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India-US Relations Blog

Ambassador Blues

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Maneuvers surrounding the appointment of a new U.S. ambassador in New Delhi cast light on Washington’s outlook on India.

There are two ways to look at the quixotic, widely derided campaign by Brad Sherman, a Democratic member of the U.S. Congress from the Los Angeles area, to have Cruz Bustamante, a former lieutenant governor of California, appointed the next U.S. ambassador in New Delhi. Both approaches capture a slice of reality and yet are mutually contradictory. Taken together, however, they form a good picture of Washington’s current outlook on India.

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Indian-Americans and U.S. Politics Blog

Secretary Clinton’s Diaspora Engagement Alliance: Opportunities for the Indian Diaspora

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Guest post by Madhavi Bhasin

In the same week that President Obama delivered his much awaited Middle East speech, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton inaugurated the State Department’s new diplomatic outreach initiative – The Global Diaspora Forum held from May 17-19, 2011. The initiative, christened as idEA (International Diaspora Engagement Alliance) is based on simple understanding: Diaspora communities often have the local knowledge and contacts; US Government agencies have the technical expertise, global presence, and convening power. Based on these complementarities, the State Department shall develop new diaspora-centric partnership models and undertaking new programs to encourage intra-diaspora collaboration and learning.

newDuring the Forum, hosted jointly by the State Department, USAID and Migration Policy Institute, a host of initiatives were launched to partner closely with the diaspora communities to further United State’s international diplomacy and development efforts. The goal of the Forum, as stated by Secretary Clinton was to 1) recognize and celebrate the contribution of diaspora communities to America’s relationship with their countries of origin or ancestry, 2) foster diaspora-centric partnership models, and 3) encourage intra-diaspora collaboration and learning.

It is somewhat strange that given the usual hype over any development in Indo-US relations, the Diaspora Forum was overlooked in the mainstream media as well as social media avowedly utilized by non-profits based out of US. This could be attributed to the fact that diaspora philanthropy and partnership for social entrepreneurship between U.S. and India is considered less important than the bilateral political and strategic partnership. However, the programs launched during the Forum present an important window of opportunity for the Indian Diaspora to deepen social, economic and cultural partnership between the two countries.

Secretary Clinton during her speech identified the diaspora communities as wielders of smart power. According to her, “You [the diaspora communities] have the potential to be the most powerful people-to-people asset we can bring to the world’s table. Because of your familiarity with cultural norms, your own motivations, your own special skills and leadership, you are, frankly, our Peace Corps, our USAID, our OPIC, our State Department all rolled into one.”

According to the Migration Information Source, U.S. is home to 1.6 million Indian immigrants, the third largest migrant group in the country. Given the numbers and potential of the Indian Diaspora, the Forum offers great opportunities to forge creative partnerships. Some of the proposed avenues for collaboration include the following.

• diasphilanthropy: Diaspora Philanthropy is not a new phenomenon. Indian Diaspora has been actively involved in philanthropy over the past decades through professional associations, faith-based groups, hometown associations and individual contributions. However, the community needs to invest more thought and effort into ensuring mechanisms for strategic giving. Philanthropy is not merely an emotionally induced social commitment but is also a strategic economic decision. While the community is fervently involved in making donations, it is equally important to invest in research to identify the most urgent social challenges, explore innovative solutions and ensure goal compliance. While giving is important, it is critical to ensure that the donations are impactful on the ground. It would be helpful if some members of the community devise and publicize tools to identify social causes demanding urgent action, provide lists of organizations involved in advocating the causes, offer secure and easy options to make donations and provide regular updates on progress made and challenges encountered. Making philanthropy simpler and strategic is both desirable and necessary.

• diaspora 2.0: The Indian Diaspora in the U.S. is uniquely positioned to foster communication and information technologies for enhancing and deepening engagement. Given the diaspora’s extensive talent in ICT it is possible to create virtual communities and devise ways sharing information and resources online. While social networks have emerged as the best medium to engage the diaspora, it’s essential to bring some order to the chaos of information available online. For example, several U.S. based non-profits working on social empowerment projects in India are currently competing for the Chase Community Giving Event. Though each organization approached its faithful supporters through Facebook and twitter, there was no attempt to involve the diaspora as a community by providing information on various organizations and monitoring the vote count for each. By voting for different charities, the collective strength of the diaspora was reduced with the possibility that no non-profit working on challenges in India secures the top slot. It’s important to use the communication tools to operate as a collective force rather than contribute individually.

