The Indian-American: A New Political Actor?
By Bhabani Sen Gupta
The award of Padmabhushan to Sant Singh Chatwal, a rich hotelier in the United States, stirred a comic
controversy in the Indian media recently because he had been allegedly involved years before in some shady
business or financial deal. The Indian media is a mulish actor in national politics deriving its strength from the
sacred doctrine of freedom of expression in a democracy. It enjoys a cordial, mutually beneficial relationship
with Government ; ministers, whether at the Centre or in the states, happen to be very sensitive to what they
write about them. In the Chatwal case, the indignation of the media was focused not on Mr Chatwal but on the
Government for honouring an Indian whose hands were not totally clean. However, the media bite did not unduly
hurt anyone; Mr Chatwal seemed to have been merely amused by it.
The Indian diaspora ----the word originally was coined to mean the dispersion of Jews beyond Isreal-----
is large, but not as large as the Chinese. Geographically it is located in the oil-rich Gulf and Arab countries
and in former colonies of the British Empire in Africa and Asia. The money sent home by the diaspora boosts
the economy of the regions in India wherefrom Indians were transported by the British as indentured labour,
often driven by hunger and by imperial will. Large numbers of these immigrants fled countries like South Africa,
Kenya, Zimbawe ( former Rhodesia) when the end of empire transferred power in these countries to the native
people; except in the West Indies, Indian immigrants were not part of the natives. The Indian Government has
a ministry of overseas Indians to look after the interests of the diaspora.
The Indian-Americans are not like any of the many groups of migrants from India. The rulers of Aamerica
did not need labour from India; they had more than enough from the Western hemisphere itself. Indians went to
the United States for higher education or, on a small scale, business or jobs .Indian-Americans are, therefore,
a small ethnic group; immigrants do not exceed two million, but there is also a large number of students and
workers with job-permitting visas, who are not permanent residents or citizens. However, Indians, because of
their high level of education and the upper-to-middle middle class jobs they hold make a tiny but significant
segment of the affluent society. In recent years several thousands have done very well in business in the service
sector. Mr Chatwal happens to be one of them.

segment of America’s affluent society. In recent decades, some of them have done well in service sector
business. Mr Chatwal is one of them.
The Indian-American community is much more important for the upper middle class in India than
to the United States. Power in India---political as well as cultural, and largely social---- resides with the
upper middle class, urban and rural, backed by perhaps the 300 million strong middle classes in the
country, making India one of the three largest middle class nations in the world, along with the United
States and China.
In the following pages we present, for the benefit of readers of this journal, a short but comprehensive
profile of the Indian-American ethnic group in the U.S.
The term, “NRI,” or Nonresident Indian, is now given to Indians who stay abroad, generally in a First World country such as Britain, Canada or the United States, for employment, doing business or engaged in some other vocation such as media, show business or the film industry. An NRI usually lives abroad with, family in most cases, and so the second generation of NRIs is born abroad. An NRI’s stay abroad is usually for an indefinite period of time. Most NRIs are citizens of the country they live in; but there are also those who are permanent resident aliens, continuing Indian citizenship. A small portion lives there on account of temporary posting from the Indian government or a private Indian agency. This profile is of NRIs in the US.
Currently, there are about 2,226,585 people of Indian origin domiciled in the US, with citizenships, as permanent residents or on special professional visas. The population more than doubled between 1990 and 2000, growing at a rate of 16.7% whereas the population of the entire country increased by 7% during the same time. They are now the second largest immigrant population, second only to China, and catching up fast. The three main categories of NRIs in the US are as follows:
The following are the main three categories of NRIs:-
(i) Indian citizens who stay abroad for employment or for carrying on a business or vocation or any other purpose, in circumstances indicating an indefinite period of stay abroad.
(ii) Indian citizens working abroad on assignment with foreign government agencies like United Nations Organization (UNO), including its affiliates, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank etc.
(iii) Officials of Central and State Government and Public Sector undertaking deputed abroad on temporary assignments or posted to their offices, including Indian diplomat missions, abroad.
The immigration of Indian Americans has taken place in several waves since the first Indian American came to the United States in the 1700s. A major wave of immigration to California from the region of Punjab took place in the first decade of the 20th century. Another significant wave followed in the 1950s which mainly included students and professionals. The elimination of immigration quotas in 1965 spurred successively larger waves of immigrants in the late 1970s and early 1980s. With the technology boom of the 1990s, the largest influx of Indians arrived between 1995 and 2000. This latter group has also caused surge in the application for various immigration benefits including applications for green card.
