India, Indian-Americans, & the 2020 Election
What impact will the 2020 Presidential Election have on Indian-Americans, and U.S.-India ties?
Hi there, I’m Aman Thakker. Welcome to Indialogue, a newsletter analyzing the biggest policy developments in India. The aim of this newsletter is to provide you with quality analysis every week on what’s going on in India.
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India, Indian-Americans, and the U.S. Presidential Election
We are just a few weeks away from the 2020 U.S. Presidential election between President Donald Trump, and former Vice President Joe Biden. It will be an election largely unlike any other - with significant numbers of Americans voting by mail than in person, with results from the election possibly delayed past November 3 due to complications in vote counting logistics due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and with the sitting President calling into question, more than once, whether he would accept the results and participate in a peaceful transition of power.
However, this election also stands out as unique for another reason - the outsize role that the Indian-American community, and to a smaller extent, India, has played in the election. This focus has largely manifested into two broad questions: how might the Indian-American community vote in the 2020 election? And what impact, if any, will the election have on the future trajectory of U.S.-India relations? A recent report by Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, Milan Vaishnav gives us some answers.
The Influence of Indian-American Voters
Indian-Americans comprise less than 1% of total registered voters in the United States. However, beneath this 1%, there are a number of factors at play about why Indian-Americans are being especially courted in 2020. First, Indian-Americans make up the second-largest immigrant community in the United States today (after Mexican-Americans). Indian-Americans are also the richest and most educated immigrant community in the United States, and their numbers have grown rapidly since 2000. This rapid growth, high-income, and high-education status makes the Indian-American community a target for both political parties as potential contributors, supporters, and even candidates.
However, in 2020, the community has emerged even more to the fore. One of the candidates at the top of the ballot - Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris - belongs to the Indian-American community. The Biden campaign has released an “Agenda for the Indian-American Community.” Meanwhile, President Trump and his campaign has made the Indian-American community a key priority since 2016, conducting an event in Edison, New Jersey and issuing an ad with Trump speaking in Hindi. In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Trump’s participation in the 2019 “Howdy, Modi!” rally in Houston was seen as an opportunity to appeal to Indian-American voters.
Survey of How Indian-Americans Will Likely Vote in 2020
The recent survey by Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, Milan Vaishnav finds that stories of an ongoing battle between the political parties to win support from the Indian-American community might be overblown, with Indian-American largely supporting Democrats. They find that 56% of Indian-Americans identify as Democrats, while only 15% identify as Republicans (22% are Independents). However, when registered voters are asked about their choice for President, Joe Biden leads the way with 72% of respondents saying they intend to vote for the former Vice President, and only 22% saying they would vote for the President.
The counter-point to this from supporters of President Trump has been that 2020 will be the year that the support will swing away from Democrats and in favor of Republicans. In part, they argue that this is because of Prime Minister Modi’s high popularity among Indian-Americans, and the President’s efforts to paint himself as close to the Prime Minister. They also point to statements by Democrats on India’s controversies in domestic politics, such as the revocation of Article 370, the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, and the proposal of a National Register of Citizens.
Views of Indian-Americans on U.S.-India Relations
On the former, Badrinathan, Kapur, and Vaishnav find that Modi does rank favorably among Indian-Americans. While 52% Biden voters and 55% Democrats see Modi favorably, 76% of Trump voters and 70% of Republicans see Modi favorably. However, when it comes to closeness with India, the picture gets significantly more complicated.
Indian-Americans have a mixed view of how President Trump has handled U.S.-India relations. 33% respondents generally approve (22% strongly approve, 11% just approve) of the President’s handling of the relationship overall, 37% generally disapprove (25% strongly disapprove, 12% just disapprove).
Moreover, when asked to judge which party’s Presidents have generally managed the U.S.-India relationship better or worse, 39% of respondents agree that the Democrats have done a better job, with 18% supporting Republicans. However, 26% say party makes no difference.
These data points seem to suggest that:
In the 2020 election, Indian-Americans are more likely to vote for the Biden/Harris ticket for President than the Trump/Pence ticket;
Indian-Americans are mixed on whether President Trump has done a good job in handling the U.S.-India relationship; and
Despite arguments that criticisms from Democratic politicians regarding India’s controversial policies, a plurality of Indian-Americans think Democrats tend to do a better job handling U.S.-India relations compared to Republicans.
Impact on Future Trajectory of U.S.-India Relations
However, outside of the domestic political considerations, this election will likely bring little change to the broader trajectory of U.S.-India relations. As Dr. Aparna Pande notes in a recent piece for ThePrint:
Although American politics is deeply polarised, close relations with India enjoys strong bipartisan support. The ties have flourished under Republican President George W. Bush as much as under Democrat Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, a function of geopolitics and the recognition that the US needs a strong India. After all, India is the only country in the world other than China that has a population of more than one billion.
Surely, a Donald Trump administration will have a different approach than a Joe Biden administration. The former will, for example, continue to engage deeply on security cooperation with India, while throwing up road-blocks to cooperation on issues such as trade or immigration. The latter might emphasize human rights and religious freedom in India, but largely continue to see security cooperation with India as an important pillar as it builds upon Trump’s Indo-Pacific construct. What this means, therefore, is that while there may be deviations in policy, the overall strategic approach to India will remain the same.
Therefore, while Indian-Americans may support one party over the other in the 2020 elections, any partisan transfer at the Presidential level within the United States will likely not impact the overall trajectory of U.S.-India relations.