• diasporacorps: Apart from sharing monetary resources it is important for the Indian Diaspora to share time and talent to make a difference on the ground. There is great scope to encourage diaspora volunteerism among the members of the Indian community based in US. Teach for India and Indicorps are some platforms that offer such opportunities. However, most of these volunteer opportunities tend to target youth and students, leaving a huge resource pool untapped. Technology professionals, teachers, small business owners, home-makers, farmers, nurses – Indian immigrants in every walk of life can contribute to social innovation in their own ways. It’s important to mobilize these members of the community and provide meaningful volunteer opportunities to them. Every member of the diaspora needs to be made aware of his/her potential as a volunteer.

• diasplomacy: Diaspora diplomacy is traditionally related to political lobbying for issues such as work permits, migration status or bilateral trade and strategic relations. Kathleen Newland of Migration Policy Institute has discussed in a Report, published in November 2010, the advocacy and lobbying trends and techniques among the various diaspora communities in the US. The Report appreciates the efforts of the USINPAC (US India Political Action Committee) in persuading the U.S. Congress to pass the 2008 Indo-U.S. Civilian Nuclear Agreement. Non-traditional mediums such as sports, arts and culture (which contribute to creating the image of India) need to be used strategically for advocacy purposes. Advocacy and diplomacy are the strengths of the Indian diaspora that can be employed in promoting creative partnerships.

• diaspreneuership: The entrepreneurial spirit of the Indian Diaspora has received numerous accolades in the U.S. and across the globe. It’s time to utilize the entrepreneurial skills in identifying opportunities in India, to exploit such opportunities as “first movers,” and to contribute to job creation and economic growth. The State Department plans to support diaspora entrepreneurs in investing and building enterprises as well as stimulating trade in countries of origin. This provides the Indian Diaspora the encouragement and support to contribute to India’s economic growth.

The Secretary’s Global Diaspora Forum sought to challenge diaspora communities to forge partnerships with the private sector, civil society, and public institutions in order to make their engagements with their countries of origin or ancestry effective, scalable, and sustainable. It is essential for the Indian Diaspora to take this challenge and actively contribute to idEA. Hopefully, the Indian Diaspora will contribute to this Alliance by providing innovative ideas for partnership and mobilizing the immigrant community to get involved in the emerging venture.

(Madhavi Bhasin is a Visiting Scholar at Center for South Asia Studies, UC Berkeley and Program Coordinator at Global India Foundation. All views expressed here are those of the author and do not releflect the opinions of USINPAC.)

Immigration Blog

Addressing the Arguments Against Comprehensive Immigration Reform

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Indian-Americans know that for the past several years failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation has blocked other changes to U.S. immigration law. Smaller, more targeted measures to fix problems associated with employment and family immigration, including reducing the large backlogs, have not see light of day to due to the inability to pass large-scale immigration legislation. Important measures on employer-sponsored green cards were part of a 2006 immigration reform bill that passed the Senate but failed to become law after opposition from House Republicans.

What are the main arguments against comprehensive immigration reform? And are there good responses to those arguments? I recently addressed the five main arguments offered against comprehensive immigration reform in a paper for the Cato Institute. (The study can be found here.)

1) Immigration Reform Will Not Harm Taxpayers. The paper notes that legalizing both the flow of workers and those already in the country without legal status will help taxpayers by raising the newly legalized workers’ earnings, productivity, and the likelihood they will pay taxes. Columbia University economist Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz found that illegal immigrants who received legal status under 1986 legislation received “significantly” higher wages once they became legal. (Higher wages equals higher taxes.) Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer, both with Monash University in Australia, found compared to more increases in border enforcement, using legal temporary workers to replace the flow of illegal immigrants would benefit U.S. households by $260 billion a year.

