High praise for the hardworking, zealous, caring foreign minister of India.
‘Supermom of State’: that’s the coinage for India’s foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, as per the daily The Washington Post.
“Since she took on the job two years ago, Sushma Swaraj, 64, has carved out an unlikely role for herself as a crusading Supermom of State, solving the problems of distressed Indians around the world who send her their concerns via Twitter,” said the Post piece, written by Rama Lakshmi.
Detailing the numerous prompt responses by Swaraj, the Post noted that this month itself Swaraj “has saved thousands of stranded Indian workers in Saudi Arabia — and helped a woman replace her lost passport so she could go on her honeymoon.”
Swaraj has undoubtedly been one of the most remarkable and praiseworthy ministers in prime minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, who has shown a zeal and purpose for her job like perhaps no other like her in the past. She has also used social media, especially Twitter, to terrific use, by responding to people’s requests and to create awareness of crucial issues.
The Post commented: “Working late into the night at home, Swaraj tweets back, calling them “my child” and assuring them that help is on the way — whether they are trapped in conflict zones, experiencing visa problems or need to replace lost passports.”
BuzzFeed praised Swaraj as “the most badass foreign minister on the Internet.”
Her “personal interventions on social media are really an extension of her personality — empathetic and caring to those in distress, wherever they may be,” said Vikas Swarup, the Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Swaraj has more than 5.5 million Twitter followers, making her one of the most-followed foreign ministers in the world. Keeping pace with her activism, the ministry has also created 165 Twitter accounts for Indian embassies and consulates. But as her reputation as a savior soars, more people are tweeting her directly, bypassing the local embassies.
When a person tweeted an image of laid-off Indian workers who had not eaten for three days, Swaraj responded: “I assure you that no Indian workers rendered unemployed in Saudi Arabia will go without food. I am monitoring this on hourly basis.”
She got eight days of food delivered to the workers and sent officials from her ministry to Saudi Arabia to negotiate with the government to help the workers get the pay they were owed.
Not all of her missions are grave. Last Monday, Faizan Patel tweeted to Swaraj saying he was alone on his honeymoon because his wife lost her passport. He posted a photograph of himself sitting next to an empty seat on a train in Europe.
Swaraj was ready to step in and save the day for the lovebirds.
“Ask your wife to contact me,” she said in a tweet. “I will ensure that she is with you on the next seat.” Patel’s wife got a new passport the next day, reported the Post.
“Until [Swaraj] came, the Foreign Ministry used to be an elite place for experts and analysts,” said Vijay Chauthaiwale, who heads the foreign affairs department in the governing Bharatiya Janata Party. “But she has made the lives of ordinary Indians abroad part of the ministry’s mission.”
Swaraj has helped Indian workers get home from Yemen, South Sudan, Syria, Iraq and Ukraine. When a man tweeted her that his sister, a flight attendant, was being held in Saudi Arabia by traffickers, Swaraj worked with the local police there to rescue her. She also brought a 23-year-old Indian woman with a hearing and speech disability back from Pakistan, which she accidentally entered more than a decade ago.
In June, Swaraj’s office brought a 12-year-old boy named Sonu back from a shelter in Bangladesh, six years after he was kidnapped from New Delhi.
But there are some things even the Supermom of State cannot do, reported the Post.
In June, someone complained to her on Twitter that a company had sold him a defective refrigerator.
She replied: “Brother I cannot help you in matters of a refrigerator. I am very busy with human beings in distress.”