Six Democratic House members, including Pramila Jayapal and Ilhan Omar, have sent a written request to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging him to raise with Indian officials the question of whether security forces used excessive force against student protesters in Delhi and other parts of the country.
The six lawmakers — Jayapal, Omar, McGovern, Tlaib, Holmes Norton, and Garcia — also put forward allegations that India's embassy in Washington, D.C., along with consulates operating in other U.S. cities, had positioned photographers to monitor individuals taking part in rallies held in support of a named opposition party. The opposition party referred to in the source material has not been independently verified by name, and the label used in that material contains derogatory language that does not reflect any recognised political party's official title.
The letter was sent ahead of Rubio's scheduled visit to India and planned talks with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in Mumbai. In it, the lawmakers raised concerns about what they described as a pattern of detention, disproportionate force, and suppression directed at student demonstrators in Delhi and elsewhere across the country.
The letter pointed to two episodes — protests by members of the party directed at Dharmendra Pradhan during his tenure as education minister, and ongoing rallies calling for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to step down — as instances where, in the lawmakers' view, authorities deployed disproportionate force against those demonstrating.
India's envoy to Washington, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, had previously characterised remarks by Jayapal as an unacceptable intrusion into matters the country considers its own. A group of lawmakers, in a joint statement, argued that the free exercise of fundamental freedoms and the right to vote lie at the heart of both nations' democratic identities, and called on Rubio to bring those shared concerns to the table during the trip.
Bhutoria, who holds a leadership post within the Democratic Party and previously served as a White House adviser under former President Joe Biden, released the letter publicly, contending in it that India operates its own judicial system, maintains a free press, and counts more than 900 million registered voters. Posting on X, Bhutoria also argued that domestic issues within the United States deserved attention first.
Some lawmakers have argued that pressing India on its domestic policies risks straining a strategically important bilateral relationship.
A separate group of congressional members called on Rubio to press the Indian government to conduct thorough, transparent, and independent inquiries into alleged human rights violations tied to the law enforcement response to the protests. That group further urged Rubio to push for the release of anyone held in violation of Indian and international law while peacefully exercising rights to free expression or public assembly.
Rubio also received a formal request from the lawmakers to look into accounts of Indian diplomatic posts allegedly monitoring and pressuring protesters on American soil. The call directed at the U.S. government centred on whether a sustained pattern of intimidation or harassment targeting people on American soil could be attributed to India — conduct that, if established, would render the country ineligible to receive weapons transfers under the Arms Export Control Act.
