Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans

Sometimes People Expect Alot, says Pallone

Aziz Haniffa in Washington, DC
India Abroad, May 6, 2005, pg. A8

Congressman Frank Pallone, New Jersey Democrat, the founder and former co-chair of the Caucus said,

'Sometimes people expect a lot and maybe misunderstand what its original purpose was.' Pallone was stung by the questions that flowed about the efficacy of the India Caucus and the blunt assessment provided by Robert Hathaway in his presentation describing the Caucus as a 'cash cow'.

He explained that 'The purpose of the Caucus from the very beginning was to try to bring members together to talk about US-India relations and issues that also might impact the Indian American community and to basically create a positive consensus based support for improved relations between the United States and India within the House of Representatives.'

'It wasn't really designed to do anything more than that. I thought that if we could accomplish that, that was a significant goal in itself,' Pallone said.

He acknowledged, 'Over the years a number of Indian American organizations have helped in that effort by getting members of Congress to join or by providing us with issues for example, American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin would often provide us with healthcare issues to raise and some of the other Indian organizations have played the same role.'

But he reiterated, 'It was an effort to try to get members of Congress to be more supportive and more knowledgeable and educated about Indian American issues. It was also responding to the fact that many of us, and particularly myself, felt those who were anti-Indian were sort of moving the agenda forward or making progress in turning the Congress against India and against improved US-India relations.'

Thus, he conceded, 'It was somewhat defensive in nature in a way, and of course, I am making a reference to the Burton Amendment because he used to get up every year in those days -- going back 10-12 years now -- and say these terrible things about India, most of which were simply false. Partly it [the Caucus] was a response to that.'

Pallone argued, 'We were very successful in that and we managed to get more members of Congress to join the India Caucus than any other caucus and became very quickly the largest caucus within a matter of two or three years. We got Congressman Burton to drop his activity completely. He doesn't even do it anymore.'

Like Horatio at the bridge, Pallone said, after punitive sanctions were slapped against India in the wake of the nuclear tests in May 1998, 'and all of a sudden it looked like we might be going back to the anti-India rhetoric being the norm,' it was the India Caucus that mobilized 'and we very quickly moved in and started to say that the sanctions should be removed, that we should be understanding of India's nuclear program.'

'Obviously, we weren't going to get Congress on record supporting it, but we were at least able to get Congress to understand that it made sense, it was rational, it was civilian-based, it was defensive and we were very successful in accomplishing that.'

While acknowledging it did take a few years to get rid of all the sanctions, Pallone noted that 'for the most part, the most severe ones were eliminated fairly quickly, within a matter of a few months.'

On domestic issues, he said the Congress was able to get support for hate crimes legislation -- in federalizing it -- and was able to get some support for doing some things with AAPI in terms of studying certain types of diseases and disorders that particularly affect the South Asia community and get funding to the tune of about half a million dollars.

While it's easy to take the Caucus to task now and question its effectiveness, 'A lot of things that seem obvious now because it's so routine,' was hardly that a decade ago when the Caucus was founded, Pallone said.

'Just getting members to go to India, getting more Indian organizations involved in the political process in voting or fundraising or whatever,' was far from routine.

He argued, 'These are the kinds of things that it's hard to really put a thermometer on it and say, how successful you are in a given year, but over the last 10-12 years, all these things have grown and it is important for the Caucus to be there because there are going to continue to be crises.'

'As India-US relations have moved forward tremendously, things like the Modi visa or the sale of F16s [to Pakistan] always have the potential to move things back and we had to come out there ready to deal with these situations as they come along,' Pallone said.

'I have to say that it's one of the most successful things that I ever got involved with being in Congress,' he said, adding, 'alot of Indian Americans -- because you are all so determined that this be successful -- are constantly looking at it to measure its success. But by any criteria, it has been a tremendous success.'

