague offenses, while in India, use of stringent sedition laws and anti-terror statutes are routine.
Minneapolis is running out of shock. That may be the most alarming sign of all. In the span of a week, the city has seen two fatal shootings involving federal agents: the killing of Renee Nicole Good, a 37‑year‑old Minneapolis mother, and, it was followed by the shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant man during an ICE‑linked enforcement action in North Minneapolis.
Witnesses reported agents chasing the man through a street before shots were fired. Community members gathered within minutes, demanding answers and accountability. As always, official Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statement only said the officer “felt threatened by a broom and a snow shovel”.
These incidents unfolded against the backdrop of intensifying and terrifying ICE intimidations, where hundreds of protests have been held all over the Twin Cities area, always peaceful. On January 14, the demonstration escalated after federal agents deployed tear gas and flash‑bangs; protesters responded with fireworks. Minnesota State Patrol and DNR officers made multiple arrests.
Minneapolis has been here before, but something about this moment feels different.
The scale of the federal presence is unprecedented. According to DHS, roughly 3,000 federal agents — ICE, Border Patrol, tactical units — are currently deployed across Minnesota. Minneapolis, by comparison, has about 600 police officers.
The imbalance is not symbolic. It is structural. And the federal government’s handling of the investigation has only deepened mistrust.
The FBI has taken exclusive control of the case, blocking the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from reviewing evidence. Governor Tim Walz has publicly questioned whether a fair outcome is even possible under these conditions.
The United States is not India. But events in Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles today look disturbingly like India a decade ago: a democracy beginning to normalize unaccountable force, centralized authority, and the framing of dissent as disorder.
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests, the farmers’ movement, and the crackdown on student dissenters like those at Jawaharlal Nehru University reveal a similar trajectory. Peaceful protests are met with police brutality, internet shutdowns, and sweeping arrests under draconian laws like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
The State’s message is clear: dissent equals sedition.
In both countries, large swaths of the population have come to accept—if not endorse—the silencing of dissent in the name of security, nationalism, or economic progress.
In both countries, the legal system is being used not to protect rights but to suppress them. In the US, protesters are often charged with vague offenses like “unlawful assembly” or “resisting arrest,” while in India, the use of colonial-era sedition laws and anti-terror statutes against journalists and activists has become routine. The law, once a shield for the people, is now a sword wielded by the state.
The parallels to Minneapolis, and other democratic party governed states, are not rhetorical. They are procedural. ICE raids have intensified in immigrant neighborhoods, and now two residents — one American, one Venezuelan — are dead.
In India, bulldozers have flattened Muslim‑owned shops and homes under the guise of “illegal construction,” often without notice or due process. In Minneapolis and elsewhere, digital surveillance has been used to track protesters. In India, new digital regulations give the government sweeping power to demand content removal and trace users.
Then there’s the media. Here, Right-wing outlets often frame protesters as anarchists or criminals, while in India, government-aligned media brands dissenters as anti-nationals or foreign agents. This narrative manipulation delegitimizes protest and primes the public to accept state violence as necessary or even patriotic.
The fourth estate, once a watchdog, has in many cases become a lapdog.
What’s perhaps most alarming is the normalization of this repression. In both countries, large swaths of the population have come to accept—if not endorse—the silencing of dissent in the name of security, nationalism, or economic progress. The democratic fabric is being unraveled not just by those in power, but by the apathy or complicity of the governed.
It behoves the Indian American diaspora to start looking inwards. Many Indian Americans, particularly those who have embraced Narendra Modi’s divisive policies, as well as their ‘model minority’ identity here, have shown a striking indifference toward the daily humiliations faced by Muslims in India. The bulldozed homes, the arbitrary detentions, the constant demand to prove loyalty — these realities have been easy to dismiss from the safety of American suburbia. But the past week in Minneapolis has disrupted that distance.
Kuhu Singh is a writer with interest in social justice, cultural and political matters, in the U.S., India, and beyond.
Courtesy American Kahani