Political India: Engaging America

Timothy J. Roemer, nominated by President Barack Obama as the 21st U.S. Ambassador to India, presented his credentials to President Pratibha Patil on August 11, 2009. Acting on the advice of Mr. Obama to get out of New Delhi to meet Indians all around the country, the former six-term Congressman and former president of the Center for National Policy in Washington D.C. visited Chennai in September for a packed schedule of meetings. Dr. Roemer addressed a range of bilateral, U.S. policy, and international issues while fielding questions during a one-hour interactive editorial meeting at The Hindu on September 24.

Shyam Ranganathan and Narayan Lakshman present an edited excerpt from the conversation (the full text is available at The Hindu's beta website):

Strategic cooperation

When President Obama asked me to serve in this role, he said this is not only one of the most important relationships in the world, it will be one of the best relationships in the world. The President, like the Secretary of State, meant this not only on bilateral issues such as the civilian nuclear deal that was passed by both our respective legislatures and approved by the executive branches, but now moving from one very important issue to five extremely important issues of bilateral, regional and global consequences.

Five pillars

We have a common threat with radical extremism emanating from different parts of the world particularly from al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Lashkar-e-Toiba. And both India and the United States identify this common threat. After the attacks of 9/11 and after the Mumbai attacks, we are working together at unprecedented levels to share intelligence, to assess our strategic interests, to better train our personnel, to send delegations of people back and forth between the United States and India in a joint way so we learn from India and that India learns from the United States.

There are also areas that are extremely important on climate and energy security issues that the two countries can work on. I think both countries see it in their strategic interest to lessen their dependence on oil, on imported oil, and broaden their alternatives, co-operate more on technology and science, improve their energy efficiency and their conservation, look for new markets so their entrepreneurs can raise money to create new jobs respectively in the United States and in India. This is a very exciting and important part of this partnership moving forward.

There are also areas of development, education, healthcare, that are extremely important to the two countries. There are also issues of strategic cooperation on agriculture and something that was referred to in the 1960s as the Green Revolution. The last one I would mention would be economics, trade and investment opportunities. The United States and India look for more partnerships moving forward that benefit both the United States and India in this global economy.

Public diplomacy

This President of ours thinks in broad and big and ambitious terms. That is why he wants to take this relationship from the civilian nuclear deal to five strategic partnerships. He expects me to meet as many people as I can. Public diplomacy is a vital goal for the President of the United States. It is for me to meet everyday Indians to see what families are experiencing, to see how we can listen and learn, to see how we can improve the people-to-people ties because of course it is the people-to-people ties that have been leading this relationship over the last few decades. 95,000 Indian students are in American schools. We have several million Indians engaged and active in the American community. We have very intimate business-to-business ties.

This relationship is very positive and on a trajectory going up in extremely optimistic ways. When Presidents and Prime Ministers get along so well, when you have these great people-to-people ties, when you have a strategic vision, an ambitious vision of five new dialogues and pillars to move this relationship forward, that bodes extremely well for our relationship going forward.

Change and continuity in the Obama administration

A lot of credit must go to the Republican Party, to the Democratic Party, to President Clinton, to President Bush, to governments here in India, to the BJP party, to the Congress party, to Mr. Vajpayee, to Prime Minister Singh, to the people-to-people ties. This is a relationship that is constant, that is continuous, that is forged on historic ties, that are people-to-people, business-to-business, and government-to-government at many levels. The continuity is a strength of the relationship.

I think that change is also a harbinger of an Obama administration and Secretary Clinton’s leadership style that wants to do big, bold agendas and believes that we can do several things at the same time – that we can expand on the success of the civilian nuclear deal that expanded the confidence and trust between our two governments. That provided essential steps forward in our relationship – jobs in America, opportunities for increased electricity and power, and life-changing results for people in rural communities that desperately need access to electricity.

This is a great foundation to build on, but now we have more pillars, more great things to accomplish together not only in the bilateral relationship. With India’s emergence as a leading regional and global player, there are many opportunities to forge these relationships for India to lead on globally – proliferation and disarmament issues, energy security issues, green revolution issues, education reform issues, security issues leading the way to cooperate against the regional and global threats like the al-Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Toiba. So there is both continuity and change in this relationship. Both are statements of the stability in the relationship. But the change also challenges both countries to do bigger and broader things together on a global stage.

Trade policy

The President is very cognisant of the fact that free and fair trade helps grow our economy at home. It will be a fundamental goal for me as United States Ambassador here to strengthen the trade, investment, and economic opportunities between our two countries. That has been on a trajectory upwards.

