Washington groups jockeying to meet Manmohan Singh

Washington June 07, 2005 1:41:48 PM IST

Washington, June 7 : The Washington elite, which includes policymakers, think tanks and the Indian community, are jockeying to get face time with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his first official to the country July 17-19.

At the same time, India is yet to get into the American public consciousness to ring a positive bell, bringing it out from the pigeonhole of an "outsourcing" giant that the common American worker or "Main Street" America has slotted it into.

It might be a good idea for India's lobbyists to schedule off-the-beaten-path talks for the prime minister - meetings that bring him in touch with the concerns of the American worker, some suggest.

"It's all very well to speak at an esteemed Ivy League insbreastution like Harvard, but it is more effective if done in Washington," one think tank representative said.

Getting a country's topmost leader to speak in its forum is a feather in the cap for any organisation, giving it more credibility, which in turn brings in more funding since private donors are the life-blood of many such insbreastutions.

"At this point negotiations to get him to come are at a very delicate stage," said one organiser not willing to be named or identified with an insbreastution.

"The less said the better. But whether he should speak at a think tank rather than at some university or to the community - I would say - there's another world where you get more publicity and can have a more direct impact."

organisations with distinguished histories, all are in the running having put in their requests with the embbutty and the Indian government. But no one is talking willingly until they get a heads-up in case it jeopardises their request.

And in the run up to the prime minister's visit, talking heads, media, as well as think tanks are revving up their India-related events as are congressional representatives from both parties.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Florida, and Congressman Gary Ackerman, a Democrat from New York, co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, expect a flurry of support from colleagues to their request that Manmohan Singh address a joint session of Congress.

And Rep. Joe Crowley, a Democrat from New Jersey and former co-chair of the Caucus, is organising a June 21 Indian American Policy Day on the Hill, attracting legislators, South Asia experts, and the community, to spend a day discussing "substantive" issues regarding the bilateral relationship.

"A lot of times when Indian Americans come to Washington, it's for some recognition or resolution, but never policy matters. We are trying to put together a sort of round table to discuss the Next Steps in the Strategic Partnership and having people from the Congress, the US Trade Representative, State Department, Defence Department and think tanks," said Gregg Sheiowitz, Rep. Crowley's buttistant in charge of the conference.

But when the top Bush leadership of the likes of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has decided to develop India into a strategic ally, no other addresses to any insbreastution, barring Congress, can have more of an impact.

Though Manmohan Singh is not a stranger to Washington, the cache that prime ministership lends him has sent members of Congress speeding to get clearance for him to address a joint session on the Hill, and South Asia departments are falling over each other to be recognised during the three-day visit.

Yet, it is not such an out of the way idea for the Indian prime minister to meet leaders of the workers' union group AFL-CIO and other grbuttroots organisations that have a different picture of India.

But Washingtonians seldom think outside the beltway.