Click to play videoNew York: Indian-Americans flexed their lobbying muscle in 2006 and 2007 to rally support within the United States for the India-US Civilian Nuclear Deal, and were frustrated to see it stall due to political wrangling in India.
Now that the Manmohan Singh Government has survived, the community is once again gearing up to work with American lawmakers to get the agreement passed before the end of this year.
Community Lobbyist, Swadesh Chatterjee says, "We are meeting in Washington starting next week. People from around the country are convening in Washington on the July 29 and we're going on The Hill, meeting with leaders of the Congress including Foreign Relations Committee, House Relations Committee and Senator Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office, to let them know the first week September, the nuclear agreement is coming back to Congress and how important that is for the Indian-American community."
Theirs is the Washington Chalo campaign but the challenges are many. The US Congress needs to be in session for 30 continuous days before passage of this legislation. But the session beginning in September ends on September 26.
The first objective, therefore, is to get that session extended, or else, to have it passed during the lame duck session at the end of the year.
In an election year, community leaders hope their collective fund-raising ability will impress American lawmakers. But a feeling of being let down by political bickering in India persists.
Another Community Lobbyist, Sant Chatwal says, "It's disappointing because we were hoping the deal will go through in 2007. We had all the lobbying in May 2007 when it was supposed to go through. It's unfortunate that the political situation in India is such and some people did not support the deal because of sheer ignorance. Anybody who is not supporting this deal in India, they don't know what they have to lose."
But the bottomline is that the community has already begun preparations to take the deal forward come September. For this though, the Indian community in US will once again have to prove its lobbying power on Capitol Hill as it pushes hard to get the deal passed by the US Congress during the remaining months of the Bush Administration's tenure.
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