US Elections | Results to the Senate bring good tidings for the US-India ties

Image: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File

This was what happened four years ago on November 8, the election day in the United States. Mark Warner, the senior Senator from Virginia, arrived at Lyles Crouch Elementary School in Alexandria, a suburban polling station where voting was apace, to give a shot in the arm to Democratic Party foot soldiers for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

I ran to Warner, but the popular former Governor had already been surrounded by enthusiastic Virginians eager to shake his hand and be photographed with him. Unable to attract his attention in the crowd, I committed the transgression of pulling at his shirt sleeve, simultaneously calling out his name. With a look of extreme annoyance, he turned to me and I quickly popped my question: “Senator, will you continue as Co-Chair of the India Caucus in the new Senate?”

Warner saw my media badge and when I put the question, he visibly softened. But he avoided a direct answer. After all, it was not up to him to retain the position: the Democrats in the Caucus have to choose their co-chair by consensus. “It was the first country-focused caucus established in the Senate,” he told me. “Its work is important. We have done a lot to promote relations between the United States and India.”

As it turned out, Warner once again became the Caucus co-chair when the new Senate convened in January 2017, and remains in his post. In the November 3rd election, Warner, a reliable friend of India on Capitol Hill, won his third consecutive term in the Senate. In January 2021, once the new upper chamber of the US Congress is in place, it will be known whether Warner will serve yet another term as co-chair of the Senate India Caucus.

The Republican co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, Warner’s counterpart from across the political divide, is John Cornyn, the senior Senator from Texas. A long-time friend of India, Cornyn was a founding member of this caucus in 2004 along with Clinton, then the Democratic Senator from New York.

Cornyn has been co-chair of this Caucus multiple times. As a native of Texas, he was often India’s back channel to the Bush family, the father-son duo, who served as Presidents of the United States. Like Warner, Cornyn was also re-elected to the Senate on November 3. This will be his fourth six-year term in the Senate.

With both Warner and Cornyn slated to be Senators until 2027, India can rest easy that it will have two senior members of the Senate to turn to for flagging and advancing this country’s interests in Washington for the next six years. Even if they do not head the India Caucus in the incoming Senate, they will be the grey eminence on India on Capitol Hill in view of their long association with India and familiarity with issues pertaining to this country.

Why is the Senate important? One-third of the Senate’s total of 100 is in the India Caucus; and the current membership of the Caucus is 32 Senators.

Moreover, the chamber alone has the authority to confirm thousands of political appointments which change with each new administration. It is vital for India, in the present stage of its ties with the US to place Indian Americans and others whose ear New Delhi will have in key positions in an administration. These positions begin with Assistant Secretaries and can go right up to the Secretary of State or Commerce.

In recent years, the Senate has been deadlocked most of the time because it is split down the middle on party lines. But, whenever an Indian American had to be confirmed in any job, the Senate inevitably rallied on a bi-partisan basis without the slightest hesitation. Two examples are the first Federal Judge of Indian origin, Sri Srinivasan and Richard Rahul Verma, the first US Ambassador to New Delhi of Indian descent. Such rallies in the Senate send powerful messages of bonhomie with India across the US at all levels. They make bilateral dealings a lot easier. The India Caucus can have a big role in facilitating these.

Cory Booker of New Jersey unexpectedly became the junior Senator from his state in 2013, when Frank Lautenberg died of viral pneumonia at the age of 89. Booker won his second full term to the US Senate on November 3. Already an active member of the India Caucus, there have been suggestions from Indian American Democrats that Booker should be the next Co-Chair of the Caucus.

Booker is only 51 and his chairmanship would pave the way for a generational change in handling India-centric activity on Capitol Hill. Booker is African-American, a pioneer in coloured senatorial representation from New Jersey. The argument favouring a leadership role for an African-American in the India Caucus is that it would be in tune with the ongoing race-related trends and movements in the US. If this happens, an irony will be that Booker retained his Senate seat this week by defeating an Indian American, Rikin Mehta, the first Republican to get his party’s nomination for nationwide office in New Jersey.

While much of the attention in India has been on the US presidential race, results of the biennial elections to the Senate have put India on a strong wicket America-wide, and on Capitol Hill.

The defeat of a sitting Republican Senator, Cory Gardner in Colorado, is a setback for the India Caucus. However, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, who defeated Gardner, is expected to adequately compensate for this loss. As Governor, Hickenlooper looked at 25 countries to lead a trade mission from his state in 2017. He eventually chose India as a partner for Colorado’s business relations that year. “India is Asia’s rising star,” the incoming Senator said after he took the trade mission to India.

Nine stalwarts of the India Caucus have been re-elected. None of them are of Indian descent. They include Democrats and Republicans. Among these, some Senators are the chamber’s senior-most members, good tidings for the US-India relationship. The US House of Representatives has a separate India Caucus. But since election results to the House are still trickling in, that is a story for another day.

 K P Nayar reported from Washington as a foreign correspondent for 15 years. Views are personal.