The rise of the Indian lobby

Joshua Kurlantzick has an interesting essay in The New Republic on the growth of Indian-Americans as a politically influential interest group, to be wooed by Democrats and Republicans alike. [So why is this filed under the outsourcing category?–ed.] Apparently, the Democratic rhetoric on offshoring have hampered their efforts to woo this bloc of voters. The good parts version of the article:

Indian Americans have long had the resources to compete in politics. The nation’s wealthiest ethnic group, with a median family income over $60,000, its population doubled between 1990 and 2000, to 1.7 million, and is likely to double again by 2010. They are also among the best-educated groups in the country. Yet only in the past four years has the Indian community become more politically active. The first generation of Indians to come to the U.S., in the 1960s and 1970s, was made up primarily of doctors, engineers, and other science workers–U.S. policies at the time favored immigrants with science skills–and was interested primarily in building families and earning a living. Indeed, before 2000 only four Indian Americans had held office on a state or national level, and only one Indian American had ever been elected to Congress. But since 2000, all that has begun to change. The war on terror contributed to a rise in hate crimes against brown-skinned and turban-wearing Americans, and that has galvanized many Indian Americans to become more politically involved. The White House’s increasing chumminess with Pakistan–the administration recently decided to name Islamabad a “major non-NATO ally”–added to the sense of political urgency among Indian Americans. And most important, the recent furor over information technology offshoring, much of it to India, has sparked fears of a rise in anti-Indian sentiment, further convincing many Indian Americans of the need to organize. In March, Christopher Dumm, executive director of the Indian American Center for Political Awareness, told the Financial Times, “There is fear about a possible backlash that could mean discrimination at work, xenophobic rhetoric, or even violence.”…. Democrats already have an advantage, as the Indian-American community, like other Asian-American groups, has traditionally backed liberal positions on immigration and other social issues. To do so, Democrats must first tone down their rhetoric on outsourcing, which has become perhaps the most important issue to many Indian Americans. Unfortunately, John Kerry and others show little sign of abandoning the issue. Shared Lakhanpal, head of the Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin, told Far Eastern Economic Review that many Indian Americans were moving to the GOP because Bush is “not bashing India for outsourcing like Kerry is doing.”

All that’s left is for Pat Choate — you know, the 1996 Reform Party candidate for vice president — to write his follow-up to Agents of Influence, which was about how the Japanese were lobbying to take over the U.S.