NRIs can play pivotal role in Indo-US N-deal: Report

The Indian American community, one of the wealthiest and best-educated minorities in the country, can play a pivotal role in pushing forward the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, according to a leading Washington daily.

Pointing out the manifold and multifaceted role it has come to bear on the American political scene, a special report in The Washington Times said the community's clout is being put to the test.

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"The political clout of one of the country's wealthiest and best-educated minorities is being put to the test as the Bush administration faces a tough fight in Congress to pass a major civil nuclear-power agreement with India," it said.

"The deal is one that administration officials say could cement ties with an emerging world power and redraw the strategic map of Asia," it added.

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The report quotes Arjun Bhagat, chairman and CEO of the Los Angeles-based Calibrated Group, a technology-services firm, as saying that for America's estimated 2 million citizens of Indian ancestry, the stakes and the payoff of the deal are even higher.

"This issue has galvanised our community like nothing we have seen in the past. If this deal does not pass, we fear those in India who never wanted a closer tie with US will have all the ammunition they need to turn against us," he said.     

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According to The Washington Times, the US-India Business Council, which includes more than 100 Fortune 500 companies on its roster, has engaged Patton Boggs to win passage of the nuclear deal while the Indian government has reportedly spent $1.3 million on lobbying assistance from two other major firms - Barbour, Griffith & Rogers and Venable LLP law firm.

Sanjay Puri, CEO of US-India Business Alliance and chairman of US-India Political Action Committee, said Indian-American groups and US businesses hoping to tap the booming Indian market are already in 'full campaign mode' to sell the deal.

'National interest is at stake'

"Frankly, it is a campaign for us, the first of its kind. We have been organising letters, faxes and calls to Congressmen, briefings for lawmakers and staffers, doing whatever we can," the daily quoted Puri as saying.

Several US lawmakers including Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, and leading senators and members of the House of Representatives attended a USINPAC event at Capitol Hill last week.

Burns later told reporters informally he is willing to come back to Capitol Hill as many times as necessary and spend time with lawmakers to ensure that the legislation, currently pending in the US Congress, is passed.

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Others directly involved in working for the passage of the deal are former US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill and former Indiana Senator Birch Bayh. The role of the Indian American community has attracted a lot of attention not just within Capitol Hill, but also from official visitors from India who acknowledged much depended on the community, now no longer seen as a political pygmy.

According to census data, Indian-Americans were the fastest-growing ethnic group in the 1990s, and remained one of the largest sources of legal immigration to the United States, the report noted.

Indian-American entrepreneurs own nearly 20 per cent of all Silicon Valley high-tech startups, and an estimated 55 per cent of all US motels are owned by Americans of South Asian ancestry, it said.

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In 2000, one of out every nine Indian-Americans was a millionaire and almost 60 per cent of Indian-Americans over 25 have graduated from college, it said. Politically this has meant that the Congressional India Caucus, which began in 1992 with eight members, now boasts of more than 180 - among the largest on Capitol Hill.

South Carolina Republican Congressman Joe Wilson has been quoted as saying that the Indian Americans 'assimilate so well, you don't appreciate their numbers.'    

Wilson noted that like many immigrant groups the first generation of Indian-Americans tended to support Democrats, and the Capitol Hill caucus was once heavily tilted toward Democratic members, but now the ratio is about one-to-one.  

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"Our diaspora was always much more divided, but now we have the nuclear deal to unite us. I have been contacting my own Congressmen here in California, and I know many of my friends and colleagues are doing the same," Bhagat told the daily.

"This whole fight has brought out of the woodwork Indian-Americans who were never involved in politics at all," he added.

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