Farewell Ambassador

In a capital where ambassadors have to jostle to get face time with those who matter, India’s ambassadorLalit Mansingh was standing serene last week surrounded by high-powered senators. They had given him thebest farewell gift, a goodbye present he most wanted and that too on his birthday. Too good to be true? Well,the formal launch of the Senate India Caucus came last week and just two days before Mansingh left Washington.He was beaming, obviously happy that he had managed to push his idea to fruition and timed it for maximumeffect. There was good help from key Indian Americans who built constituency pressure and had persuaded manyof their senators to join the new group.

The wattage in Room S-219 in the US Capitol was a reflection of India’s place in the American mind. Theroom was packed to the gills -- another measure of the success of the event. State Department officials whohad come to attend the ceremony weren’t able to squeeze in, such was the crush for the show. Senators had tostep on toes to get to the podium. The fact that the Senate majority leader, Republican Bill Frist, showed upfor the ceremony as did his predecessor Trent Lott and eight other senators including Democratic SenatorHillary Clinton, who will be the first co-chair of the caucus, was noted by all.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Republican co-chair, whose enthusiasm and initiative were key to gettingthe Senate India Caucus off the ground soaked in the attention. It is his first term in the superior house ofCongress and embracing a positive foreign policy issue is important. He did the spade work, rounding up onethird of the US Senate to sign up as members. The legislature seems willing and even keen to get things movingwith India. Senator Clinton talked of a new partnership to curb nuclear proliferation while waxing eloquent onhow her husband and former president Bill Clinton visited India and changed the relationship forever. Sheensured he got more than his due for focusing American attention on India. She called a US-India partnership"urgent and imperative" for the new century.

Mansingh can take pride in helping to align the right forces at the right time to send yet another messageof friendship with the inauguration of the caucus. He worked hard with the Indian American community --currently the most potent force for exerting influence on the political scene. As formal US attention wasfixed on the war on terrorism and its attendant compulsions, he did his bit to bring together the community.One of his best enterprises was to start the tradition of celebrating all major holidays at the ambassador’sresidence in an attempt to heal wounds and bring people together. From Diwali to Id, from Hanukkah toChristmas, he opened his home to many who were smarting from years of neglect. One hopes the tradition willcontinue for keeping together the many strands of the Indian identity. Due credit must be given to hischarming wife, Indira, who was crucial for this incredible outreach, attentive and always smiling in herelegant silks. She held more than her own in the diplomatic wives’ world, arguing India’s case on the wineand cheese circuit. Shockingly normal, she brought her media background into very good use as theambassador‘s wife.

But in the end it was team work that helped bring the Senate Caucus to life after nearly three years inlabour. If Senator Cornyn hadn’t gone to India this January and seen and felt the country himself, he maynot have taken the initiative to rally his friends on Capitol Hill. He was clearly impressed with what he sawand decided India was worth some "real time." Lesson No. 1: take American politicians by the plane loadsfor Bharat Darshan. Show them the success stories, the warts, the needs and wants. Nothing persuadeslike reality. The Confederation of Indian Industry has been organizing such trips for more than five years andit has clearly helped create space in the heart. CII’s Washington director, Kiran Pasricha, has built aformidable circle of friends on Capitol Hill and within the executive branch.

The next question: what will the Senate Caucus do? India has a caucus in the US House of Representativeswith an ever growing membership. It started with 11 members but today it has 180 or so. As for achievements inthe recent past, it has few that are discernable. Sure, the co-chairs frequently write letters to the WhiteHouse, complaining on behalf of India but the executive branch rarely changes its tack because the House IndiaCaucus says it should. The relative legislative weight of the House Caucus would fall in the "light"category. Membership in the caucus has become an easy stamp the congressmen can show to Indian Americans forcampaign contributions. It is yet to evolve a clear policy agenda and spend political capital to achieve it.As an House congressional aide bemoaned: "We deal with domestic issues 90 percent of the time. Foreignpolicy is not our mainstay." When the US imposed sanctions on India after the 1998 nuclear tests,the House caucus worked behind the scenes to reduce the burden but it was the events of 9/11 that persuadedthe Bush administration to reverse the policy.

I hope the Senate India Caucus doesn’t become another club to which you belong because you need a placeto entertain. Senators generally exert more influence on foreign policy than congressmen but they are notknown for their radicalism on issues. They go with the flow of policies set by the executive, flailing theirarms once in a while to come up for air but never abandoning ship for a speedboat. They make noise, ask uncomfortablequestions, sometimes even use strong language but rarely force the administration to change. Take the issue ofIraq or AQ Khan’s nuclear enterprise -- they are tough, tough, tough when grilling administration witnessesduring hearings, but in the end they tend to follow the leader -- in the White House. Given that a Republicanmajority rules both the Congress and the White House, there is little room for dissent.

The idea is not to throw water on a great achievement, only to ask whether these groups ultimately carryany weight on policy issues. Let’s hope Senator Clinton can give some quality time to Indian issues becauseshe is one person who is taken seriously even by her Republican opponents.