Indian-Americans and Bilateral Relations

Last week Nikki Haley, a first-generation American of Indian descent, won the Republican Party’s nomination for the governorship of South Carolina.  Her resounding political victory (view her nomination acceptance speech here) has highlighted, once again, the fast rise of Indian immigrants in American society, a development that says much about this country’s continued capacity to attract and integrate the world’s best and brightest.  Less noticed, however, is how this process has also changed U.S. foreign policy.

Ms. Haley (born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa) is the daughter of Sikh immigrants.  She is currently the front runner in the general election campaign and, if she is successful in November, would become the first female and first member of a racial minority to be elected South Carolina’s governor.  She would then join Piyush Amrit “Bobby” Jindal, current governor of Louisiana and son of Punjabi immigrants, as a rising star of the national Republican Party. 

Jindal and Haley are the leading edge of a new wave of Indian-Americans politicians.  According to an Associated Press dispatch, six Indian-Americans are currently running for a seat in the U.S. Congress.  Kamala Harris, whose mother is a Tamil immigrant, recently won the Democratic Party nomination for California attorney general, the state’s top law enforcement official.  If she wins in the November general election, she too would be well positioned for a higher-profile political office in the future.  

The political emergence of Indian-Americans is a capstone of a remarkable immigration story.  Large-scale Indian migration to the United States did not begin until the late 1960s and though the community remains relatively small – less than one percent of the overall U.S. population – it is one of the country’s fastest-growing ethnic groups.  But the community’s increasing success and prominence have given it an influence wholly disproportionate to its size. 

According to a recent report by the RAND Corporation, Indian-American entrepreneurs have business income that is substantially higher than the national average and higher than any other immigrant group.  As Vivek Wadhwa and his colleagues document, Indians stand out among immigrant entrepreneurs, having founded from 1995-2005 more U.S.-based engineering and technology companies in the past decade or so than immigrants from the United Kingdom, China, Taiwan and Japan combined.  Indian Americans, who tend to be much better educated than other ethnic groups, have also become mainstays of the corporate sector, the health professions and the academic world.  (For an analysis of the Indian diaspora in America, see this new Migration Policy Institute report.)

Three brief examples demonstrate the rising status of Indian immigrants in American society.  The first is the entertaining television ad Intel runs lauding the rock star status of Ajay Bhatt, the co-inventor of the USB computer connection (view it here).  The second is the ubiquitous presence of Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent.  In 2003, he was named as one of the world’s sexiest men by People Magazine and a “pop culture icon” by USA Today.  And last year he was mentioned as President Obama’s choice as Surgeon General of the United States, the country’s top public health official.  Also last year, Aneesh Chopra, the son of Indian immigrants, was appointed as the U.S. government’s first chief technology officer.

In short, as one analyst puts it, “Indians in America are emerging as the new Jews: disproportionately well-educated, well paid, and increasingly well connected politically.”  And this development has had a significant impact on U.S. foreign policy.  First, the success and prosperity of the Indian community contributed to changed U.S. attitudes about India.  For most of its independent existence, the country’s prevailing image among Americans was one of appalling poverty and ruinous incapacity – hardly the attributes that one would desire in a strategic partner.  

But the increasing stature of Indians in American society helped change public opinion in relatively short order.  Instead of the traditional sentiment of disdain or pity, a February 2010 Gallup survey finds that two-thirds of Americans now have a positive impression of India, a favorability level equal to that of Israel.   

(Another – admittedly hilarious but also telling – indicator of the sea change in U.S. attitudes comes via Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced former governor of Illinois whose federal trial on corruption charges has just begun.  According to intercepted phone conversations entered into evidence (read the transcript here), Blagojevich seriously considered trading his choice to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat for a White House appointment as ambassador to India.  His wife counseled him that New Delhi was “the best choice” since “you’re in a major powerhouse in the world.”)The growing impact of the Indian American community catalyzed stronger interest about India on Capitol Hill beginning in the mid-1990s.  Pro-India caucuses in the U.S. Congress played an important role in the lifting of U.S. economic sanctions levied against India in the wake of its 1998 nuclear tests, and in securing the ratification of the landmark U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement.  Today, a third of the members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives belong to these caucuses.

The Indian-American community has also been at the forefront in building critical societal linkages between its native and adoptive countries.  Consider, for example, the dynamics at work a decade ago.  At the same time as Washington was imposing sanctions in response to the 1998 nuclear tests, concerns about the “Y2K” programming glitch led businesses on both sides to set the foundation for today’s strong technology partnership.  The significant role played by these societal bonds leads Fareed Zakaria, an Indian-American who is editor of Newsweek’s international editions, to compare U.S.-India ties to the special relationships the United States has with Great Britain and Israel.  And Shashi Tharoor, until recently India’s minister of state for external affairs, has likewise remarked that “in 20 years I expect the Indo-U.S. relationship to resemble the Israel-U.S. relationship, and for many of the same reasons.” 

Although they are often overlooked by national policymakers, non-governmental ties fostered by the Indian-American community will be one key in securing the long-term growth of the new bilateral partnership.