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Modi haunts Silicon Valley

Asian Americans comprise 49.7 per cent of the district’s population of 702,904, of whom 37.8 per cent are of voting age. It is home to (among other worthies) Apple, Intel, Yahoo!, and eBay – all rather overpopulated by Indian Americans. And it is overwhelmingly Democrat. In the fray are two anti-Modi Democrats: Sitting Rep Mike Honda, 72, a charismatic Congressman since 2001 and the bettors’ choice; and Rohit ‘Ro’ Khanna, 37, a charismatic maverick with a huge war chest.

There is also the Republican, Vanila Mathur Singh, 43, an untested anaesthesiologist/clinical associate professor at Stanford. Singh is pro-Modi (or was, until January 29, when she stated her “respect” for “the decisions made by the US State Department”).

She is also a member of the Hindu American Foundation, whose website declares that it’s a “coalition of anti-Hindu academics, Indian Marxist activists, Christian missionaries representing themselves as Dalits”. Singh is backed by an éminence grise, the businessman and backroom player Shalabh Kumar, founder of a ‘SuperPAC’ (political action committee) of the Indian Americans for Freedom and chair of the Indian American Advisory Council of the House Republican Conference. Kumar, who describes his politics as “Reagan Democrat” and calls Modi “my idol” and the “most non-corrupt” politician, had backed South Carolina Governor Nimrata ‘Nikki’ Haley.

Kumar has a one-point programme: To get Modi a US visa. He has the tub-thumping support of the 22 chapters of the Overseas Friends of BJP — USA, whose 25,526 Indians comprise a tiny 0.8 per cent of the metropolitan population. BJP national vice-president Smriti Irani flagged off ‘Mission 2014: BJP 272+’. Three months later, Vanila Mathur Singh announced her intention to run.

By then, Kumar had had a setback. The House Republican Conference chair, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, found her name as an endorsee in his National Indian American Public Policy Institute’s (NIAPPI) promo. It was for a satellite video feed from Modi during an ‘Indian-American meet-up’ inside Capitol Hill in November. Riled, she shot off a ‘cease and desist’ order; 15 other Reps dissociated themselves from Kumar. NIAPPI had no connection with the event, and Modi wasn’t on the programme schedule. It was a big breach: Rodgers had been one of three Reps Kumar had controversially flown to Ahmedabad in March 2013 to meet Modi.

Democrat heft — Honda’s decade of ‘small guy’ goodwill (and $1.2 million) and Khanna’s maverick pep (and $3.2 million) — will probably bury Vanila Mathur Singh (and her $108,201). But as President Barack Obama’s anxiety spikes — as indicated by US Ambassador to India Nancy Powell’s meeting with Modi on February 21, ending a nine-year embargo — so does yarn-spinning by Modi’s supporters. The US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) had lobbied against the 113th Congress’s Resolution 417 (November 18, 2013) that “the House of Representatives shares the opinion of the Department of State... that the Gujarat government has not adequately pursued justice for the victims of religious violence in 2002”. Recently, USINPAC chairman Sanjay Puri stated that “an independent judiciary has exonerated Modi and he has been elected thrice by a majority of 60 million people in his state”.

In the 2012 assembly election, the BJP had polled 47.85 per cent of the 27,164,074 votes in Gujarat. In actuality, the differential was greater: About 28.58 per cent didn’t vote, reducing the BJP’s actual tally to 34.44 per cent, a far cry from a majority.

The paradox is that Modi was blocked by the Bush administration in 2005; today, the Good Old Party wants him in. And Democrats Honda and Khanna want him kept out. The Indian general election in April-May 2014 might soon render the issue academic, though were Modi to win, no US administration can afford to keep him in the outcast company of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al Bashir and Vitaly Zakharchenko, Ukraine’s former minister of the interior.

Kajal Basu is a senior journalist based in Kolkata