Students go Jekyll and hide online to pass visa scrutiny
As the admin of a spoof Instagram account, Sameer posted memes mocking then-presidential candidate Donald Trump's immigration policies and voiced support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Now, in 2025, the same student is preparing to move to the West Coast for his master's degree and is staring down the US State Department's advisory to disclose all social media handles used over the past five years. To ensure a clean slate, he turned to a "digital undertaker" - a professional who sanitises online presence, effectively scrubbing away years of potentially problematic posts. Sameer is not alone. Indian students seeking to study in the US are walking a fine line between digital expression and caution, say experts. Dreams at Risk They are finding ways to game the system—curating public profiles while offloading their real thoughts to 'spam' or pseudonymous accounts, using encrypted apps and niche platforms.
'Students applying for F, M or J visas have been creating alternative social media accounts for some time,' said Manisha Zaveri, joint managing director of Career Mosaic. 'It allows students to maintain a curated, public-facing profile for visa scrutiny while preserving a private space for personal expression.' Zaveri said these dual identities are not new, but the motivations have evolved. What once began as a teenage desire for anonymity now serves a more strategic purpose, say experts.Nikhil Jain, founder of ForeignAdmits, noted a sharp rise in digital self-monitoring since the Israel-Gaza conflict flared up in 2023.'Some students have deleted their LinkedIn accounts altogether. Others have erased pro-Palestine posts after realising that their study-abroad dreams might be at risk,' he said.Jain has built AI tools to pre-screen social media profiles for potential red flags, and consultations now routinely include deep dives into students' digital pasts.But he warns against abrupt deletions. Given the possibility of embassies serving notices to social media platforms to provide additional access to certain suspect profiles on the pretext of national security, he said, 'Visa counsellors have advised students not to delete posts abruptly, warning that sudden changes could also raise red flags.'Students are now in a Catch-22 situation. Jain adds 'Your online persona now carries legal weight. It is not just about filtering out hate speech or extremist views. It is about every casual political opinion, every meme, every reposted reel from your student days.'Vibha Kagzi, founder of ReachIvy.com, advises students to steer clear of certain topics: 'Consular officers will look for posts, comments, or associations that indicate hostility towards the US, connections with banned groups, or hateful commentary.'For Sachin Jain, country manager India and South Asia, ETS India, this digital duality is less a red flag and more a sign of sophistication.'Students are learning to treat online identity as an extension of their application. They are segmenting communication, with one profile for university interactions and another reserved for peer networks,' he said.The shift, he argues, is part of a broadening of digital literacy, where students are segmenting their audiences just as professionals do.Others are simply relocating their online personas to alternative platforms that offer anonymity and privacy.In addition to platforms like Telegram and Discord, nowadays 'students are increasingly using Reddit to express themselves openly as it doesn't reveal their original identity,' said Aditya Shanker Raghuwanshi, founder of Masterclass Space.Private communication over Snapchat has also become an alternative due to its built-in privacy features and focus on ephemeral content, he added.