Several groups have tried to create a unified or dominant voice for the Indian American community in political affairs. Additionally, there are also industry-wide Indian American groupings including the Asian American Hotel Owners Association and the Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin. Despite being heavily religious and having the highest average household income among all ancestry groups in the United States (two traits that usually favor conservatism), Indian Americans tend to be more liberal and tend to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Polls before the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election showed Indian Americans favoring Democratic candidate John Kerry over Republican George W. Bush by a 53% to 14% margin (nearly a 4 to 1 ratio), with 30% undecided at the time. Hundreds of thousands of Non Resident Indians (NRIs) in America joined in the election process, contributing their time, talent and resources leading to the Obama victory. Just before the elections in 2008, 42% of Indian Americans supported Obama, compared to 24% supporting John McCain. From across the nation, several groups of NRIs took an active part in the elections. South Asians for Obama (SAFO), one of the many such groups is a grassroots movement that worked hard to mobilize the South Asian American community to help elect Barack Obama as President of the United States. President Barack Obama has appointed 20 Indian-Americans to his administration, another all-time high. However, the Republican party is also trying to attract this community and several prominent conservative activists are of Indian origin. In 2007, Republican Congressman Bobby Jindal became the first United States Governor of Indian descent when he was elected Governor of Louisiana. In total, two Indians served in the US Congress, the first being Dalip Singh Saund (Democrat), and the most recent, Bobby Jindal (Republican); ten have represented State Assemblies; two in local councils. There have also been two mayors, albeit from small towns. Joy Cherian, first Asian head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Rajiv Shah, former Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics and current Administrator of USAID. Neel Kashkari, interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability in the United States Department of the Treasury. Sonal Shah has been a member of the Obama-Biden Transition Project advisory board.
Indian Americans are now very involved in US Policy toward India. There are many Indian American lobbying agencies permanently stationed in Washington D.C. India had always employed lobbying firms on and off, but in 2005, the Indian government made a decision that it needed robust ‘political advocacy’ support in Washington. In 2008 alone, India paid more than 5 million dollars to Washington lobbyists. Sant Singh Chatwal and Swadesh Chatterjee are but two of the lobbyists who are most in the news, the former having been just awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Indian government for his services to improve Indo-US relations.
A case in point would be the historic 5-day trade mission to New Delhi and Mumbai, supported by the Nuclear Energy Institute and the U.S. Department of Commerce and led by Steve Hucik of GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy, with more than 60 senior executives representing more than 30 world-leading commercial nuclear companies, concluded in mid- January last year. The mission was the first commercial nuclear trade mission to visit India since the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) approved India for global commercial nuclear trade. It was also the largest ever mission mounted by the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC).
The USIBC-NEI Mission arrived in India just months after the opening of India to civilian nuclear trade with the U.S. and the world. This body kept up the pressure on the Bush administration until July 18, 2005 when, during the Washington visit of PM Manmohan Singh, the U.S.-India nuclear deal was finally consummated with the signing, on October 9, 2008, of the U.S.-India 123 Agreement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The inaking of the bilateral 123 Agreement capped a whirl of approvals – from the Indian Government’s successful trust vote on July 20 to unanimous nods by the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nuclear Suppliers Group in September, to a final triumph in the U.S. Congress in early October.
It is, of course, hardly surprising that such a large and highly educated group of people (they have the highest educational qualifications out of all foreign born settlers in the US) would also gainfully employed. 73% are professionally employed with 57% in managerial and/or senior academic positions. Financially, too, Indian Americans are the wealthiest minority, with full time median earnings of $51,000 per annum.
Indian Americans own 50% of all economy lodges and 35% of all hotels in the United States, which have a combined market value of almost $40 billion. (Source: Little India Magazine). In 2002, there were over 223,000 Asian Indian-owned firms in the U.S., employing more than 610,000 workers, and generating more than $88 billion in revenue.
More millionaires were made in the Silicon Valley than anywhere else. They are still being made with new innovations and smart marketing. With technology at its heart, this small area of California, where IT technology took its firm roots ,has a greater population of Indian millionaires than anywhere else. Brains were needed, and the opportunities were boundless. Almost all major technology names of today have Indian technologist or entrepreneur at its heart. USB and SanDisk, for instance – two electronic items used in and with computers – have been partially invented by Indian Americans and carry their names Ajay Bhat for USB and Sanjay Mehrortra ( for SanDisk). Technology was invented, marketed and millionaires were made in a few short years. All this needed resources; technical resources, which were in short supply in US. Hence they turned to India and gave a major impetus to US-India economic relationship.
