By Kul Bhushan, IANS
Highly educated and rich, non-resident Indians in the United States are waking up to their clout – and also their flaws. When Indian Americans donate millions of dollars at the presidential hopefuls’ fund-raising events, they also think about the returns on their ‘investment’. Do they have adequate influence in the American establishment in line with their contributions?
The US has around three million Indian Americans and four in every five of them have a college degree. They are also very rich. One in 20 Indian Americans is a doctor. Two out of three Indian Americans work as managers, professionals or highly paid technicians. Indian Americans are big players in establishing, running and expanding the IT sector. They own about a third of all motels in the US. They also own a healthy percentage of smaller banks, gas stations and other businesses. Almost half the Indian American women have jobs outside their homes.
Overall, 25 percent of Indian American families earn 25 percent more than the average American household.
Despite living for almost half a century in the US, they are strongly attached to India. Look at the role they played in getting the India-US nuclear deal. Look at their $23 billion remittances to India in one year. Consider their support for Indian charities and visiting Indian showbiz stars and gurus.
Surprisingly, only two out of every five Indian Americans have taken up US citizenship. This still means 1.2 million votes no presidential candidate can overlook. What if these Indian Americans were united as a vote bank?
Despite large populations of Indian Americans in California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Florida and Illinois, they have little clout at the federal, state or local levels. When they are routinely and regularly ‘profiled’ at airports for dehumanising security searches, there are no mass protests from them to pressurise the Homeland Security personnel to treat them better.
Of course, they protest as Sikhs mistaken for Arabs, attacked or even killed. A Sikh community leader recently protested but nobody cares for 50,000 scattered Sikh voters as compared to 1.2 million.
When gods or religious sensibilities of Hindus are shown disrespect, religious community leaders protest and the matter is over. But they lack the lobbying power of the Jews.
Now many Indian Americans are waking up to this situation by posting very strong views on the web, especially blogs. They find it all ‘pathetic’ when they remain divided as Gujaratis, Punjabis, Tamils, Keralites, Sikhs, Bengalis, Jats and all the Indian state and caste groupings that impede India’s progress.
Magnificent temples have been constructed all over the US for these groups but not many Indian American community centres where they can all come together. An estimated $7 billion to 10 billion have been spent on temples and billions more as charity to India but not for building a single American Indian community centre in the US. It’s high time to abandon groupings based on caste, religion or region and unite for playing a proactive role in mainstream US politics for the future of their children, appeals Kevin Kaul of the Friends of the South Asian American Communities in California.
Now that India is surging ahead, they will have less burden of supporting their families back home and the new generation may not have the strong emotional bonding with India, so the Indian Americans have to look ahead for their future in the US.
Vikram Bajwa sums it up, “Let us join together to do what is good for Indo-Americans, enough has been done to promote India-US policies, where the Indian ministers get all the credit and we only get a plaque at the Pravasi (Bharatiya) Divas. Over the last 10 years, Indo-Americans have spent $50 million to promote India-US policy, what did we get in return? We need to emphasise our interests in the US in 2008, an election year. Wake up, join together under an umbrella of Indian Americans!”
“We must be concerned about the foreign policy of the US,” says Dave Makkar. “Like Mexico and Israel, we can also influence it diplomatically or through media or lobbying or trade organisations. Right now, a new Immigration Bill is being debated in the Senate that will eliminate visa preferences for relatives of immigrants. It will tear up the fabric of family reunification.”
Mike Patel, a well-known motelier, wants the US NRIs to remember what happened to NRIs in East Africa, Fiji and the West Indies when they did not participate as a united community to contribute to local causes. These Indians had bank balances but no political balances. “We need to be united and show our power that we are not here for money but for doing more than other foreigners in this country,” he said.
A bumper sticker sums it all up: “Put your heart in US or get your butt out!”
(A media consultant to a UN Agency, Kul Bhushan previously worked abroad as a newspaper editor and has travelled to over 55 countries. He lives in New Delhi and can be contacted at: [email protected].)