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‘The Nehru Years': The lasting legacy of non-alignment pioneered by India's first Prime Minister
If one were to examine the role that India played in helping de-escalate the major conflicts across the globe that have flared up over the last few years – the Russia-Ukraine war, the genocide in Gaza, the Iran-Israel skirmish – one would be hard-pressed to find any sort of a meaningful contribution on our part. In recent times, New Delhi's foreign policy has come under criticism for swinging confusingly towards the Western camp and its sworn commitment of backing India's rise as a counterweight against China, or rushing under the carapace of the regional groupings like SCO or BRICS that promote the idea of a multi-polar world order. Except for the generic counsels loaded with boilerplate statements, India's largely non-interventionist approach – in quest for an amorphous idea of 'strategic autonomy' – has turned the country into a spectator that merely watches from the sidelines, rather than an actor who is manoeuvring proactively to shape some of the consequential changes around us. An architecture of diplomacy But that was not always the case. The Nehru Years: An International History of Indian Non-Alignment, by scholar Swapna Kona Nayudu, illuminates the lasting legacy of non-alignment that India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, pioneered during his time. Meticulously deconstructing the manner in which India built an architecture of diplomacy that kept it aloof from the the two hostile blocs – the US and USSR, the book offers a fascinating insight into the proactive role that India under Nehru played in helping resolve the hot conflicts of the 1950s and early 60s – Korean war, Hungarian revolution, Suez Canal standoff and Congolese secessionism. This highly interventionist role, yet conscious of its commitment to the principles of non-alignment, is what catapulted India into the position of a responsible member in the comity of nations in ways that's hardly registered today. This makes Nayudu's work highly relevant, not least for the young readers in the country today, who ought to recognise how things have changed for India in the foreign policy arena. As Nayudu explains, one of the first such successes was witnessed during the Korean War which began after Japan's defeat in the Second World War, leading the US and USSR to take their respective spheres of control of the Korean peninsula, demarcated at a site called 38th Parallel. Brought to the doors of the UN, the Korean dispute turned into a site where India's instinct for mediatory diplomacy would be burnished. As head of the UN Commission for Korea, India brought the UN institutions to reflect its own non-aligned policy. As Nayudu writes, it was the Indian proposals – although they were unsuccessful – which bought precious time in which American war cries during the tense standoff subsided. 'By historicising the nation state outside of its national boundaries, Nehru made possible a move from a securitised discourse of nationalism to a politicised discourse on internationalism,' she adds. Although critical of the US, the coherence of the Indian discourse oriented along the non-alignment philosophy dawned upon the Americans the realisation that 'India is not neutral in the sense that it is indifferent to Communism.' The Suez Canal crisis marked the first occasion when India moved away from its earlier position of non-alignment to one that backed diplomacy and UN support for the deployment of troops. In fact, it was the first time ever India had flown its troops to be deployed elsewhere. The conflict started after Egypt, under its popular Arab leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalised the Suez Canal, an important maritime corridor for European goods, provoking the anger of the British and French governments, who jumped into a confrontation with Cairo. To calm matters, US President Dwight Eisenhower suggested a conference, which Egypt refused to attend initially but later acquiesced upon India's request. Nehru wrote to the British PM Anthony Eden, cautioning against the use of force against Egypt, and stoutly defended Egyptian sovereignty. Initially, India was hesitant about the involvement of the UN (the reasons being India's own 'bitter' experience with the global body in relation to Kashmir), but later as Western powers press their own plans, especially the decision to create Suez Canal Users Association, which Egypt saw an being a 'unilateral move', Nehru recommended that Egypt solicit the UN aid, not least because the English and French, too, had gone to the UN with a complaint. Citing India's efforts to work on a settlement, Yugoslavia brought an adjournment to the proceedings at the UNSC in 1956. This became proof of India's role in bringing about a stalemate even as the Western powers were eying to floor Egypt with a multi-front war. Just when Nehru thought he had things under control, Israel struck Egypt, mirroring the revanchist hysteria that's currently unfolding across the war-ravaged swathes of West Asia. But unlike today, India's response wasn't hedged with the language of 'both-sidesism'. Instead, it was characterised by a spirited condemnation of what it called 'a reversal of history.' India asked members of the Bandung Conference to denounce the Israeli aggression, put pressure to bear upon the UN to expedite its procedures concerning the conflict, and also turned to the US for support. Washington introduced a resolution at the UNSC towards that effect, which was vetoed by Britain and France. In his letter to Eden, Nehru expressed his dismay over his veto, arguing that the whole 'purpose of the UN