As the new immigrants arrived, brand name “IIT” became popular. This latter are a bunch of premier technical schools of India, which had adopted, high standards of education and new technologies as its basis. Graduates of these institutions who had immigrated in droves in seventies and eighties became the core of success not only in the Silicon Valley, but everywhere else also. Today a freshly minted IIT graduate commands a better respect in the US technology circles than others. They definitely have carved a niche for themselves.. Three Indian American men have won the Nobel Prize as members of a team.. Hargobind Khorrana won in 1968 for Biochemistry. Subramanyan Chandrasekhar in 1983 for Physics, and . most recently in 2009, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan in Biochemistry.
Along with these scientific, technological, and political achievements, and achievements in commerce, Indian Americans have been steadily publishing books, often to huge public acclaim. In 1988 Bharati Mukherjee was the National Book Critic Circle Award for her anthology of short stories called Middle Men and Other Stories, and Jhumpa Lahiti, in 2007, won the Pulitzer Prize, the most prestigious US prize for literature for her The Interpreter of Maladies.
The following are some of the more notable book publications in the US by Indian American authors:
Suburban Sahibs by Mitra Kalita
Caste and Outcast by Dhan Gopal Mukerji
The Tiger's Daughter by Bharati Mukherjee
Wife by Bharati Mukherjee
Jasmine (novel) by Bharati Mukherjee
Darkness (short stories) by Bharati Mukherjee
The Middleman and Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee
The Karma of Brown Folk by Vijay Prashad
New Roots in America's Sacred Ground by Khyati Y. Joshi
The Inscrutable Americans by Anurag Mathur
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (winner of 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Divakaruni
In My Own Country by Dr. Abraham Verghese
The Tennis Partner by Dr. Abraham Verghese
Similarly, there has been a sharp increase in Indian American output in the film industry. Some of them featuring in the last twenty years are:
ABCD (1999)
American Chai (2001)
American Desi (2001)
Americanizing Shelley (2007)
Anokha (2004)
Arya (2005)
Ashes (2005)
Bugaboo (1999)
Carma (2006) - first film to be released on internet pay per view
Chutney Popcorn (1999)
Cosmopolitan (2003)
Green Card Fever (2003)
The Guru (2002)
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)
In My Own Country
Indian Cowboy (2007)
It's A Mismatch (2006)
Kissing Cousins (2007)
Mississippi Masala (1991)
Monsoon Wedding (2001)
Dude, Where's the Party? (2003)
Flavors (2003)
Mistress of Spices (2005)
National Lampoon's Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj (2006) (official site)
Rez Bomb (2008) (official site)
The Namesake (2007)
The Other End of the Line (2008)
Trade Offs (2003)
Wedded Bliss? (2002)
Wings of Hope (2001)
Yeh Kahan Aa Gaya Hum (2007)
The last two categories of achievements – publishing and the media – along with the categories of public service shows that NRIs have y thoroughly integrated into the American public life. After all, scientific and technological contributions can be made by staying pretty much isolated from the larger social world. But commenting on the society through creative and artistic means, and being read and accepted by the public, suggests a deeper integration. Contributions to the political arenas, at the local, state and federal levels, mostly by second generation immigrants, also suggest the same.
Indian Americans so far have not excelled in US professional sports, although a second generation Sikh American, Alexi Grewal, won the gold medal for cycling in the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984.
Thus, right from the early immigrants, mostly of Punjabi origin, who toiled 19 hours a day on farms and mills in the Northwest, for a meager 18 cents per hour, to the high-tech IT pros swarming an ever-distending Silicon Valley, working the routine, white-collar, eight hour stretch and minting the big bucks, NRI wayfarers have surely come far. What fetches us here as immigrants aren’t just the notion of a utopian First World country anymore. Somewhere beneath all that it embodies - comfortable living, labor egalitarianism, and the whim of a “free life” that dangles precariously- lies the classic, often hackneyed desire to “make the best of both worlds.” Indian parents in the US have often been criticized for wanting their children to “perfectly blend in with the professional life in the US,” and yet remain authentic Indians at heart, marrying other Indians and living Indian values. In what Dr. Prasad calls the “Americanization of the Indian kid,” he writes, “Indian parents order their children to get “A”s in all their subjects in school. Their children, like pet monkeys obey.” (Prashad, 2002). But such phenomena are perhaps inevitable when immigrants try to settle down in a foreign land. As Ranjini Srinivasan has demonstrated, it is precisely America’s promise to immigrants – that if you work hard with the purpose of succeeding professionally, and making something of your life, the US is the place be. The Indians know this, and “go for it.” (Srinivasan, 2009)
WORKS CONSULTED
Brijesh Prashad (2002). The Karma of Brown Folk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Ranjini Srinivasan (2009). “Chicago Blues.” This blog is an online repertoire of columns in the Indian Express, North American edition. http://chicago-blues.blogspot.com/