Money in Politics: Indians in USA and check book diplomacy

U.S. Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), Seattle, Washington. expressed concern about the direction of India Caucus

There is a flip side to lobbying, as it could degenerate into check-book diplomacy or Indian community members being seen as agents of the government at home.

The community sometimes risked being manipulated for political ends. The increasing numbers in the Caucus was seen in some quarters as a profitable business for the legislators because of the financial clout of the community.
This concern was expressed once by none other than a Caucus chairman himself. In 2001, Jim McDermott, the Democratic co-chairman of the India Caucus said that the Indian community was being taken for granted by many lawmakers, particularly those who claim to be members of the Caucus. Many Congressmen were interested to “beef up their own campaign coffers,” according to McDermott.

Though India Caucus is one of the largest of its kind, only a fraction of its members were committed to helping the community or making a tangible contribution to improving Indo-US relations, he said. As a case in point, he highlighted the number of times he and another founder member Robert Menendez tried to win congressional appropriation of USD 120 million for earthquake relief in Gujarat in 2001. It was not moved any further, because of lack of support.

Indians in the USA still have a lot to learn from Jewish American lobby and Cuban diaspora who monitor their contributions so they can call back for favors.

Much remains to be achieved in enabling better US-India relations, and the Caucus has an important role to play. In 1998, Gary Ackerman, the then Democrat Co-Chairman, said, “I envision we will have task forces devoted to immigration, international trade, US Economic Sanctions on India, international terrorism and other issues of concern to the Indian American community and of importance to the Indo-US relations.”

Perhaps this could be a point of reference to the future of the India Caucus. So far, the Caucus is loosely structured and works on an informal basis. But it needs to be more formally structured so that it can start to definitively influence policy decisions.

Criticism of Indian lobbying in USA

President George W. Bush and India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on March 2, 2006 in New Delhi.

Media reports said that  around 1997-98, the Caucus “was content to just bandy its growing numbers and send out press releases about what it was doing to promote US-India relations, but hardly doing anything substantive or tangible with regard to the growth of US-India relations, and more importantly to help address the Indian-American community’s issues and concerns, but taking them for granted.”

Failure to get the support of 100 Congressmen to enact a resolution on honouring Dalip Singh Saund, the first Indian origin Congressman in 2003 is a case in point. At that time the India Caucus had 163 members, but only 33 signed in favor of the resolution.

Many Congressional staffers felt the Indian community needed to be more proactive and encourage their representatives to address domestic issues, by identifying an issue or role for the Caucus and then asking their Member of Congress as to what they were doing on the issue. In those days, it was found that there were only three times that the average community member wrote a letter to their member of Congress: asking them to join the Caucus, asking them to defeat the Burton bill and asking them attend a reception in Washington or other community event.

The main difficulty was the lack of consensus on domestic issues, given the fact that the Caucus is bipartisan and often tried to find issues that Republicans and Democrats agree on.  The ability of the community to influence the Caucus’ agenda is limited due to the fact that the Indian American community was not a significant voting constituency.

Some Congressional observers expressed concern that the Caucus was being used as a fund-raising vehicle for its members and that the Indian-American community was being exploited. Though community groups like Asian-American Hotel Owners Association, The Indus Entrepreneurs and the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin were active in identifying legislative agendas at the national level, and several other groups were active at the local level, for the most part the community was ineffective in the legislative arena.

There were very few Caucus-organized meetings. Several Congressional staffers were surprised that the Caucus had not circulated news articles, reports or other information about events such as the Kargil conflict, the coup in Pakistan or the hijacking of an Indian Airlines Plane by Pakistan-supported militants.

Several task forces including those dealing with Kashmir terrorism, sanctions and health care, held briefings or led letter writing campaigns. But many Congressional staffers remained unaware of the ‘existence’ of these task forces, according to media reports at the time.

Though lobbying is important in international politics, there are many grey areas to this practice. There are times in which the Indian community felt it was being taken for granted though it did not necessarily agree with the policies of governments at home.

At least some of the American politicians were motivated by the financial prospects of lobbying for the community than the genuine interest to see bilateral relations improve.

Aggressive legislative activism may have been detrimental at times in fostering better relations between India and Pakistan. In February 12, 2001, Republican Co-Chairman of the Caucus Edward Royce drew displeasure from the Indian community for having decided to visit Pakistan as part of a 10-day tour of a US Congressional team. Following immense pressure from the Indian American groups, the visit was cancelled.