2) Newly Legalized workers will not burden the welfare rolls. In general, newly arriving immigrants are not heavy users of welfare and, in fact, are usually not eligible for federal means-tested programs. In 2006, according to the House Ways and Means Committee, only 0.7 percent of noncitizen used TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). Much use of benefits declined for immigrants after eligibility rules changed in the 1996 welfare reform law, though even before the changes immigrant welfare use tended to be overstated. It’s true U.S.-born children of immigrants may receive more benefits than their immigrant parents. However, the comparisons of who is a net taxpayer can be misleading if one counts native-born children of immigrants as (immigration) costs when they are young but then fails to count them as tax contributors once they reach adulthood.

3) Another amnesty need not beget more amnesties. If Congress legalizes the status of individuals here unlawfully it does not need to be an amnesty, which usually requires little or no action on the part of the recipient. Instead, Congress can impose a series of conditions for that forgiveness, including fines and future obligations.

4) Legalizing or admitting less-skilled workers will not undermine U.S. culture or the English language. Immigrants and their children are learning English. A total of 91 percent of second-generation Hispanic immigrants (the children of immigrants) said they speak English “well” or “pretty well,” which rises to 97 percent by the third generation.

5) Allowing in more temporary visa holders or legalizing existing workers without legal status will not increase the unemployment rate. Immigrants help make Americans more productive, while having no impact on the unemployment rate. As economists like Mark J. Perry, a professor at the University of Michigan, Flint campus, point out, there is no fixed number of jobs, so there is no way for immigrants to “take away jobs from Americans.” There is no evidence unemployment rates rise over time at either the state or national level simply because additional people enter the labor force, whether immigrants or recent graduates from U.S. schools or colleges.

Conclusion

These are not popular arguments to make in a climate when economic recovery remains incomplete in America. And the strongest opponents of immigration reform will not likely be persuaded. However, those who support a better solution than the status quo will need to continue the debate and responding to critics. Otherwise, other problems, such as the need to add more green cards for skilled immigrants, may never be addressed in a Washington, D.C. that remains divided on immigration issues.

Indian-Americans and U.S. Politics Blog

Pravasi Bharatiya Divas begins in New Delhi on Jan 7

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The 9th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PDB), an annual meet of non-resident Indians organized by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, will begin tomorrow at the Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi, India. The three day event will be inaugurated by Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh aPBDnd includes seminars, round-table conferences, interaction with Union Ministers, cultural programs and Conferment of Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Awards. Around 1500 delegations from over 50 countries are expected to participate in the event.

The Pravasi Bharatiya Divas has grown to be one of the largest meeting points for the Indian Diaspora across continents.  PBD gives non-resident Indians an opportunity to engage, interact and build relationships with members of the Diaspora across the globe, as well as the country of their forefathers. The PBD is not just a meet and greet event, but serious deliberations on issues of concern to the community, problems facing the country, business and other opportunities presented by India etc. are also discussed alongside a plethora of cultural events. Earlier PBDs have resulted in the formulation of various schemes and plans such as the Overseas Citizenship of India scheme, establishment of Overseas Indian Facilitation Centre, conceptualization of Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra, formation of Prime Minister’s Global Advisory Council of people of Indian Origin, setting up of the India Development Foundation, and the launching of the Global Indian Network of Knowledge (Global-INK).

This year the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas would focus on the North-Eastern States of India, healthcare, education and increasing involvement of the younger generation of the Diaspora. As such, the Ministry of Development of the North Eastern Region has partnered with PBD. The Chief Ministers of the states in the region will discuss the investment opportunities in their states in a special plenary session. The relatively neglected north-eastern region is one of the most scenic and untouched parts of the country, and provides numerous opportunities for business and tourism. However, it is has been reeling under the menace of insurgents and has been unable to develop at par with the rest of the country.

Among other sessions will be the annual C.K. Prahalad memorial lecture to be delivered by Gautam Ahuja. The Chairman of Corporate Strategy and International Business group at University of Michigan’s School of Business will talk about inclusive growth. A plenary session with a group of Union Ministers will discuss business opportunities in India, while dedicated seminars on healthcare and education opportunities in India will also be conducted. The Pravasi Bharatiya Samman awards will be presented by the President of India to distinguished non-resident Indians.

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

India China Economic Union – An open letter

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Dear PM Wen Jiabao and PM Manmohan Singh,

Only a sixth sense of mutuality and common sense can help China-India relations today. While the realities are being resolved and negotiated, we simultaneously and urgently need a powerful new idea of joint interest to both countries.

