Sikh men listen during a vigil in honor of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an immigrant from India who was recently shot... Read More

WASHINGTON: Till recently, they were being celebrated as the best-educated, most enterprising, wealthiest immigrant community in the United States- an ethnic group with the highest percentage of college degree holders in the country, a startling success rate in Silicon Valley, and the highest median family income (over $ 100,000) of all groups, including white Americans.

A surreptitiously shot video in the US heartland by a disgruntled American worker showing a purported 'Indian takeover' in the Midwest suggests things are viewed very differently in what is considered Trumpland, the so-called rustbelt where President Trump's electoral performance is said have propelled him to the White House.

Titled ' Welcome to Columbus Ohio Suburbs -- Let's Take a Walk to Indian Park,' the video, posted in August 2016, predates the Trump election victory, but its appearance on an anti-immigration website has generated a sulfurous debate on the growing Indian presence in the US, including legal, work-related residency.

In the video, a 66-year-old computer programmer from Virginia named Steve Pushor walks through a park in Columbus, Ohio, secretly shooting a video overlaid with commentary that has spooked many Indians. ''The number of people from foreign countries blows my mind out here. You see this whole area is all Indian, amazing. It’s an amazing number of jobs have been taken away from Americans,'' Pushor narrates as the camera pans across a park with dozens of people who all seem Indian, including children playing on swings and slides and women watching over them in Indian salwars and sarees.

Although Pushor had claimed to BuzzFeed, which first reported the presence of the video, that he is merely highlighting the loss of American IT jobs, and he neither advocates violence nor does he want Indians currently living in the United States to leave the country, the tone of the video gradually gets more offensive and nativist.

"The Indian crowd has ravished the Midwest. It’s crazy," Pushor says at one point, calling the present of Indians 'crazy insanity' and wondering "Where does all this money come from?"

He calls it a 'takeover' while maintaining "I’m not saying it is good or bad." As the camera zooms into an American flag fluttering in the park, he suggests it should be changed, because "It is not the America we know."

The Indians, he complains, are not assimilating into America; yet, at another point, he says they are now playing volleyball where they used to play cricket.

The video has now gone viral on various social media platforms, generating a furious discussion, including expressions of concern from Indians about someone stalking their families at a time of increased hate crimes against immigrants, particularly in the light of the shooting of an Indian engineer in Kansas and a Sikh-American in Washington state.

On Youtube itself, where the video was first posted, many Indians have responded angrily to the suggestion that they are stealing Americans of jobs or are a burden on the United States, relating how they have actually helped the American economy.

"Here's an idea for you: instead of making racist and bigoted videos and websites that is guaranteed to produce zero results, go do some community service. Go work with underprivileged kids, educate them on the wisdom of staying in school, do fund raising for schools. Guide them into STEM fields. Improve the representation of girls in these fields. If a hundred of you whiners get together and work to improve the pipeline of available talent locally, you can make a real difference say ten years down the road," advises one viewer.

"Einstein was an immigrant, Charlie Chaplin was an immigrant, Nickola Tesla was an immigrant, many colored skin people who you brought as slaves were immigrants and so was many great renowned Americanized technically skilled people. Send away all the Indians…you won't even compete to the Syria, the country you bombed for your own benefits," writes another.

The video comes at a time when many alt-right extremists have made their way into the Trump administration. Trump’s own strategic advisor Steve Bannon is reported to be an unabashed fan of a racist trope called Camp of the Saints by an obscure French author, Jean Raspail.

The book’s theme is centered around immigrants from the developing world, led by Indians, overrunning the white western world, taking away not just their jobs but also their women and their way of life.

The novel is replete with offensive scatological and carnal description of Indians and 'their way of life,' including their purported proclivity for open-air defecation and ceaseless copulation.

