[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 13 (Thursday, February 10, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                  PAY INDIA THE ATTENTION IT DESERVES

                                 ______


                          HON. ELIOT L. ENGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 10, 1994

  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, an important economic transformation is 
underway in India. During the past 3 years, the Government of the 
world's largest democracy has opened its doors to direct foreign 
investment, made its currency convertible, allowed foreign 
participation on its stock exchanges, and has begun to privatize 
government entities. As a result, American businesses are investing 
heavily in the second largest middle-class market in the world. In the 
first 6 months of last year, more than $1 billion were invested in 
India. India now conducts more trade with the United States than any 
other country.
  While our two countries excel economically, our diplomatic 
relationship lags behind. As of today, America has still not nominated 
an ambassador to New Delhi. And, the administration, unlike our 
European counterparts, has not sent an official above the level of 
assistant secretary to visit the subcontinent.
  Commenting on this, Washington Post reporter Mary McGrory recently 
wrote a column entitled ``Treating India Undiplomatically.'' In the 
article, she discusses problems developing in the United States-India 
relationship due to the lack of attention paid to India by our foreign 
policy establishment. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Foreign Affairs 
Committee and the Indian Affairs Caucus, I believe that the time has 
come for the State Department and the administration to wake up. We 
must pay India the respect it is due.

                       [From the Washington Post]

                    Treating India Undiplomatically

                           (By Mary McGrory)

       India is fuming at the Clinton administration. The world's 
     largest democracy has been without a U.S. ambassador for the 
     better part of a year and the prospects for getting one soon 
     are not brilliant.
       The Indian ambassador to the United States, Siddhartha 
     Shankar Ray, points out that his country thought it had 
     become what the Clinton foreign policy was all about, a 
     democracy with a free market. Relations between the United 
     States and India were strained throughout the Cold War, when 
     Washington found New Delhi's self-righteous neutrality 
     maddening and its state-run economy hard to deal with.
       But India has changed. In July 1991 it opened its markets. 
     More than 600 U.S.-Indian corporate joint ventures are in 
     progress. We have become India's largest trading partner. 
     India admitted error in human rights, established a 
     commissioner for human rights and, in the United Nations, has 
     sponsored with us a resolution for a worldwide commissioner 
     for human rights. Once, the United States was resigned to 
     lectures from the Indians in the United Nations. Now they 
     vote with us almost all the time, but Washington seems not to 
     have noticed.
       ``We expected the greatest democracy would look at our 
     country with different eyes,'' said Ray.
       Instead, the Indians are finding out that George Bush 
     treated them better. At least he sent his trade 
     representative, Carla Hills, to visit New Delhi.
       Under President Clinton, Washington has so far declined to 
     add to the procession of notables shepherding high-level 
     trade delegations to India. British Prime Minister John Major 
     led off with a large group of businessmen last January; Boris 
     Yeltsin of Russia, Helmut Kohl of Germany and Mary Robinson, 
     president of Ireland, followed. China, Spain and France all 
     showed up with stars. We never got higher than an assistant 
     secretary of state.
       Commerce Secretary Ron Brown observed last week that we 
     should pay ``much more attention'' to India.
       India was delighted when Bush chose Thomas R. Pickering as 
     ambassador. A high profile career diplomat, he served for 
     several months before Clinton yanked him off to our Moscow 
     embassy. The Indians regard this as squandering because of 
     the general opinion that Strobe Talbott, the expert on Russia 
     who has been nominated to be deputy secretary of state, is 
     the de facto ambassador to Russia anyway.
       Clinton's next choice was Stephen J. Solarz, who for years 
     dreamed of being secretary of state. He is a former 
     Democratic congressman from New York noted for his brains and 
     his withering comments on those less endowed. Many colleagues 
     were awed by his grasp of foreign affairs; others found him 
     too clever by half and hated his noisy pro-gulf war stand in 
     the face of Democratic opposition.
       Clinton designated Solarz last March. He owed him. Solarz 
     was an early Clinton fan; on the darkest day of the 
     presidential primary campaign, the day of the Gennifer 
     Flowers news conference, Solarz called campaign headquarters 
     and announced he was having a news conference in New York to 
     defend Clinton.
       Solarz had his own problems. He was one of the top 10 
     writers of checking account overdrafts at the House Bank. He 
     also helped a Hong Kong businessman who had criminal ties. 
     Reportedly he was cleared of all allegations and can now be 
     formally nominated, but no paper on him ever went to the 
     Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has been trying to 
     rally support.
       The Indians would be perfectly happy to have Solarz. They 
     just want the administration to acknowledge their existence, 
     to counter the impression, stated by embassy spokesman 
     Nirupama Rao, ``that India has dropped of the map.''
       That feeling has been exacerbated by two letters recently 
     emanating from Clinton that revealed considerable ignorance 
     of recent developments and caused a furor in the Indian press 
     and complaints about ``meddling.''
       The first was addressed to a paid lobbyist for a Kashmiri 
     separatist group. Ray wrote a stiff letter to the State 
     Department: ``It is disconcerting to see that an individual 
     who is in the forefront of the campaign for dismembering 
     India should seemingly receive recognition and encouragement 
     from the highest political authority in the U.S.''
       The second was to a California congressman complaining 
     about conditions in Punjab, which, thanks to several local 
     elections, have improved to the point where the Sikh police 
     chief, K.P.S. Gill, defended the government's treatment of 
     the Sikhs. This letter particularly irritated Ray, who was 
     governor of Punjab for four years.
       These misunderstandings, he said, leave Indians feeling 
     ``hurt, bewildered and worried,'' and make the naming of a 
     U.S. envoy ``absolutely imperative.''

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