New Delhi: India has rebuked US Vice President J.D. Vance for describing foreign professionals as “indentured servants” while announcing suspension the suspension of IT firms from the green card (PERM) programme, with the Ministry of External Affairs saying that the terminology carrying “painful historical and colonial legacy connotations” is “deeply offensive”.The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) issued its unusually sharp response on Friday (October 9), a day after the US Department of Labour announced that it would suspend Microsoft, Adobe and six major IT services companies, including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies, from filing new applications under the Permanent Labour Certification (PERM) programme.The suspension, which also covers Cognizant and Capgemini, applies to new and pending applications involving the named companies. It does not invalidate existing H-1B visas, but could obstruct a route to permanent residency for eligible foreign employees sponsored by their employers.The announcement came during a press conference in Washington on Thursday at which Vance, Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling and other senior Trump administration officials accused companies of exploiting immigration programmes to replace American workers with foreign employees.Referring to the requirement that employers advertise jobs in the US before seeking labour certification for a foreign worker, Vance alleged that companies could place advertisements in small-town newspapers, claim that no suitable American candidates had responded and then hire foreign workers instead.“They’ll go out there and say that ‘we have advertised for a position with our company, and nobody is responding to it’,” he said. “And they will use that lack of response to then go and replace American workers with what is effectively foreign indentured servants.”Vance repeated the term multiple times in the press conference, claiming that Microsoft had replaced laid-off American employees with “indentured servants from outside the country”.Taking umbrage at “comments in this context by the US Vice President”, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) called the characterisation “unwarranted” and emphasised that it “ignores the fact that Indian professionals in the United States are highly educated and skilled contributors to its economy and innovation ecosystem”.Offering a reminder, the MEA said that the “history of the United States itself has been shaped by generations of immigrants whose labour, enterprise and innovation have contributed to its growth and prosperity”.Without repeating the phrase “indentured servants”, the MEA asserted, “Resorting to terminology that carries painful historical and colonial legacy connotations is deeply offensive”.The phrase “indentured servants” holds historical weight as it recalls the 19th- and early 20th-century British colonial system under which over one million Indian labourers were transported to plantations across the globe.The US vice president had been the highest-ranking Trump administration official to visit India. He, along with his young family, had even been personally hosted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his official residence.Vance alleged that Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards, which he interpreted as one and a half “foreign indentured servants” per laid-off worker.Microsoft said that of the roughly 6,000 H-1B applications it filed in the last fiscal year, 80% were to extend or change the status of existing employees. The rest were for people already legally in the US, equal to one per cent of its US workforce. It also asserted that it paid H-1B employees the same as others doing comparable work.Hours after the press conference, President Donald Trump honoured Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who is Indian-born and once held an H-1B visa, at a ceremony for technology leaders.Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella arrives at the US Institute of Peace, October 8, 2026, in Washington. Photo: AP/Jacquelyn MartinBefore MEA issued the statement in the afternoon, a spokesperson of India’s main opposition party Congress had claimed that it was a failure of Indian government’s “appeasement” policy.“That appeasement of bullies never pays is once again proven by the US govt’s actions yesterday targeted directly against Indian IT professionals. This has come shortly after the Modi govt went out of its way to please President Trump by imposing UPI MDR charges that will clearly and directly benefit American companies,” Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X on Friday (October 9) morning.He urged India to “retaliate under laws already passed by Parliament like the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and its Rules”.“But a thoroughly compromised PM now under siege on GyaneshGate will not do so,” added Ramesh.The latest MEA statement is likely one of the stronger responses from the Indian side since the Trump administration began its second term.In August 2025, the MEA called steep US import tariff as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”, but the latest statement stands out for responding directly to the Vance’s remarks and invoking colonial history.In its response to the latest Department of Labour’s decision about the Permanent Labour Certification (PERM) programme, India first said that the green card programme was not the same as the H-1B visa programme.The MEA also implied that the PERM programme suspension will not have a substantial impact on Indian workers.“The suspension of PERM applications does not, by itself, affect the validity of existing H-1B visas or the status of H-1B visa holders and their dependents, though there could be some impact on the permanent-residency/green card process of eligible employees of the affected companies,” it said.But then it asserted that the talent mobility added value to both economies. “While it creates opportunities for Indians, it equally helps US companies with cutting-edge talent, innovation, research, productivity, competitiveness and job creation, besides creating shareholder wealth in the US.”Stating that it hoped that “all stakeholders” could “appreciate the fact” of mutual benefit, MEA criticised the measure. “The steps announced by the US do not advance the shared ambitions of both countries”.“We continue to follow developments around this issue,” it concluded.The latest action lands on a relationship that was already fraying. While Modi was among the first foreign leaders to visit Trump after his return to office, India has been a target for a series of US administration’s measures ranging from a 50% import tariff to restrictions on H1B workers.In Sep 2025, the US administration imposed, by presidential proclamation, a one-time fee of $100,000 on new H-1B petitions.At that time, MEA had said that the steps will be assessed “taking into account mutual benefits, which include strong people-to-people ties between the two countries”. It also warned the measure was likely to have “humanitarian consequences” through disruption for families, and said it hoped the US could address them.These fees were subsequently struck down by federal courts this year, but the administration has since proposed a $103,265 fee, which is not yet finalised.A new US law which enabled tariffs of up to 100% on buyers of Russian oil has added another friction point in the relationship. So far, India has not taken any retaliatory steps for any of the tariff measures.A US–India trade deal that officials once expected within months is still unsigned. Recently, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer says a deal is “not imminent”, and on Monday Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said talks had reached a “plateau”.There has also been a perception that has been India slipping down Washington’s list of priorities under the Trump administration. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit in May this year was meant to stabilise ties, with Quad ministerial meeting in the sidelines, but the slide continues.The Quad leaders, who last met in September 2024, have yet to hold their annual gathering.In June, the Pentagon dropped “Indo” from the name of Indo-Pacific Command, reverting to Pacific Command.Pakistan, meanwhile, has gained diplomatic prominence, hosted the first direct US–Iran talks in decades in April. Trump became the first US president to host Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir at the White House in April, just a few weeks after the end of clashes with India which Trump keeps claiming credit for halting.Nasscom, the Indian IT industry body, posted that the US labour department’s decision “affects a specific immigration pathway”, but that it has “consistently maintained that immigration and skilled talent mobility are two distinct issues and should not be viewed through the same lens”.The H-1B programme, it said, “has historically played an important role in addressing short-term skill gaps in the US” and will continue to do so.Indian technology companies, it added, have “significantly reduced their dependence on H-1B visas, while steadily expanding local hiring and building a strong domestic workforce in the US”, so the number moving from H-1B to permanent residency through PERM “is also relatively limited”.Nasscom said it was “confident” that Indian firms, which operate in more than 80 countries, “will continue to adhere to applicable regulations in the US as well”.TCS, in a filing to the stock exchanges on Friday, said it “will comply with any directive from the department of labour”. Its US workforce strategy, it said, “is anchored in hiring local talent, supported by a robust campus recruitment model”, with a “significant local workforce across 31 offices and delivery centres”, and it intends to hire “an additional 15,000 people in the US over the next five years”.Its PERM applications “were in single digits in the last two years”, TCS said, so it does not “expect the suspension of the programme to impact our workforce strategy and customer engagements”.