Such adamant politics, as exhibited by the Indian American community, had the potential to harm relations between India and Pakistan and their expatriate communities.

Pakistan Lobby in USA

US President George W. Bush and his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf in a joint media appearance on September 22, 2006 at the White House.

During tensions in the region stemming from the nuclear tests and the Kargil war that followed, US politicians were deluded with correspondence from Indian Americans, a good percentage from the financially influential corners of the Silicon Valley.

Indian Americans did all they could to convince the US administration of the rationale behind India’s going nuclear and it is argued, though less vigorously, that they played a role in the Bill Clinton – Nawaz Sharif meeting that contributed to the end of Kargil conflict in 1999.

In any case, the nuclear tests gave more visibility to the South Asian community and the Indo-Pak tension became an issue in public debates. As a matter of fact, just two years into the region going nuclear, Clinton visited India, the first such by a US President since 1978.
Compared with Indian efforts, Pakistanis, despite their country being a traditional ally of the US, had little achievement in lobbying the Congress. One example is what happened to the Brown Amendment, which was introduced to restart American military aid to Pakistan, primarily the 28 F-16 military aircraft which Pakistan had already paid for. The delivery of the aircraft was inordinately delayed.

The inclusion of Pakistan in President Clinton’s 2000 South Asia tour, for which Pakistanis in the US had lobbied hard, ended up as a televised “tough love” address to the leadership, in which the US President asked them to “well-behave.”

However, it should not be ignored that the Pakistani lobby has considerable number of supporters and well-wishers in the US Senate, while Indian efforts were largely confined to the House of Representatives, at least until 2004.

A good example is the Brownback amendment of November 2000, which succeeded in continued assistance to Pakistan despite it having a non-democratic regime at the time.

To consolidate their efforts on the lines of the Indian community, the Pakistan American Democratic Forum launched a nationwide campaign in the US in 2002 to establish a Congressional Caucus on Pakistan. It took almost two years for such efforts to bear fruit. Finally, The Congressional Pakistan Caucus was founded in 2004. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf inaugurated it on September 22, 2004 during his visit to USA. Started with 48 members, the Pakistani Caucus boasted of 55 members by January 2005. It is co-chaired by Dan Burton and Sheila Jackson Lee. Pakistan American Liaison Centre is one of the lobby organisations strongly working behind the Pakistani caucus.

Indian Americans in India-Pakistan relations

Pakistan’s former president Pervez Musharraf

The period from 1998 has been one of upheavals in the regional political situation in South Asia.

The tit-for-tat nuclear tests were followed the Lahore peace initiative by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

But the Kargil incursion and the military coup that followed in Pakistan dashed the hopes of peace. Pervez Musharraf, the man known as the architect of Kargil war, became the President of Pakistan. Diplomatic ties soon went to low ebb.

While tensions continued till 2001, despite failed attempts at peace like the Agra Summit, the 9/11 terror attacks on the US further altered the regional strategic equations.

Pakistan, which harboured terrorists and gave support to cross-border infiltration in Kashmir, became an overnight frontline ally of US in its war on terrorism.

Despite India’s attempts to be equally cooperative with US in the war efforts in Afghanistan, Pervez Musharraf managed to be the most important partner of the US in the region.

Pakistan’s geo-strategic position was not something India could match in the war against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime.

However, the US realization about the dangers of terrorism benefited India in a different way because Washington soon began to condemn terrorism in all its forms.

Though all sides deny a ‘third party’ involvement, the US was instrumental in defusing the tensions stemming from military build-up after the December 13, 2001 attacks on Indian Parliament by Pakistan-supported terrorists.

During the stand-off, the global focus shifted to South Asia and there were unprecedented, frequent visits to the region by the US Administration officials.

The tensions, significantly, were followed by Vajpayee’s offer of the ‘hand of peace’ and the subsequent civilian and government-level interactions and exchanges.

By 2003, the Composite Dialogue Process started between the two countries and there was considerable decrease in the cross-border infiltration from Pakistan. What could take for other rivals some decades to solve, India and Pakistan seemed poised to solve in five years at that time.

One wonders if these overwhelming, epochal events in such short span of time, moving from extreme confrontation to active peace process, was possible without the watchful eyes of the US.

Notably, such major political trends in the region had a ‘mirroring effect’ on the Indian diaspora.

