New Delhi/Washington:
Anu Anand Hall will not be in Orange County, Florida, on election day on November 6. But this second generation Indian American will cast her vote through an absentee ballot in what she describes as a crucial election.
Instead of being at a polling station, Anu will be alone in her study in New Delhi when she votes, wading through amendments, through the names of various candidates for local, state and national level posts.
An increasing number of Indian-Americans want to have a say in community affairs and to be politically active.
The ballot lists Sridhar Sri Rangaswamy as a candidate for soil and water conservation and Rick Singh as a candidate for property appraiser of district 5, Orange County; both local posts.
Anu searches for information about them on the internet and finds a website devoted to Rick Singh's campaign. There's also a photograph of him with his family.
"He is an Indian with an all American family," she exclaims. "There is a dog with them and they are happily looking straight into the camera. Its' a very American trait; to make eye contact, shake hands and have big smiles. Even his name, Rick Singh, is changed slightly. It's what all immigrants do to fit in the place and it's good they should be involved in the local community in Florida. The property market has collapsed and has caused so much problem for so many families. And these are all important issues. My parents live in this community and there are a lot of business owners who are Indian Americans in that particular small community. It's quite an important constituency."
Before competing for the big posts, Indian-American candidates need to have small victories. At the same time assimilation into society and getting support from the mainstream is critical.
"I think the fact that you see Indian-Americans in office, active politically in campaigns, expressing a lot of political opinion, it shows you that the community as a whole has moved beyond landing in America, trying to find that job, getting to grips with the whole language and a system, moving beyond survival and moving into actually being a part of the American community," says Anu.
Expectations are high. A record number of Indian-Americans have run for public office in the US this year.
Apart from the crucial presidential elections, also on the ballot this time are the polls for the 435 member House of representatives of the US Congress.
Of the 13 Indian American candidates, six are left in the race for the Congress after the primaries. Five are Democratic Party candidates. They are Upendra Chivukula from New Jersey, Ami Bera and Jack Uppal from California, Manan Trivedi from Pennsylvania and Syed Taj from Michigan. The sixth is Ranjit Ricky Gill, who at 25, is described as a rising Republican star. Both first generation and second generation immigrants, who volunteered for local political campaigns, served in state legislatures or worked on Capitol Hill.
So far only two Indian-Americans have been elected to the US House of Representatives. Dalip Singh Saund was the first in the 1950s, while Bobby Jindal, now the Louisiana Governor, was the second.
Indian-Americans, who have been so successful in fields like business, medicine and law, have been underrepresented politically in the US. Clearly Indian-Americans have been lagging behind when it comes to politics, underestimating the impact they can have within the political system
Second generation Indian-Americans say the participation in different levels of the political spectrum is a fairly recent phenomenon.
Washington DC is a city that attracts young people. Not the least because of the government jobs available despite unemployment elsewhere in the economy. 25-year-old Saptarshi Basu, a Cornell graduate, is working on trade issues at the economics bureau of the Department of State. Basu feels the absence of a strong political and social coalition of Indian Americans.
"What the Indian community lacks is a group in Washington that has policies and drives policies and has the ear of certain key people."
Jigar Bhatt, a PhD candidate at Columbia University, says, "There is a group called SAALT, South Asian Americans Leading Together, that's trying to bring about political awareness among the South-Asian-American community here about issues that affect them directly, like around the Patriot act, immigration reforms. I think my generation, those who are in their early thirties, are becoming active. It is realising that we have a stake in the politics here. The policies will affect us and our children. So I think that awareness is growing but its growing slowly."
"I don't find too many Indian Americans working in government or policy and when you do, I feel that it's generally more on the finance side. So you would find them more in places like the World Bank than at the government. I feel that it's an issue of demographics. I feel that a lot of parents came like my parents came. When they came in they went to more traditional fields that were more comfortable to find a job. Like medicine, finance and banking. But because they have laid the groundwork, the later generation has been able to pursue other subjects than what Indian Americans were traditionally pursuing," adds Saptarshi Basu.
The diversity of occupational fields not only makes Indian-Americans more visible, it helps the community gain their voice on issues faced by them.
Jigar Bhatt feels South Asians need to become more aware of the history of slavery. "What happened during the Civil War, of the types of urban and suburban institutions that have grown out of America's history. Because in many ways they continue to shape our lives today. A lot of South Asians are business owners and they become very concerned about things like tax policy and very much around smaller income based policies and I think it needs to be broader. I think there needs to be greater social participation and a lot of that can come from understanding our political history and cultural history of America in more depth," he says.
For Saptarshi Basu, Indian-Americans need to raise the issues important to them. "You are talking about immigration, but you are not talking about Indian American immigration. When Indian-Americans face harassment by white Americans or local Americans here, you would like to see those as being more publicised, more action being taken. The Latin community here is a very good model here as they sprint to action immediately and become more visible as a minority."
25-year-old Nisha Singh, who works with an international NGO in Washington, however, approaches politics not so much as an Indian-American, but as a woman and a young adult. She says the elections will decide how the US will face it biggest crisis - the financial collapse. She says the distance between the one per cent wealthiest Americans and the bottom 99 per cent who do not have jobs, education and healthcare is getting bigger
"First of all, so many people have been left out of the discussion. Not only that, it's so easy to become discouraged by that. Especially for us, in the past couple of years, the big voice speaking against it has been the Occupy movement and now speaking from a perspective of 99 per cent versus one per cent and recognising that there is this concentrated power in America not only in terms of the voices heard but also in terms of the concentration of finances. Also in terms of looking for a job, we are extremely privileged because we are choosing something that interests us, but then it's easy to forget that around the country there are people who can't get jobs because of these deeper rooted problems concerning education. The people in DC really have a view about it. I am just hoping that especially among our generation, we come out and speak about that and develop amongst ourselves a different culture," she says.
