A Friend At The Helm

INDIA'S standing went up several notches in the Congress recently with an extraordinary speech by the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina. Helms, who is considered a red-necked bigot by his less charitable colleagues on the Hill, has been extremely critical of India in the past. Therefore, coming as it did from this Cold Warrior, his unexpected support delighted the assembled Indian audience.

Helms was addressing the 14th annual convention of the Indian American Forum for Political Education in Raleigh, North Carolina, on September 6. The Forum, which represents members of the Indian community in the US, seeks to create a lobby for India in the Congress and the Administration and to secure high-level political participation for the Indian community.

Helms predicted that "the beginning of a new era of prosperity and free trade between our nations can bring a grand partnership between our two democracies". He pledged publicly to do everything he could to make the Indo-US relationship stronger. Even "if the State Department says 'let's soft-pedal on India', I'd say let's go forward and work together to help India build itself". He characterised CTBT and Kashmir as "not insurmountable problems if we can sit down and work them out together.... Let me work with you on these issues.... Together, I am certain, we can build on the things we have in common. I want both countries to be world leaders together."

Helms declared that he would use his Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair as a "bully pulpit" to further the Indo-US relationship. The committee's responsibilities range from approving or rejecting nominations of US ambassadors to giving the green or red light to US ratification of international treaties.

The speech couldn't have been better scripted if the Indian Embassy had written it. In the event, no one from the Embassy was present when Helms spoke at the dinner. Embassy officials told 바카라 they could not attend the banquet because they were "in mourning" for Mother Teresa, though Helms did remark upon their absence.

What was astonishing about Helms' speech was that he is normally ultra-conservative and not known to be a friend of India. In fact, he is better known for all the wrong reasons—stopping US funding to the UN; co-authoring with Rep. Dan Burton the Helms-Burton legislation which seeks to penalise countries that do business with Cuba; and, most recently, denying a hearing in the Senate to Clinton's nominee for Mexico's ambassadorship, Massachusetts governor William Weld.

Helms was lavish in his praise for the community. He said: "Indian-Americans represent the best and the brightest the US has to offer and I don't say that just to compliment you. It's the truth...you can go to the finest hospitals, you can go to the universities, you can go into business and there they are—people from India who have worked and sacrificed to make good in America."

The Forum was well-attended by other high-ups in the Congress and Administration, including George Pickart, a senior adviser in the State Department's South Asia bureau. Pickart's recent remarks on Kashmir were blown out of proportion by the Indian press, despite their being a restatement of long-standing US policy. Pickart clarified that "there was no nefarious plot to mediate between India and Pakistan over Kashmir" although Washington did have an interest in seeing the two countries settle their differences.

During a lively panel discussion—part of the convention—on the US political process and participation of the Indian community held earlier, Amitava Tripathi, minister, Embassy of India, spoke about the recent "massive defeat of the Burton Amendment" in the House of Representatives, which would not have been possible without the "large number of friends we have been able to win in the US바카라 웹사이트 Congress". Tripathi made a passionate appeal for a seat for India on the UN Security Council.

The other two legislators, Gary Ackerman and Bob Etheridge, also recalled the defeat of the Burton Amendment in the Congress with great satisfaction. Significantly, Helms—a friend of Burton and a co-sponsor of the unpopular punitive legislation—did not mention it. Forum participants credited the national convenor, Swadesh Chatterjee, for the favourable tone of Helms' speech. Chatterjee, who is president-elect of the Forum, is a Raleigh-based businessman. Krishna Srinivasa of Atlanta, Georgia, former Forum president, was praised by Mark Valente, a member of the Reagan White House, for his efforts in getting several Indian-Americans appointed to senior positions in the Reagan and Bush Administrations. Participants wondered why these positions were not forthcoming under Clinton.

Ramesh Kapur, managing trustee of the Democratic National Committee, said the Indian community didn't have the same close relationship with people in the Clinton White House as they did in the Republican Administrations. They were trying for high positions, which would take more time, he said. Till then, a couple of more friends can do India no harm at all.