The diaspora was active in campaigning against Pakistan in the US during the height of crises. But when the rapprochement started, the immigrant organisations ‘mirrored’ it so much so that the Indians and Pakistanis in US held Independence Day marches together. But the bonhomie was soon over with the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in 2008.

India and USA: From estrangement to engagement

President George W. Bush welcomes Prime Minister Vajpayee of India to the Oval Office on November 9, 2001

The relative eagerness of US legislators in promoting the cause of Indian Americans stems partly from the fact that India and US had converging economic, political and security interests by the first decade of 21st century.

In recent years, American companies explored India as a great market for their products and services. They saw great potential in US-India trade.

India was one of the fastest growing emerging markets in the world, one that presented opportunities for the export of US goods and services, especially in the infrastructure field.

Numerous American companies played an important role in India’s booming high technology sector. On the sidelines of Vajpayee’s US visit in 2000, the US export-import Bank announced an agreement with India to insure nearly USD 1 billion in US exports to India.

The US and India began cooperation in fighting terrorist threats by forming a counter-terrorism Joint Working Group in November 1999. Both governments began working together to coordinate counter-terrorism strategies.

The common bond of democracy and the rule of law enhanced this cooperation.

Both the American and Indian Navies conducted joint military exercises in the Indian Ocean, the special forces of both armies conducted military exercises in Alaska, and paratroopers from the American and Indian armies conducted exercises in India.

Indian Americans in India-USA Relations

Former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee

In the years following the formation of the India Caucus, Indo-US relations entered the period now often referred to as time of “transformation” and “engagement” as opposed to the early period of “estrangement”. Indian Americans were actively involved in realising the potential of better ties between the world’s largest democracy and its oldest, converging their interests in a variety of areas. Though the Indian nuclear tests left the US Administration with a sense of shock and even betrayal, the years that followed witnessed a rapid progress in ties, only to be re-emphasised after the Republican Administration of George W Bush took over in Washington. After the Pokhran nuclear tests by India and the ‘tit-for-tat’ Chaghai tests by Pakistan, US slowly reconciled itself to the reality of two nuclear-weapon states living within striking distance of each other in the South Asian Subcontinent. President Clinton decided to waive some of the sanctions as early as November 6th, 1998. After he took over, President Bush on September 22, 2001, issued a waiver to the application of the Glenn Amendment to India that applied to dual use items controlled for nuclear and missile reasons. The list of Entities that had come under sanctions was subsequently pruned.
Indian Americans sought to nurture this new era of engagement. They worked hard behind the scenes for finalizing the visit of President Bill Clinton to India, as also the return visit of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to the US. The community and India Caucus were active in giving Vajpayee the rare honour of addressing both houses of the US Congress.
Since the 1998 nuclear tests, Indian Americans have had a history of relative success in the US Congress, having gone through significant political mobilizations within the community, cutting across divisions that would have probably separated them at home. The period saw consolidation of India’s economic reforms and better prospects of foreign direct investment. Changing strategic equations in the region, in which India was seen as an emerging power that could keep stability in the South Asian region and help Washington contain the influence of China, also contributed to the new-found friendship between the two nations.
Indian American lobbying was so powerful that immediately after Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage returned from a visit to India to brief New Delhi on President George W Bush’s proposed national missile defence system in 2001, he briefed the India Caucus. He also said the administration was committed to lifting economic sanctions imposed on India after the nuclear tests. Robert Blackwill, the US Ambassador to India, met Caucus members before he left for New Delhi to discuss his agenda, and pledged to further improve the India-US relationship.
During his India visit, Clinton said there was no other country outside India that the Indians had enriched so much as the US. Acknowledging the lobbying power of Indians, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and other cabinet ministers and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi visited members of the community and the Caucus during their travels to the US. In their speeches, they thanked India Caucus for their efforts in creating better atmosphere for cordial relations between the two countries. Congressmen Gary Ackerman and Frank Pallone were awarded the prestigious Padma Bhushan, India’s third largest civilian honor.