There's a transformational change in the Indian American identity. First generation immigrants like Parthasarathy and Ann Pillai have contributed to the evolution by their activism in organisations like the National Federation of Indian Americans
They recall how they were once seen as foreigners, subjected to assaults for wearing saris and
bindis.
Now they have moved to being a legitimate minority.
Businessman Ramesh Butani, who is a former television presenter, was one of the first to make Indian-American faces and views familiar to viewers.
His show,
Darshan, started in 1987 and was telecast on MHZ Networks in Washington for 25 years.
"Washington Post, New York Times always referred to Indian Americans or Indians as snake charmers and in New York because a lot of people were driving taxis. There was not a very good explanation of whom we were and where did we come from. So I thought it was a great opportunity for us to bring in nothing but brown faces on TV and giving their story. Every time somebody came in, I first asked where you are from and how did he get here?" he says.
Indian-Americans are one of the most educated and affluent immigrant groups in the US, according to studies conducted by the Pew Research Centre. Today their numbers have reached more than 3 million. Political parties can no longer ignore them.
Darshan featured successful Indians like Vivek Kundra, who was Obama's chief information officer and a political appointee. The Obama Administration has more Indian Americans in senior positions than ever before.Take for instance Rajiv Shah, head of USAID, and Aneesh Chopra, the First Chief Technology Officer. In July Chopra left the White House and launched his campaign for the post of Lieutenant Governor of Virginia.Chopra is now attempting to translate his potential into political power.
The inspiration for many Indian American candidates comes from the amazing success of Bobby Jindal, Governor of Lousiana and Nikki Haley, Governor of South Carolina, who are from the Republican Party. They converted from Hinduism and Sikhism to Christianity, though the reasons are not known.
According to journalist and blogger Anu Anand Hall, "I imagine that them being Christian, going to churches, just means that on a sort of practical level their participation in the political system has just speeded up. Churches are involved in a lot of activities in the community and so you tend to kind of become more well-known, more connected to the grassroot level."
There is also complexity in the fact that despite the significance of their victory, many do not see Jindal and Haley as champions of the Indian American community. The reason: Indian Americans are a small constituency and comprise only one per cent of the voters nationally.
But there is hope that this will change when there are more Indian Americans in public office.
Manoj Singh, a software entrepreneur, says, "Because the more voice you have in decision-making, in policy-making, they will take into consideration Indian issues, Indian cultural issues.
Like a lot of Indians have issues when they are trying to pursue the medical exams and getting the residency, they feel discriminated."
His wife Sangeeta Singh, who is a banker, adds: "In California, which is very heavy in IT, there are a lot of Indian-owned companies which have mushroomed because of government contracting. It's become a huge market and having more representation is going to help that and support that market. They are funding a lot of Indian representatives. They are funding their campaigns because it creates a lobby for them too. They get a lot of Indian employees so there are visa issues and all those kinds of things too."
Studies show that a majority of Indian Americans are Democrats, but as their earnings increase they veer towards the Republican Party because of its policies of tax cuts. Clinical psychologist and professor Shambu Banik, a staunch Republican, is among the first Indian Americans to have held a high post in George Bush senior's administration. He says he worked to address issues important to Indian Americans.
"First issue is immigration. Those that come here, they want to bring their brothers, sisters and parents here. Second is education. There should not be any discrimination against Indian Americans who want to get admitted to the best universities here. There is a question of discrimination. There are many misconceptions. After 9/11, some ignorant people thought that Sikhs, that is those who wear turbans, are Talibanis or Muslims and they got harassed. So I worked very hard to address that. I worked with Congressmen, Senators to make a law so that these people don't get discriminated," he says
Banik also hopes that the way there are Jewish holidays in the US, Hindu holidays too will be observed. And they would not have to celebrate festivals like Durga puja and Diwali on weekends.
"Twenty-five years ago, if you would ask for fund raising, it would be difficult to collect five thousand dollars from Indian Americans. Now you can easily collect 40 to 50 thousand dollars. We have got very large number of wealthy families and people who have done well in information technology, in hotel and motel business, in business itself. They are multi-millionaires," he adds.
There is a new political activism. Dr Tushar Patel from New Jersey is currently in Washington on an assignment. He misses the dense and unified Indian American community of New Jersey. He wants to connect the second and third generation to issues important to Indian Americans and to India and plays an active role in organising the World Gujarati Conference.
Dr Patel says, "People are getting more involved. Like in South Brunswick we have Deven Patel, who got elected into the board of education last year. So we want to bring in some people in the local government, move them in the state government and move them up into the federal government. In New Jersey we have a lot of fundraising activities going on. It does not matter whether it is for Democrat or Republican or both sides, a lot of people are involved in organising the fundraiser for the governor, for the president. Our voice needs to be heard, our concerns. Discrimination I think is the biggest issue at some places."
While none of the presidential candidates have reached out to the Indian-American community in a very visible way so far, the cohesion of the community is continuing to grow. Whether the Indian American candidates win or lose, they are on a leadership track.
Indians in America will play a major role in shaping the new relationship between India and the US.