Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans

Criticism Aplenty of India Caucus

Aziz Haniffa Reports on the First Conference to Gauge the Group's Effectiveness

India Abroad, May 6, 2005, pg. A6

The first conference seeking to gauge the effectiveness of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans since its creation over a decade ago and the commitment of its members, elicited a no-holds barred scathing criticism and a stout defense of the more than 180-member body in a standing-room only interactive session on Capitol Hill.

The parley 'Measuring the India Caucus' organized by Bridging Nationals, a nonprofit policy-oriented organization founded by Dr. Prakash Ambegaonkar, a technology entrepreneur, challenged the panelists and participants to explore the question as to whether the Caucus was fulfilling its potential.

Dr. Robert Hathaway, director, Asia Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who in his previous incarnation served as a senior Congressional Staffer for over 12 years on the House Foreign Affairs and later House International Relations Committee and has monitored the Caucus since its inception, in offering a historical perspective, acknowledged that the Caucus has indeed come a long way since the days before its creation -- 'before India had any friends on the hill.'

'Actually, the person who brought me to the Hill was [former Democratic Congressman] Steve Solarz [of New York], Chairman of the Asia Subcommittee for twelve years in the 1980's and early 1990's, and was known as India's only friend in the Congress.'

He recalled every year, India's adversary on Capitol Hill, Republican Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana, 'used to go to the floor and offer legislation to either slash U.S. assistance to India or cut it altogether and Solarz would dutifully trudge over to the floor of the House and I would dutifully follow him and as we walked onto the floor, it was like we had leprosy or something -- everybody else would sort of shy away from us and Solarz was literally the only person who was prepared to stand up and argue that India is a democracy, that India deserves our support, and we should be fighting for close U.S.-India ties.'

'Faster forward now, a dozen or fifteen years and look at the situation today,' he said. 'Dan Burton indeed, no longer offers the infamous Burton Amendment. He got clobbered so badly a couple of years in a row in the late 1990's that he simply gave up the effort.'

Hathaway, an ex-historian with the Central Intelligence Agency and a former university professor, noted, 'Today, when an issue concerning India is being discussed on the floor, members of the House literally elbow one another out of the way, jostling one another, trying to get a place at the microphone so that they can speak on behalf of India and warm U.S.-India relations.'

'It's an extraordinary change -- and it's a very rewarding change for those of us who had some experience in the earlier period,' he said.

Hathaway conceded that the India Caucus 'is to an important extent -- certainly not exclusively -- but to an important extent, responsible for that sea-change and it genuinely is a sea-change in the attitude of members of Congress about India and about the importance of the US-India relationship.'

He lauded Congressman Frank Pallone, New Jersey democrat, saying, 'He deserves all the credit and all the commendation he can get as he was the guiding force back in December 1992 behind the creation of the India Caucus. Originally, there were eight members -- seven Democrats and Bill McCollum, a Republican from Florida. Today, it is somewhere between 170 and 180 members, and so it's really a remarkable story.'

'Our hats off to Pallone and to the other leaders in the early days when it wasn't necessarily an easy thing to do,' he added.

But then it was time to take off the gloves and pull no punches.

Hathaway said, 'I have an uneasy feeling that the Caucus is not fulfilling its potential,' and noted that Ambegaonkar had 'specifically used that phrase in inviting me to come today and talk about it.

'My concern, quite candidly -- and this doesn't always go over well -- but I fear for many members of the Caucus, it's more of a booster club. More even of a cheerleading organization than a serious policy oriented adjunct to Congressional work,' he said.

'If truth be told,' Hathaway argued, 'at least some members regard it primarily as a cash cow -- as an opportunity to shake down the Indian American community for political donations. I should add, they can get away with that because the Indian American community allows them to do so.'

But obviously cognizant that he had got the message across in the most blunt terms, Hathaway said while he could 'develop this theme in greater length,' what he would really like to focus on was to 'leave you with a positive message and that is by trying to offer some suggestions as to what the Caucus can do to be more effective.'

Then providing a laundry list in bullet-point fashion, what he would like the Caucus to do this year and in the years ahead that would make it a more effective organization would be first 'it's got to become more genuinely bipartisan. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the Caucus right now by about a margin of 60-40 -- 3 to 2 -- even though there are more Republicans than Democrats in the House of Representatives today.'

