Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Only a week ago, the US appeared trying to arm-twist India to ape America on a range of issues, including the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad). With India making some deft diplomatic moves, and the burst of Indian-Americans’ sentiments, however, the Biden Administration was almost forced to take a U-turn and announce assistance to India currently battling a killer second wave of Covid-19.
This is the second time the Indian-American community has influenced US foreign policy in a big way. In 2008, they had played a key role in the US-India nuclear deal which brought the two democracies closer than ever before.
The community has again influenced the ruling Democratic Party in the US to change its decision to help India combat a mounting humanitarian crisis. The Biden Administration, which currently has some 35 influential Indian-Americans in key positions, could not say no to them, amid an explosion of anti-American and anti-Western sentiments across social media for denying vaccines to countries like India and Brazil.
Recently, US President Joe Biden had, in a lighter vein, said at a NASA event that the ‘Indian-Americans are taking over the US.”
The US insistence on intellectual property rights (IPR) also came under heavy criticism at a time the pandemic was claiming many lives. Oxfam released a letter signed by over a hundred former heads of state and Nobel Laureates to Biden urging him to waive IPR rules.
Even the US Chamber of Commerce, on Friday last, contesting the “America First” argument of Donald Trump continued by the Biden Administration, asked it to urgently send the vaccines and other aid, warning that ‘no one is safe from the pandemic until we are all safe from it.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sources said, had deployed his trusted lieutenants External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to marshal forces across the West.
In particular, Indian-American lobbyists and other NRIs put pressure on the Biden Administration to immediately send America’s surplus stock of AstraZeneca vaccines to India, reports said. Some formed groups to persuade the US to lift its export embargo on raw materials needed to mass-manufacture Covid-19 vaccines.
According to media reports, Providence-based physician Ashish K. Jha, for instance, made called the US government against hoarding of vaccines. “We are sitting on 35-40 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine Americans will never use. Can we please give or lend them to India? Like maybe now? It’ll help. A lot,” Jha said.
Queens-based journalist S. Mitra Kalita said: “America: vaccines available for all, extra doses here there everywhere, selfies of joy and reunions … AND India: friends and family begging for beds and oxygen and prayers, hoping they live to dose 1 or 2,” she tweeted.
International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Chief Economist Gita Gopinath commented: “Deeply disturbed by the exploding health crisis in India. So many of my family, friends, and colleagues grappling with this second wave.”
Some even expressed disappointment with US Vice President Kamala Harris’ silence, whose Indian-origin credentials the Indian-Americans had celebrated during her campaign only in 2020.
What infuriated the Indian-Americans most was the crass behavior of State Department spokesman Ned Price last week. On April 16, Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawala had tweeted to US President Joe Biden, requesting him to “lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the U.S. so that vaccine production can ramp up.” In response, Price stressed the need for fully vaccinating Americans first.
With pressure mounting from within and without, the Biden Administration did a U-turn on Sunday and announced all possible assistance to India. Indian NSA Ajit Doval and his US counterpart Jack Sullivan underlined Ned Price’s “insensitivity”. Modi also spoke to Biden on the telephone.
The Indian-Americans, who coined the slogan “Indians for India”, also reminded the US that India had sent America hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) tablets last year when Covid-19’s first wave surged there.
According to a report by Duke Global Health Innovation Centre, America will have an oversupply of nearly 300 million vaccine doses by July 2021, at a time when countries like India and Brazil urgently need these shots.
