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Indian-Americans (III)
Indian-Americans
Test Their Clout on Atom Pact
June 5, 2006
The New York Times
By MIKE McINTIRE
Indian-Americans have mounted an intensive drive to support
President Bush's plan to aid India's civilian nuclear program, spending heavily
on lobbying, campaign contributions and public relations to persuade Congress to
approve the deal.
Officials in Washington and New Delhi have called the agreement historic, a
centerpiece of American-Indian relations. But to many Indian-Americans, the plan
is something more personal: a confirmation of India's emergence as a global
power. And they see the increasingly contentious battle in Congress as a unique
opportunity to demonstrate their budding political influence in their adopted
homeland.
Indian-Americans, a small but fast-growing, affluent and well-educated group,
are not new to lobbying in Washington. But the proposed nuclear pact has
energized them like nothing before. In recent months, Indian-Americans, as well
as the Indian government in some cases, have invested heavily in proven
political tools that have helped previous immigrant groups break into American
politics — hiring lobbyists, organizing fund-raisers and blanketing Capitol Hill
with briefings, phone calls and petitions.
"This is the chance to show that the community has matured and can translate
that into political effectiveness," said Sanjay Puri, an information technology
executive who is chairman of the U.S.-India Political Action Committee, or
Usinpac, one of several Indian-American political groups that are working on the
issue.
Much of the lobbying has focused on lawmakers from the New York metropolitan
region, home to the highest concentration of Indian-Americans in the country.
Mr. Puri's group, for instance, is organizing a fund-raiser this month for
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose support is viewed by Indian-American
leaders as crucial to winning broader Democratic backing for the plan,
Indian-American activists said.
Mrs. Clinton, co-chairwoman of the Senate's 39-member India Caucus, has not
taken a position on the deal.
The plan, hammered out last year by officials in Washington and New Delhi and
announced by President Bush during a visit to India in March, would end a
moratorium on sales of nuclear fuel and reactor components to India's civilian
nuclear program.
The Bush administration is now pushing for approval in Congress, where a vote is
not expected until at least the fall and the outcome is far from certain. Some
lawmakers have asserted that the White House should have brought Congress into
the loop earlier before striking a deal with India, and the president's low poll
numbers have made Republicans less willing to embrace the issue in an election
year.
Even reliable allies of the administration, like Senator Richard Lugar, a
Republican of Indiana who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
have expressed concern that it will undermine the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty. Critics of the proposal say it could encourage rogue nations to pursue
nuclear arsenals and would set a particularly bad precedent in light of the
administration's effort to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions. India, which has
nuclear weapons, has not signed the treaty and would not be required to under
the new agreement.
Under the proposal, India, whose nuclear reactors are controlled by the
military, would place most of its nuclear reactors under civilian control,
thereby opening them up to international inspection. About a third of the
reactors would remain controlled by the military and beyond inspection.
Some Indian-Americans have also questioned whether Indian immigrants should be
putting so much of their political energy into fighting for the contentious
proposal. Rohit Tripathi, an electrical engineer in Maryland and president of
Young India, a policy group, said that although he did not oppose the deal, he
was doubtful it would provide meaningful energy independence for India.
"I think when an immigrant community wants to assimilate themselves into the
political process," he said, "they latch onto whatever they can find." But the
Indian-American community has not always been very effective, political analysts
and Indian-Americans say, often content with photo opportunities and lunch
invitations with politicians rather than victories on issues like immigration or
trade policies.
But the campaign for the nuclear deal has been far more aggressive and focused,
those people say. And though Indian-American groups say they are not being
directed by the Bush administration or the Indian government, they have
consulted with representatives from both on how to lobby Congress.
By contrast, Pakistani-Americans have not been as visible a presence lobbying
against the deal, Congressional officials said.
To help overcome opposition in Congress, the Indian government has signed
contracts worth $1.3 million with influential Washington lobbyists, including
Robert D. Blackwill, a former American ambassador to India for the Bush
administration. The Indian government has also retained former Senator Birch
Bayh of Indiana.
Foreign governments and individuals are barred from making campaign
contributions. But that is not the case for American-based organizations like
Usinpac, which is financed largely by donations from wealthy Indian-American
doctors, engineers and other professionals, and has contributed more than
$200,000 to Congressional candidates over the last few years.
Usinpac alone has hosted nine fund-raisers and receptions since January, raising
tens of thousands of dollars for key members of Congress.
In addition, the United States-India Business Council and Indian American
Friendship Council are also lobbying on the nuclear issue, and wealthy
Indian-Americans are holding fund-raisers for members of Congress. Getting the
issue approved is "a huge deal" for the Indian-American community, said
Representative Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat who is co-chairman of the
House Caucus on India and Indian-Americans and supports the deal.
"They're tripping all over each other to get behind this," he said of
Indian-Americans who have been lobbying Congress on the issue. "On a scale of
10, this is probably a 15 for them."
The delegation from the New York metropolitan area — home to nearly a quarter,
or 400,000, of the nation's 1.7 million Indian-Americans — has been a reliable
pro-Indian voice in Congress since the 1980's.
That is when Representative Stephen J. Solarz, a Brooklyn Democrat, became the
first to aggressively court what had been a largely overlooked Indian-American
immigrant community. Mr. Solarz helped establish a South Asia bureau in the
State Department, made himself an expert on U.S.-Indian relations and lobbied
for the Indian government after he left office in 1993.
By 1994, Indian-Americans had raised their political profile enough that House
members formed the India Caucus, led by Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat
from New Jersey. Although Indian-Americans have contributed heavily to both
Democrats and Republicans, they have tended to favor Republicans, giving
hundreds of thousands of dollars to President Bush's campaign in 2004. That
year, Bobby Jindal, a Republican from Louisiana, became the first
Indian-American elected to Congress in almost 50 years.
Many Indian-Americans have enthusiastically embraced political activity in part
"because such opportunities were not always available in India," said Kapil
Sharma, a former legislative assistant to Mr. Pallone who helped organize the
House India caucus.
Clearly, analysts say, the nuclear deal is raising expectations among the group
that it can directly affect American politics in a major way.
Still, some political analysts, and even some Indian-Americans, say that the
community has picked a risky issue on which to stake its claim to maturity. The
India caucuses in Congress are openly divided on the merits of the nuclear deal,
and opponents of it, including nuclear nonproliferation advocates and members of
the smaller Pakistan caucus in Congress, are making their voices heard.
"It is clearly the most important issue that the community has grappled with,"
said Robert Hathaway, director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars in Washington. "It has a higher visibility. If
they lose, the community itself will take a larger hit in terms of the
assessment of its effectiveness."
Indian-Americans
Test Their Clout on Atom Pact, NYT, 5.6.2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/05/washington/05indians.html?hp&ex=1149566400&en=f1fb42f72c5587ba&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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