is undermined if armed might is to decide issues between nations.' As Nayudu observes, this brought the UK Foreign Office around to the view that India's position was 'not unfriendly' per se. A second resolution introduced by the US at the General Assembly was successful, leading to Egypt agreeing to a ceasefire. With several adverse factors hovering in the backdrop, including a looming Russian threat, the British, too, announced the cessation of hostilities. The increasing correspondence between Nehru and Eisenhower during this time highlighted a prominent role played by India, the expression of which was the huge contribution that India made to the UN forces being deployed in Egypt to monitor and implement the ceasefire. The revolutions in Eastern Europe India's failure to align itself with Russia's position on the Suez Canal standoff went on to influence the country's further course of action during the Hungarian revolution. As Nayudu writes, the Soviet views about India during the time of Joseph Stalin were colored by bias. The USSR saw India as an imperial enclave riven with the dynasticism of the Nehru-Gandhi family. But that would change under Nikita Khrushchev's stewardship, who warmed up to New Delhi. This change was a consequence of India's determined commitment to non-aligned praxis even as other decolonised states were swinging into America's orbit. At the same time, the discourse of 'democratisation' would go on to trigger revolutionary impulses in countries under the USSR's sphere of influence, chiefly Hungary and Poland. The Soviet repression of these uprisings would trigger violent backlash, mapping onto the pre-existing fault lines of the Cold War rivalries, with the entire Western world backing the revolutionaries against the Soviets. This created problems for non-aligned nations such as India, which, although it made ceremonial condemnations of the Soviet-led crackdown, voted against Western resolutions at the UN that condemned the USSR. In November 1956, for example, India became the only non-communist country to abstain from the US-sponsored resolution condemning Soviet actions. It also voted against another resolution demanding UN-supervised elections to be held in Hungary. Explaining this decision in the Parliament, Nehru hinted at the dangers of allowing this precedent to take place in light of the raging conflict in Kashmir. Threading her narrative through these events, Nayudu also reveals fascinating details that provide additional context to Russia's own vetoes at the UNSC on Kashmir-related resolutions, which helped India skirt past the threat of UN mediation and consolidate its authority in J&K during the 1950s. The issue originated from the controversial execution of Imre Nagy, the leader of the Hungarian revolution, which Nehru denounced as 'a breach of international conventions.' Fearing loss of support, Russians were prompt to dispatch their envoy to India, who indulged in a 'gentle blackmail' to remind India of its Soviet vetoes on Kashmir. The intimidation seems to have worked as India abstained from the two anti-Soviet resolutions at the UN in December that year Nayudu, however, interprets India's non-condemnatory diplomacy as being driven by pragmatism. New Delhi's belief was that symbolic condemnations closed the door for negotiations and led to highly securitised responses. This helped calm tempers eventually, as India was successful in bringing Hungarians around to its viewpoint. 'Both superpowers took a conciliatory attitude towards India, embarrassed by their own actions or those of their allies,' Nayudu writes. The Congolese separatism Congo, which declared independence in 1990, became another site where India's non-aligned character was subject to a test. Congo soon became enmeshed in military coups and secessionist wars that reflected the larger Cold War hostilities of that time. India had a delicate tightrope to walk and negotiate a complex political situation riven by the competing Russian and American interests. It was the first time India was sending its troops, not merely to be stationed, but with a mandate of leading a military offensive. At the request of UN Chief Dag Hammarskjöld, Nehru dispatched Brig. Indar Jit Rikhye as the military adviser to the UN Mission in Congo, and Rajeshwar Dayal as Hammarskjöld's special representative. A coup led by Congolese general Mobutu Sese Seko made matters worse, with the USSR lambasting the UN for its inaction as the newly independent country got embroiled in cycles of war and bloodshed. Nayudu points out that India played a very active role in which it both resisted the Soviet troika plan – which entailed splintering the secretary general's office – as well as fought off American influence by bringing the UN Mission to denounce Mobutu's takeover of Congo. In this way India was able to burnish its non-aligned character while also reinforcing a position that was demonstrably non-partisan. Nayudu also offers rare details of how India's troops – accounting for a third of the UN military contingent – were crucial to ending the crises of secessionism in Congo. As Nayudu points out, 'apart from being written out of India's diplomatic history, the operation (in Congo) has also been neglected in writing India's military history.' In times when we have come to lose minds of 'laser-eyed' zingers delivered by the incumbent Foreign Minister when he is on his trips abroad, Nayudu's work acquires a vital character because it reminds us that a foreign policy may also ought to have been edged with more passion, and willingness towards (the right sort of) interventionism. Shakir Mir is a journalist and book critic based in Srinagar.
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