Congressman Joe Wilson, the immediate past GOP co-chair of the Caucus, taking on the criticism that for a Republican-controlled Congress, the Caucus was dominated by Democrats on more than a 60-40 margin, said he believed it would be easy to recruit more Republicans 'because the Republican Conference has a situation where in all of their districts, the Indian American community is very significant.'

'During his tenure as co-chair, we were able to increase the Republican membership in the last Congress from around 25 to 90,' Wilson said. 'It's a great tribute to the Indian American community that the India Caucus is the largest caucus in the U.S. Congress,' he added.

While in most caucuses 'it's tough to get somebody to want to be co-chair,' he had 'started getting inquiries from early on reminding me that the tradition of the India Caucus is to change every two years and I thought, that's wonderful that people really wanted to do this.'

Wilson spoke of how one of the most influential members of Congress, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican who is rumoured could be the next chairman of the House International Relations Committee when the current 81-year old head of the panel, Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois retires, 'wanted to be the Republican co-chair, along with Mark Foley of Florida and Joe Knollenburg of Michigan, something quite unheard of earlier. Foley and Knollenburg finally opted out and supported Ros-Lehtinen's bid.

'We have got some terrific leadership,' Wilson said, but said it was not up to the members to recruit more members to the Caucus but for the Indian American community 'because that is the best way. To convince them at the grassroots level -- where people live.'

Wilson said once the Indian constituents got their congressmen to join the Caucus, 'the next step is to urge them to be active.'

Former Indian Ambassador to the U.S. Lalit Mansingh, who was visiting Washington, DC, and was invited to be a participant at the Conference, was his quintessential diplomatic self and said there were two ways of evaluating the criticism of the Congress as to whether it is active, effective and so on.

'Maybe we expect too much out of the Caucus,' he said, and noted, 'let's not forget, the Caucus is not a lobby appointed by the government of India. The Caucus is an independent body of American legislators who proclaims friendship with India and we shouldn't expect more than what they are willing to give.'

'From the point of view of the community,' Mansingh argued, 'we should realize we have reached a new stage of the relationship and we should review it and see how to move it forward.' He said he believed 'there may be a little bit of complacence on the part of the community -- and I don't mean to offend anybody -- but I'm saying it as somebody who has grown along with the community in this country.' Mansingh served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the Indian Embassy in Washington in the late 1980's and early 1990's.

'We are not challenging the Caucus enough,' he said. 'I know American congressmen and senators, they like to be badgered by the constituency. They like to be reminded. You have to send them faxes and emails and letters and give them an agenda and then say, "This is what is to be done." '

Mansingh said he did not believe enough of this was being done by the community and called on the community activists to 'really focus on this, prepare an agenda and push the people to carry this forward. Let us not treat congressmen like a slot machine that you insert a coin and get a Coke out.'

He acknowledged 'it's true that congressmen looked for political contributions before the elections, but it's a human relationship that you are building up. It's an investment in a relationship. So it's not just expanding the Caucus, but the Caucus members must be cultivated.'

'So let's not imagine that you give a check before the elections and your job is done and expect the congressmen and senators support. We should build up relationships and push the agenda forward. So let's put some passion into the relationship and let's not lie back and say, 'Well, we have done enough.'

Jonah Blank said Mansingh was right on target and agreed that the Indian American community 'has got to start challenging members of the Caucus more.'

He said he was 'often mystified as to just why it is that the community doesn't demand more from the people who are supposed to be advocating its interests.'

Hathaway concurred, noting that 'a number of you have expressed concern about the F16 sale to Pakistan and yet, as far as I'm concerned, nobody in either house of Congress raised it publicly until it was a done deal.'

He said, 'Anyone who knows the first thing about Congress or about government knows that if you wanted to block that sale, you should have been starting six months ago. The fact that members of Congress didn't get activated on this six months ago was because you didn't force them.'

'You have to be proactive. You cannot wait until the decision is already made before you get involved in an issue if the issue is important to you,' Hathaway added.