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Event Recommendation: Environmental issues and Water Geopolitics in India
The Young India Policy Forum, a group of young South Asia watchers based in Washington D.C, is hosting a virtual event discussing environmental issues and water geopolitics in India on Thursday, October 22 at 10 am EDT/7:30 PM IST.
The panel of discussants includes:
Omair Ahmad, the managing South Asia editor at The Third Pole, and a political analyst, journalist over the last decade, with a particular focus on the Himalayan region. He is the author of, "The Kingdom at the Centre of the World; Journeys into Bhutan".
Aparna Karthikeyan, is an independent multimedia journalist. She documents the vanishing livelihoods of rural Tamil Nadu and volunteers with the People's Archive of Rural India. She is also the author of Nine Rupees an Hour: Disappearing Livelihoods of Tamil Nadu.
Ambika Vishwanath, the co-founder and director of Kubernein Initiative, an India-based geopolitical advisory group that aims to bridge the gap on issues that require greater intellectual questioning. She has led Track II diplomacy efforts and consulted with several governments and international organizations both in India and around the world.
Please sign up for the event here.
News Roundup
The Ministry of Defense released a joint press release following the 7th round of Senior Commanders meeting of India and China. The release stated that the two sides “had a sincere, in-depth and constructive exchange of views on disengagement along the Line of Actual Control in the Western Sector of India-China border areas” and that “they were of the view that these discussions were positive, constructive and had enhanced understanding of each other’s positions.” However, no breakthrough was announced.
Reports emerged on October 19 that a Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier had been captured near the Demchok sector in Eastern Ladakh. Per an Indian Army statement, the solider - a Corporal - will be returned to Chinese officials.
Dinakar Peri of The Hindu reports that “After years of back and forth & series of deliberations recently,” Australia will be invited to join to trilateral Exercise MALABAR, which is held annually with participation from Japan, India, and the United States. Official confirmation came soon after from the Principal Spokesperson, Ministry of Defence, who said in a press release: “As India seeks to increase cooperation with other counties in the maritime security domain and in light of increased defense cooperation with Australia, Malabar 2020 will see the participation of the Australian Navy.”
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has submitted its monthly summary on progress on Renewable Energy to the Cabinet. In September, the Ministry noted that India had added 435.99 MW of renewable energy, bringing the total installed renewable energy capacity in India to 89.22 GW. The full summary is available here.
Anurag Srivastava, the Official Spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs of India, confirmed during the weekly press briefing that India “will be delivering a kilo class submarine INS Sindhuvir to the Myanmar Navy.”
India’s Commerce Secretary, Dr. Anup Wadhawan, met with his counterpart from Mexico, Vice Minister for Foreign Trade, Ms. Luz María de la Mora, to conduct the fifth meeting of the India-Mexico Bilateral High Level Group on Trade, Investment and Cooperation. The two sides discussed market access for agricultural products, cooperation on intellectual property rights, tourism, people-to-people ties, and a possible Bilateral Investment Treaty. The two sides also announced the signing of two MoUs between industry associations in both countries, aimed at developing business relations.
Following a statement by Dr. Moeed Yusuf, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Pakistan for National Security, that India had expressed a “desire for conversations” with Pakistan in an interview to Karan Thapar of The Wire, Anurag Srivastava, the Official Spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs of India stated that “no such message was sent from our side.”
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar held the first ever Joint Commission Meeting with Chile on October 16, 2020. The meeting served as the “first institutionalized dialogue between the two countries at the level of Foreign Ministers.”
Three to Read
From cogent analysis to potentially big news that you should keep an eye on, here are a few commentaries and other pieces of writing that I found particularly enlightening:
Aakriti Bachhawat, Danielle Cave, and Jocelinn Kang, all from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan and Trisha Ray, from the Observer Research Foundation, have published a new report on India-Australia partnership on critical technologies: “This new report outlines what this new India-Australia technology partnership could look like. It examines the current state of the India–Australia relationship; provides an overview of current technology cooperation and where challenges and roadblocks lie; analyses each state’s competitive and complementary advantages in selected technology areas and highlights opportunities for further collaboration across the areas of 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum technologies, Space technologies and in critical minerals.”
Jeffrey Gettleman and Hari Kumar of The New York Times write: “One of the most common symptoms of severe coronavirus cases is breathing difficulty. And doctors say that if the ambient air suddenly becomes more toxic, as it does every year around this time in northern India, then more people who become infected by the virus might end up in the hospital or die… India is now struggling with two major health challenges that are both assaulting the respiratory system and peaking at the same time. Coronavirus cases are spreading far and wide, putting the country on track to have the largest reported virus caseload in the coming weeks… In the background is India’s vexing air pollution, which shoots up in the fall and winter.”
Two advisors to Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 Presidential Campaign - Amb. Nicholas Burns, professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Anja Manuel, lecturer and research affiliate at Stanford University and director of the Aspen Strategy Group - argue: “During his February 2020 state visit to India, [President Trump] had a series of photo ops but failed to offer a compelling vision of the next steps in what should be one of the most important American global relationships for the decade ahead. The time has come for the U.S. and India to think more ambitiously about the future strategic partnership between the world’s two most important democracies.”
Thanks for reading this latest edition of Indialogue. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or feedback by emailing me at aman@amanthakker.com.