Economic entanglements are the surest guarantor of peace and development. India and China must start exploratory discussions of any variation of an economic union between the two countries. Working towards such a framework will ensure peace and economic development between both countries.

* The reality of the India China Economic Union may happen in 50 years or 100 years, but by progressing towards such an objective both countries will accelerate friendship and socio-economic development of one-third of global population.
* It is but obvious that in 20-30 years or by 50-100 years the relationship and economics will be so different that we cannot even imagine today. But one thing will be sure – the two countries and our people will be far deeply integrated and inter-connected in their economies, cultural understanding, people-to-people linkages, and global challenges.
* Sirs, you can see the future – kindly seize the moment and take a bold step.
* In advance of this summit in Delhi, we had been researching and modeling various thoughts to protect and advance the national interest of each country, as well to make a generational change towards friendship, peace, socio-economic and cultural relations between both countries.
* Our research shows that the first thing both our countries need today, is a sixth sense. The current and historic issues are too deep and will take time to resolve. While these issues are being resolved, it is now time to introduce, in parallel, a sixth sense in our relationship and to create a vision for an India China Economic Union.
* Other research, including a small web-based sample, shows that the topmost problem in relations between China and India is of mutual images, and mutual trust. Apart from the government in each country, this is the top concern in the publics too.
* Therefore the top priority of our leaderships today must be to find a solution to these two problems. By promoting this sixth sense of the imminence of an economic union, our leaders will guide the policy and publics of both countries towards peace, people-to-people relationships, and socio-economic development.
* Such a vision will lay the foundations for harmonious growth for hundreds of years ahead. Both countries should set up a joint working group and think-tank, funded with US$ 10 million by each country, as first step. This economic union may be modeled after the example of European Union or any variation, and the working group should present reports of the progress on sidelines of annual PM level meetings.

Premier Wen Jiabao is visiting India along with a business delegation of over 300 businessmen. Geopolitics, business and people-to-people linkages are all on the agenda. In all these meetings and discussions, the key underlying dynamic will be mutual images and trust.

Mutual Imagery and Trust

To improve mutual imagery and trust, both countries need to take several urgent steps. Each country should take responsibility to take 3 specific steps to build trust and image. These steps should be reflected in the joint communiqué which shall be issued during the visit.

* India has already announced introduction of Mandarin as an optional subject in schools. China must similarly introduce Hindi language in its school system. Also, China must ramp up English speaking skills among its citizens. Lack of English is proving an obstacle to better understanding and business with China.
* Both countries must promote people-to-people linkages. Through tourism, even a weekly flight with free seats; through cultural exchanges, even promoting film shoots in each other; and through youth and business exchange programs. The expatriate communities in each country must be guided by embassies to engage more with the host society.
* India must encourage its communist parties to act as a bridge in building relations with China. U.S.-India relations improved in large part due to a unique presence of an over 3 million strong Indian-American community. Similarly, with China, the communists of India can play a unique role in building image and trust between both countries.
* Any delegation which travels to the other country must be provided a three hour orientation and cross-cultural understanding of the country they will visit. The embassies should provide this service to their host country government. The chambers of business must provide this service to the business delegations they take.
* More Chinese students must be given generous scholarships to come and study journalism and MBA in India, and similarly Chinese government must attract Indian students to China. These future businessmen and media leaders will help to promote understanding and economic activity between the two countries and many may settle down in host country.

India China Economic Union

Improvement in mutual images and trust shall further pave the way for reducing fears and concerns of each country, and for creation of the India China Economic Union. India fears China’s “string of pearls” strategy, and China fears India is ganging up with the U.S. to restrain its growth. China is troubled by India’s stance on Tibet and Taiwan, and India is concerned with China’s behavior on its Western and Eastern borders.

Both countries also need to take fresh confidence building measures. China must vacate the portion of Kashmir which Pakistan ceded to it. India must clarify and settle the Tibet and Taiwan issue with China.

Thus a sixth sense of Indo-China relations will need a troika approach – all in parallel:

* Improvement of mutual imagery and trust,
* Fresh confidence building measures, and,
* A vision for creating the India China Economic Union.

Much of these may not happen in our lifetimes, or even for several generations. But some such framework will be a reality 100-200 years from today. By taking this visionary step, Sirs, you will leave an imprint on history for ever.

Sincerely,

Robinder Sachdev