US Congressmen defend India

The greatest contribution of the India Caucus was in activities other than pushing legislations. The members of the caucus were active in making remarks in the House floor to draw attention to issues of interest to India. They include events such as the military coup in Pakistan, the nuclear tests, cross-border terrorism and democracy. In their remarks, the Congressmen periodically argued the need for better India-US ties. The Caucus members called for Pakistan being named as a terrorist state  and repealing the sanctions against India. In 1999, Frank Pallone and Gary Ackerman justified India’s Agni II missile tests on the House Floor, citing the Chinese threat to India’s security.
Another area of activism was letters and correspondence to the Congressional colleagues as well as the Executive, including the President himself. The India Caucus periodically wrote to fellow Congressmen regarding issues of concern to India, which are known as “Dear Colleague letters”. An example is the correspondence after post-9/11 hate crimes. Indians, especially Sikhs faced many such attacks that continued much after 2001, like the beating and stabbing of Saurabh Bhalerao in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 2003.

In a ‘Dear Colleague” letter, the caucus called for hearings on hate crimes against South Asians. It was  partially due to efforts made through such actions that people came to know more about India and American interests in it.
At the beginning of 107th Congress, the India Caucus had a little over 120 members. The Co-chairmen Ed Royceand Jim Mcdermott wrote a ‘dear colleague’, explaining why it is important for the US to have friendly ties with India. They said United States and India “have convergent economic interests. American companies are showing greater interest in India, with good reason. U.S.-India trade had great potential. India was one of the fastest growing emerging

Congressman Jim McDermott

markets in the world, one that presents exciting opportunities for the export of U.S. goods and services. Numerous American companies were playing an important role in India’s booming high technology sector.”

Soon, membership in the Caucus increased.
In February 28, 2001, a letter sent to President George W Bush by the Council of Khalistan made a series of allegations about political prisoners in India. The Caucus sent a ‘dear colleague’ letter, stating that State Department’s Country Report on Human Rights for India had said there were no reports of political prisoners in India. The Caucus said that contrary to the allegations, Sikhs were not being held in detention illegally in India. The Caucus made it clear that those held by the government were individuals facing charges of crimes such as murder, kidnapping and terror bombing.
Congressional travel to India has also increased manifold after the creation of Caucus. For example, McDermott visited India 20 times. During these travels he tried to expand trade ties with India, especially in the high-tech areas and raise awareness about HIV/AIDS in India. The first hand experience of Congressmen helped understand India’s stance against terrorism as also its support to the US-led War on terror. Crowley was on an India visit around the time the Parliament was attacked on December 13, 2001. The congressmen favored military-to-military relations between the two countries.

Legislative Activism of India Caucus

The activism of India Caucus included promoting pro-India legislation and defeating anti-India resolutions and amendments. This was most evident with the Burton Amendments, introduced by Dan Burton, who used to be a very vigorous critic of India.

US Rep Dan Burton

Burton’s almost annual ritual of introducing his amendment came during debate on the Foreign Aid Bill. The amendment would call for reducing aid to India because what he called its poor human rights record. In 1992, Burton had in fact succeeded in making the House adopt his amendment. But the House-Senate Conference Committee dropped the provision, which would have cut aid worth USD 24 million.

But that was a very minimal setback to Burton, compared to how the Caucus voted out his amendments whenever he introduced them in the subsequent years. In 1996, his amendment was voted out by a heavy 169 votes and in 1997, by 260 votes. After drafting amendments for three more years without even introducing them, Burton had conceded that Indian lobby in the Congress would ‘beat me to the ground.’
It may be noted that almost all sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the 1998 nuclear tests were subsequently lifted, notwithstanding the fact that the action also had to do with the larger foreign policy calculations of the United States. Soon after the Glenn Amendment, which imposed extensive economic sanctions on India and Pakistan after the nuclear tests, legislators began to raise questions about the necessity and wisdom of such punitive actions.

Beginning in October 1998, Senator Brownback introduced amendments which authorised President Clinton to waive many of the sanctions mandated by the Glenn Amendment. Congress soon allowed the White House waiving authority on almost all post-nuclear tests on India.
Afterwards also, the pro-India legislators kept an eye open for any legislation or amendment that was detrimental to the interests of India.

In July 22, 1999, for example, the House defeated a disguised anti-Indian amendment moved by Republican Congressman William P Goodling seeking to bar US military aid to any country that does not vote with Washington for at least 25 per cent of the time at the United Nations. Though the amendment, which was defeated by 256-169 votes, was couched in general terms, the India Caucus urged every Congressman and state legislation to vote against it because they saw in it a symbolism that was detrimental to India.
The Caucus also actively lobbied to push through the Faleomavaega amendment, which asked the President of US to certify that Pakistan stopped fomenting cross-border terrorism in India and halted proliferation of nuclear weapons technology, before it received US arms aid.
The House also adopted a number of resolutions, which are more of symbolic nature than practical. They include concurrent resolutions praising India’s democracy — often coinciding with Indian Independence Day or Republic Day, or after general elections.

