[One of the election promises of Dr. Bera, a first-generation
American citizen whose parents hail from Gujarat in India, was to "save
Medicare." He was endorsed by former President Bill Clinton and the
Sacramento Bee, the local newspaper.]
 |
Marco Garcia/Associated Press
Tulsi Gabbard, left, is congratulated by fellow Democrat Colleen Hanabusa after her election to the House of Representatives on Tuesday in Honolulu, Hawaii. |
But Tuesday's election suggests they shouldn't switch to
politics.
Of six Indian-Americans, all doctors and engineers except one,
who ran for the U.S. Congress, five fared poorly in the elections on Tuesday,
with only one contender likely to win a seat.
Dr. Ami Bera, a Democrat and physician, looks
poised to defeat the incumbent in the Seventh Congressional District of
California, and become the third Indian-American to be elected to the U.S.
House of Representatives. The race is still too close to call although Dr. Bera
leads
by 184 votes as of Wednesday morning.
"I am running for Congress because I know it must be a
place for service, not personal gain," Dr. Bera said on his Web
site. "I know things can be different. Together, we can create a more
compassionate, sensible and sustainable America."
One of the election promises of Dr. Bera, a first-generation
American citizen whose parents hail from Gujarat in India, was to "save
Medicare." He was endorsed by former President Bill Clinton and the
Sacramento Bee, the local newspaper.
Other Indian-American candidates were less successful.
Four Indian-Americans Democrats -- Manan Trivedi, Jack Uppal, Syed Taj and Upendra Chivukula -- lost their bid to join Congress. A fifth candidate, Ricky Gill, a small business owner and a Republican, also lost.
Four Indian-Americans Democrats -- Manan Trivedi, Jack Uppal, Syed Taj and Upendra Chivukula -- lost their bid to join Congress. A fifth candidate, Ricky Gill, a small business owner and a Republican, also lost.
In addition to Dr. Bera, Dr. Trivedi and Dr. Taj are also
physicians whose campaign promises included reforming health care. Mr. Uppal
and Mr. Chivukula are engineers.
There was, however, a small win for Indians looking for a
victory.
A young Democrat, Tulsi
Gabbard, became the first Hindu-American on Tuesday to be elected to the
House. The other two Indian Americans who have been elected in the past have
not been Hindu. Dalip Singh Saund was a Sikh and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal
converted to Christianity.
Ms. Gabbard, an Iraq war-veteran, is not of Indian origin but
has a mother who is a Hindu.
"Although there are not very many Hindus in Hawaii, I never
felt discriminated against,'' the New York Daily News quoted
Ms. Gabbard as saying. "I never really gave it a second thought
growing up that any other reality existed, or that it was not the same
everywhere."
The two highest-profile Indian-American politicians are both
Republicans and converts
to Christianity: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was raised a Hindu, while
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was raised a Sikh. There are estimated to be
600,000 to 2.3 million Hindus in the United States, most of them
Indian-Americans.
[The
change became controversial after various political parties played on the fears
of millions of small local shop owners who fear that they will become
irrelevant if stores like Walmart and Carrefour come to India. Politicians with
obsolete ideas, of whom there are many in the country, even invoked an old
Indian fear that is not widely perceived anymore — the ghost of the East India
Company, the British firm that came to trade with India and ended up ruling it.
In October’s festive season, when the effigies of demons were ritually burned,
one of the demons on a street in Kolkata was the effigy of an East India Company
executive with “FDI” (for foreign direct investment) stuck on his chest. ]
By Manu Joseph
NEW
DELHI — On Sunday, thousands of people assembled in Delhi to have a good time
as three earnest but ungifted orators talked about the benefits of “foreign
direct investment” and the other things that will come their way as long as
they are in the care of the government led by the Indian National Congress
party.
The
speakers were Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; the Congress party’s president,
Sonia Gandhi; and her son, Rahul Gandhi, the party’s general
secretary. The rally was intended to be the war cry of the party, which has in
recent times been hit by a string of corruption charges. Reacting to the huge
gathering, Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for human resource development,
tweeted, “The Party fights back.”
It
is not unusual for a political party to stage a rally or for thousands to turn
up, but what is unusual is the way the Congress party has chosen to
rehabilitate its battered image as it prepares for the general elections, which
are scheduled for 2014. On Sunday, the party did not dwell on its standard
claims of loving farmers, of subsidizing lives and of its enduring love for all
religions and castes. Instead, it tried to explain to the masses, a majority of
whom were from rural areas, the importance and the inevitability of long-term
economic measures.
Among
these reforms is the lifting of restrictions on foreign retail chains investing
in India. The government has allowed these companies to own up to 51 percent of
their Indian ventures as long as they comply with certain conditions.
The
change became controversial after various political parties played on the fears
of millions of small local shop owners who fear that they will become
irrelevant if stores like Walmart and Carrefour come to India. Politicians with
obsolete ideas, of whom there are many in the country, even invoked an old
Indian fear that is not widely perceived anymore — the ghost of the East India
Company, the British firm that came to trade with India and ended up ruling it.
In October’s festive season, when the effigies of demons were ritually burned,
one of the demons on a street in Kolkata was the effigy of an East India Company
executive with “FDI” (for foreign direct investment) stuck on his chest.
The
Congress party has been resolute and has withstood all opposition from friends
and foes, which is uncharacteristic. The party has many strengths, but spine
has never been among them. On Sunday, the party told the people that there was
evidence from other countries to suggest that the arrival of retail chains like
Walmart would create more jobs, not deplete them. Several Indian states are set
to open the multibrand retail segment to foreign chains, but some state
governments have said that they will not. India’s federal structure gives every
state the right to reject some of the policies of the central government.
In
his speech on Sunday, Rahul Gandhi said that India’s biggest problem was that
the political system was flawed and that Indian politics did not permit a fair
representation of the “common man.” A majority of Indian politicians,
especially the younger ones in the Congress party, hail from political
families. Mr. Gandhi’s comment is a part of his self-whipping act, as he
himself is the biggest beneficiary of dynastic munificence. He has, at least
once in public, said that he is “the symptom” of the problem. It is not clear
how he plans to save Indian politics from nepotism, but he has evidently
decided to whip himself, as strategy or penance, until he knows the answers.
There
is a touch of martyrdom in his tone and words. He often manages to spin the
privilege of his political ancestry as an inescapable trap of destiny from
which he chooses not to escape because he wants to serve the nation. It is
inevitable that the Congress party’s fight to redeem itself will increasingly
depend on his royalty-like branding.
The
chief tormentors of the party have been the new anti-corruption revolutionaries
and an old political foe, Subramanian Swamy, president of the Janata Party, who
surfaces every now and then with extraordinary allegations of corruption
against the Gandhi family. But there is some comfort for the Congress party.
Its rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party, is a bit worse off.
The
news media have long accused the anti-corruption activists of functioning like
secret mercenaries of the B.J.P. Finally, last month, one of the activists,
Arvind Kejriwal, perhaps in a move to lend himself greater credibility,
produced seeming evidence of corruption against the B.J.P.’s president, Nitin
Gadkari. Since then, the hefty Mr. Gadkari has sunk deeper and deeper into a
political quagmire and the B.J.P.’s leadership has looked disoriented and
confused in its rescue missions. It’s as if the Congress were a grand veteran
who knows how to take serious blows and the B.J.P. an amateur who is easily
rattled.
In
the Congress party’s fight for survival, one of the factors that will assist it
is an old charm: the sense among voters that the other parties are probably
worse.
Manu
Joseph is editor of the Indian newsweekly Open and author of the novel “The
Illicit Happiness of Other People.”