Thus, Hathaway argued that particularly insofar as the Congress remains under the control of the Republicans, it is really going to be much more effective if it is successful in recruiting more Republican members.

He said making a big deal that the India Caucus is the largest country caucus in the Congress was 'irrelevant'.

'Size is not everything,' he said, and pointed out that 'maybe 20 members are active. If you want the Caucus to be effective, push those other members to be serious, not simply to add their names on a roll. It has been established in a couple of instances, they don't even know they are members.'

Also, Hathaway felt 'being pro-India in my judgment does not mean you need to be anti-Pakistan. Don't make this a zero-sum game. Find ways to work with the Pakistan-American community, with those members of Congress who are sympathetic to Pakistan -- you have got interests in common.'

'All of you have been frustrated by the visa regime since 9/11. That's not an issue just for you or just for the other community. Find ways to work together. All of you have been subject to discriminatory treatment post 9/11. Find ways to build bridges with the Pakistani American community and other coalitions and other communities,' he advised.

'The Caucus needs to be more serious about its agenda,' Hathaway said. 'It should be something more substantial than simply passing resolutions commending India Republic Day or naming post offices [which the Caucus, on the initiative of the immediate Democratic co-chair Joe Crowley of New York succeeded in getting adopted to honor Dalip Singh Saund, the first Indian American Congressman].'

He told the large number of participants at the conference, 'If you didn't think there were more important issues, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have supported these people with your money or your time or your efforts.'

Hathaway urged the community activists to 'force the members of Congress to adopt your agenda, unless your agenda is simply naming post offices -- then I would encourage them to do more!'

Jonah Blank, Chief Policy Advisor for South Asia to the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who moderated the conference, speaking in his private capacity and not as a Senate staffer, said, it's important that 'as we look at the India Caucus in terms of measuring it, measuring it in terms of what? Measuring it in terms of goals that it has set for itself or goals that its constituents have set?

'That,' Blank added, 'raises the question of who are the constituents of the India Caucus? Are they the Indian Americans, the people who voted an elected the members in, or are they the government of India? And if it's the government of India, is it the current government of India -- right now the Congress government, before that the BJP government, or is it working for goals that would be shared by all governments of India?'

Continuing, he asked, 'And is it primarily geared towards Indian Americans or towards India?' And then acknowledged, 'For all these questions there is no easy answer.'

Blank said, 'I'm sure most of the members of the Caucus would say they serve their constituents first and foremost, but the items of legislation the Caucus often gets involved in with, do tend to be focused of and in areas of foreign policy.'

He joked that 'As a foreign policy staffer that's perfectly fine with me,' but noted that during the presidential campaign, he had been struck by the difference 'between what I had thought might be the agenda of a lot of Indian Americans -- based largely on those that I interacted with professionally -- and the agenda of a whole lot of Indian Americans, who just don't make the political radar screen' -- who he said were completely unconcerned with foreign policy issues like F16s to Pakistan.

This, according to Blank, 'I'm not sure the extent to which the India Caucus is necessarily engaging with the full spectrum of Indian Americans, whether it is of issues of domestic concern or issues of international concern.'

These remarks had participants like Varun Nikore, founder and president of the Indian American Leadership Initiative -- a largely second-generation political organization -- nodding in agreement, and later arguing during the interactive session that the Caucus' agenda 'has been hijacked by foreign policy issues and doesn't seem to address domestic Indian American issues.'

Blank referred to the difference between the House India Caucus and the Senate Friends of India and with regard to the latter the questions that were intriguing people were 'What is its mission? What are the matrix by which it is measured?' He said these were much more salient for the Senate than the House because 'the House India Caucus has been around for a long time -- it's got a track record that you can look at and decide, how does it stack up. But the Senate India Caucus is very much a work in progress.'

Some senior Senate staffers participating in the conference concurred, telling India Abroad that even though they worked on India and South Asian-related issues, they had no idea what 'the Senate Friends of India Caucus' agenda is. 'We don't know what they are trying to do because, after their first meeting to announce the creation of the Friends of India Caucus, they never met.'

'So there is absolutely no way to measure success or failure and the only positive that you can think of,' one Senate staffer told India Abroad, 'is that we hope this is because it's still an institution that is in the process of being created, and right now saying that its creation is far from complete, is an understatement to say the least.'