WASHINGTON – On January 3, Indo-Americans will gather in Washington DC in the cold of the winter under the aegis of the organisation Indiaspora to celebrate the election to Congress and Senate of five of their own. It’s a development that will warm the cockles of what is easily America’s best-educated and most savvy community, metrics that are recorded for posterity in terms of college degrees and per capita family income.
Contrary to popular impression, it hasn’t been a long time coming. Only a generation ago, Indian-Americans were taking baby steps in politics- running for school boards and state assemblies. They still do. But many of them are now emboldened to run for higher office.
All five Indian-American lawmakers coming to Washington in 2017 are Democrats. This is not surprising. Most immigrants lean towards the Democratic Party, and this is particularly pronounced among Indian-Americans, more than 80 per cent of whom voted for Barack Obama in the last two elections. There is no reason to believe is was any different this time (the granular details of how they voted are yet to come), but it won’t be surprising if more and more Indian-Americans start drifting to the Republican Party in years to come, thanks to a combination of fiscal and social conservatism.
President George Bush also played a big role in drawing Indian-Americans into the GOP fold with his bold outreach of India, and some Indian-Americans believe Donald Trump could push it along even further, his demagoguery and demonization of immigrants and minorities notwithstanding. They feel reassured by Nikki Haley’s nomination to a key role in the administration, and Bobby Jindal lurks somewhere in the background waiting to be forgiven by Trump for the temerity with which he ran for the Republican nomination. Indian-American businessman Shalli Kumar appears to have significant influence in the Trump coterie, and his outside bet of plonking down a million bucks for the Trump campaign has brought rich dividends in terms of even greater access and visibility.
But going back to the growing Indian-American participation in politics, it all begins at the local level. Some weeks before the election I saw a poster in my neighborhood, in the block where I live, for Anjali Phukan, who was running for the school board. She lost the election polling 32 per cent votes to her rival’s 68 per cent, but in terms of numbers she polled more than 107,000 votes- no sniffing matter. Earlier in 2014 she had run for Maryland Comptroller position and lost. The important thing is she in public life trying to make a difference.
This is how the community progresses and mainstreams itself, and to give a sense of this progression, here is a story I wrote 14 years ago, in 2002, that I dredged out from my archives.
Nov 6, 2002: Indian-Americans took some small steps towards political relevance in the United States, winning three seats to state legislative bodies and polling significant number of votes in some two dozen contests they were involved in.
Satveer Chaudhury from Minnesota and Kumar Barve in Maryland retained their state legislative seats, while Swati Dandekar made her legislative debut in Iowa, according to preliminary results. All three ran under the Democratic banner.
All four Indian-Americans running for the US House of Representatives lost by big margins, but they garnered a fair chunk of votes.
Republicans Stuart Johnson and Syed Mahmood polled 36 per cent and 22 per cent votes in California’s 36th and 13th district respectively. Democrats Ayesha Nariman from New York’s 26th district and Vij Pawar from New Jersey’s 11th district, polled 22 and 26 per cent votes respectively.
The big winner of the night was Swati Dandekar, 50, an emigre from Nagpur who won a seat in the Iowa State Assembly with more than 55 per cent vote.
The election there had become controversial after her Republican opponent Karen Balderston questioned Dandekar’s ethnicity and qualifications.
“While I was growing up in Iowa, learning and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, Swati was growing up in India, under the still existent caste system. How can that prepare her for legislating in Iowa or any other part of our great United States?” Balderston had written in a widely distributed email.
But voters of Iowa’s mostly-white 36th district gave the Indian-American a thumping win, even as the Republican Party disowned Balderston. “My campaign focused on issues, on the economy and jobs, and the people of the district have rewarded me for it,” Dandekar told Times News Network in an interview.
Dandekar will be the first Indian-American woman elected to a state legislature and only the fifth lawmaker of Indian ethnicity.
Swati Dandekar studied in Nagpur and Bombay and has been a resident of Iowa’s Marion Country for 30 years. She said she faced no prejudice at all during her campaign that involved knocking on 11,000 doors. Her parents and extended family still live in Hyderabad and Bombay. Her husband Arvind is CEO of a local tech company, while of their two sons one is pre-med student and the other works for the Walt Disney company.
Dandekar’s show was among the only bright spot in an otherwise dismal night for Indian-Americans, although community leaders and activists counted some positive gains from the election.
“It would have been good to win a few more but at least it’s a hopeful sign that Indian-Americans are beginning to participate in the process,” Kapil Sharma, a former Congressional aide now with the lobbying firm The Madison Group, said.
Other activists suggested Indian-Americans had got blown out of many races, mostly polling below 25 per cent of the votes, much of it due to party affiliation.
“The most positive thing about this election for Indian-Americans is that the second generation has shown a lot of initiative in getting involved in the process. But we still have a long, long way to go,” said Narayan Keshavan, executive director of the newly established Indian American Republican Council.
Some 26 Indian-Americans ran for various posts in this mid-term elections. They fought on both sides of the political fence and some of them also represented third forces like the Green Party.//
For the record, the Indian-Americans who will be coming to Washington in 2017 are Kamala Harris, as Senator from California, and to the House of Representatives- Ami Bera (returning for a third term) and debutants Ro Khanna, Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Pramila Jayapal.