During natural calamities such as Gujarat earthquake of 2001, the House passed similar resolutions.

Though not of much practical value, such resolutions increased the ‘visibility’ of India in the US Legislature.

India Caucus: Mission and Growth

The India Caucus had the dual mission of being an advocate for the concerns and needs of the Indian-American community and to promote better Indo-US ties.

The ‘Statement of Purpose’ of India Caucus said it would make its presence known by regular and frequent letters to members of Congress, sponsoring occasional lectures and events featuring experts on issues of interest to Indian-Americans, and disseminating news articles and scholarly articles to Congressional offices.

It also promised to ensure members of Congress present testimony at hearings, offering statements in the House of Representatives, and monitoring public statements made by prominent officials concerning Indian issues.

The mission statement contained the interests of the Caucus, including the “facilitation of trade and commerce with India”, “visas”, and “the promotion of Indian culture in the United States”.

The statement also referred to the main issues of concern to the Caucus: racial violence and hate crimes, education, small and minority businesses, immigration and family reunion, political empowerment (of the Indian American community) as also health and human services at the domestic level.

At the international level, the areas of focus were foreign aid and development issues, trade and investment in India, intellectual property rights, human rights and nuclear proliferation.

Since its inception, the India Caucus grew in strength as the most concrete example of the political clout of Indian community in the US. Formed with just eight members, the membership swell to 164 in ten years, representing the largest Caucus promoting the cause of a single country.

Indian community managed such an influential lobby group without sending even a single Indian-origin member to the Congress, at least till 2004.

The numerical strength of this Caucus — more than a quarter of the entire House of Representatives — is such that it cannot be ignored while putting to vote any bill that matters to the Indian community in particular and the foreign policy matters concerning India in general.

As Arthur G Rubinoff noted, by enlisting floor speakers, lining up votes and placing material in the Congressional Record, the India Caucus had for the first time provided India with an institutional base of support on Capitol Hill.

Formation of the India Caucus in US Congress

In the complex foreign policy making system of the US, it is important to influence the legislature. With this aim, Indian community lobbied hard to create a caucus of American lawmakers who would argue the case for

Capitol Hill: Seat of the United States Congress 

better relations with India. As a result, the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans was formed in 1993.

The formation of the Caucus has an interesting history. In 1993, when Bill Clinton became President, the post of an Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Affairs was created in the US State Department. Robin Raphael, who was then the Assistant Secretary for Near east Affairs, was given the charge. It was also a time when cross-border infiltration from Pakistan and Pak-sponsored terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir was happening in large scale. Raphael, in her congressional testimonies and functioning, appeared to favour Pakistan, and openly criticized India. To the Indian community activists, she was the “cowboy” who lectured senior Indian ministers on the Kashmir policy of the United States.

The community saw Raphael as an example of the pervasive American ignorance about India, its foreign policy imperatives and its stance on various issues like non-proliferation, economic reforms, national security, terrorism and its relations with Pakistan.

This led the Indians to think of creating a strong lobby vehicle in the Congress. That was the germinating idea of the India Caucus.

Indian American Forum for Political Education was instrumental in its establishment. The idea came from a member, Kapil Sharma, who suggested garnering support for a Congressional Caucus on India, along the lines of the Black Caucus that already existed in the Congress.

US Rep. Frank Pallone

The idea was to educate legislators on the issues concerning India so that the Congress could in turn question the Administration and influence its policy. They decided to target those representatives whose electoral constituencies or districts had a large Indian population, like the state of New Jersey. Three representatives were targeted, including Frank Pallone, who later became the first chairman of the India Caucus.

The other two were Robert Andrews and Bob Menendez.

The Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans in the House of Representatives was formed in 1993 by several members of Congress, including Frank Pallone, Jr, Gary Ackerman, Sherrod Brown, Jim McDermott and Bill McCollum. Pallone and McCollum served as the co-chairs of the Caucus from 1993-1998. In January, 1999, Caucus leadership passed to Gary Ackerman and Jim Greenwood. Jim McDermott and Edward Royce held the chairmanship between 2001 and 2002. Joseph Crowley and Joe Wilson followed them.