Consul General Pradhan welcomes Rep. Tom Suozzi to the India Caucus; Suozzi confers Congressional Award to Varinder Bhalla

New York: Congressman Thomas Suozzi (Democrat, NY) announced that he was joining the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans.

Suozzi was speaking in the presence of Consul General Binaya Srikanta Pradhan and other community leaders at an event hosted by Varinder and Ratna Bhalla at their residence.

Suozzi also honored Bhalla with Congressional Award  for his four decades of service to the community in the US and India, noting that he has known Bhalla since the 1990s. 

Bhalla thanked the Congressman for the unique honor consisting of a US Flag flown over the US Capitol  and  a citation from Rep. Suozzi.

In his acceptance remarks, Bhalla acknowledged the support of his wife. “All my efforts and accomplishments in community service have been profoundly supported and sustained by someone very special in my life, my wife, Ratna Bhalla.”

Rep. Suozzi also  welcomed Consul General Pradhan to New York and promised him a wonderful experience here.

Speaking of the community, Suozzi said, “There's such incredible talent in this room alone. In the US, 60 percent do not have a degree from a college, while most Indian Americans graduate from college. A lot of Indians move to Long Island for the better schools there.”

He said he was optimistic about relations between the United States and India, describing it as  most important for the next 50 years. He said that while there was a strong partisan divide in the US, he focuses on getting both sides to work together on the relationship.

“India is going to play a major role in international affairs. It has kind of been in the middle, not only geographically, but certainly in some of the way it's conducted itself,” Suozzi said. He said US-India ties would push both democracy and the idea of free markets in the world.

“I'm excited to work on enhancing that relationship and will do everything that I can to try and build [it],” he said. “The India Caucus will be a part of that. I'm actually officially joined the India Caucus, and I will work to get more people.”

Suozzi also harked back to the racism the community has faced – from ‘dot busters’ in the 90s, and discrimination against Sikhs, among others. He said that many people worked to stem the racism and take the community to its present level.

Consul General Pradhan said he was not aware of the political participation of the Indian Americans, till he arrived in the US earlier this year.

“But when we started seeing Indian Americans playing well in the politics of this country, we started noticing it,” he said. “I could find many who are in the state assemblies or state senates. When Rep. Suozzi got elected, the Indian media headlined it, saying a friend of India got elected to Congress.”

He said the US-India relationship and the growth of the Indian community are intertwined, not being limited to government engagement or business-to-business engagement.

Pradhan pointed out that of the 2.5 million Indian Americans in the country, 45 percent live under the New York consulate’s jurisdiction.

“Thousands of Indian students come to the US and we can estimate at least $20 billion is spent by them here,” he said. “The government expects the consulates to perform on three ‘T’s, trade, technology and tourism. In the case of the United States, we are given a fourth ‘T,’ which is talent. We work on getting talent.”
Pradhan pointed out that trade between India and the US that was worth about $4 billion three decades ago is worth around $200 billion now, indicating a growing relationship.

“We are now cooperating on critical technologies like space exploration, AI, etc,” he said.

He narrated how an expensive IIT campus was established in Tanzania, where he was high commissioner there. Samia Suluhu Hassan, the Tanzanian president, pointed out to the success of the Indian Americans, who came from IITs and wanted to replicate it in Africa too. She had been impressed after seeing a BBC documentary that described the origins of Indian American tech CEOs.

Dr. Thomas Abraham, chairman of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO), described the origins of the India Caucus.

Though Dilip Singh Saund became the first Congressman of Indian origin in 1957, after his death in 1963, there was no Indian American representation in the US Congress till Bobby Jindal served from 2005 to 2008. But the Indian American community still sowed the seeds for a Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans as early as 1993. A full-fledged caucus was set up a few years later with more than 200 members. NJ Democratic Congressman Frank Pallone and Florida Republican Congressman Bill McCollum were the co-chairs. Gary Ackerman and Jim Greenwood became co-chairs in 2000, Jim McDermott and Ed Royce in 2002, and Joseph Crawley and Joe Wilson in 2004.

Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas and New York Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton set up the Senate India Caucus in 2004.

“I was present at the launch at Capitol Hill. It was the first time a country focused caucus was established in the Senate,” Abraham said.

The event was attended, among others, by Padma Shri awardees Dr. Sudhir Parekh and Dr. Dattathreyudu Nori. Other attendees included Rajeev Bhambri and Gary Sikka.