The President recognises that helping our businesses get access to new markets is absolutely essential for future economic growth and continuing to pull out of this (as it’s called in America) Great Recession. The President talked very eloquently in the campaign about creating new jobs, green collar jobs, and creating new markets for those green collar jobs. Hybrid cars, new batteries, solar power, geo-thermal power, alternative technologies, clean coal technologies and finding ways to exchange these technologies, trade these technologies, sell these technologies with other global players.

When he became President, several of his initiatives passed through Congress. The stimulus bill contained tens of billions of dollars for alternative energy investments to follow through on his pledge to create green collar jobs, to look for more opportunities in the United States and globally. In some subsequent legislation, not just in the stimulus bill but in the pending bill on energy that is in the U.S. Senate now, he has got billions of dollars of additional money for new investment opportunities in the energy sector. So he has committed his words, his eloquence to this issue, but he has also committed his political capital and achieved much in these areas legislatively.

Civilian nuclear cooperation

We are certainly very pleased with the progress attained in this historic deal and in this relationship on the civilian nuclear partnership. There are however some key legacy issues to complete. It is extremely important to the Obama administration that we try to do these as soon as possible — for India’s interests and also for the United States of America’s interests. This means commitment and fulfillment of an agreement, jobs for Americans, and electricity and changing people’s lives in India.

There are issues such as the public announcement of the two reactor sites for the United States and the two States that they will be located in. We are waiting for the Indian government to publicly announce that.

We are working closely with the Indian government on all these issues but also on the declaration of safeguarded facilities with the IAEA. We think there is great progress being made there. We hope to get that over the finish line. There is needed liability legislation passed through Parliament in India. We are hopeful that it will be completed in time for the Prime Minister’s visit in November. And then there is the issue on licensing that we still have to complete.

U.S. companies are very anxious and excited to have this completed. I can also assure you that at the highest levels of the United States government this is an extremely important and vital priority. It just so happens out of the four or five remaining legacy issues, almost every one of them is in the court of the Indian government.

Climate change: resources committed

The President has committed not only money and resources to climate change, but also his energy bill and his stimulus bill, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. He has committed people to it. When the President took office he appointed people like Carol Browner and Lisa Jackson — Carol Browner, in the White House to help strategise on climate change and energy security issues, who served in the Clinton administration. Lisa Jackson is in charge of the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] — somebody at the state level who has put climate and energy issues at the front and centre of her career.

He has a Vice-President who is firmly committed to these issues and an Energy Secretary too, who has brought great expertise from the National Labs to the energy and climate change issues. In Congress he has allies — in the Senate and in the House — people like Barbara Boxer and Howard Berrman, key strategists throughout the legislative branch who are working hard, supporting his legislation and his initiatives.

So from the level of money and resources to the level of personnel and time in the White House, to people who are helping him and partnering with him in the legislative area, there is a great deal of commitment to this climate issue. We hope that is contagious. We hope key players like India will also look at some of the challenges in their country.

We have made mistakes on this issue in our history. So I think rather than following some of our example on this, our two countries must work together for innovative, new solutions – reforestation programmes, planting new trees to form the sink to absorb some of the carbon emissions, alternative energy sources, science and technology partnerships, global partnerships with India and other countries. I think this is key.

Action on terrorism

You have to remember that about two months after 9/11 took place, a man by the name of Osama Bin Laden said it was not 19 Arab armies or 19 Arab tanks that attacked the U.S. — it was 19 postgraduate students! He was saying it’s a different world; that the transnational threats are very real, and it’s not just the nation state that can be a threat. It could be a cell of terrorists being trained somewhere north of here, coming in and attacking in Mumbai. It can be a cell of people training in Afghanistan and going into New York City. It can be a cyber security or computer threat. It can be a healthcare threat.

In almost every press conference I have had in my short tenure here, I have underscored the importance of the U.S. and India working together to confront this common global threat. Encouraging the government of Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of the bloodthirsty attacks in Mumbai to justice is absolutely key.

The U.S. government is completely devoted to going after people who are threatening our allies, like India, and killing Americans. That needs to be urgent, timely and comprehensive, on the part of the Pakistan government — to implement the sentences on these six people they now have on trial. I would also take it a step further than you have and say that people like Hafiz Sayeed, who are on the Interpol Red Notice List, who are on the UN 1267 Resolution, who have long been on lists in the U.S., need to be brought to justice.

Finally, the third point, which is absolutely vital for our moving forward and successfully taking on this common threat, is to help dismantle the infrastructure of LeT [Lashkar-e-Toiba], who have become a regional threat, not just a threat to India, but a player in terrorism and destruction in this entire region.

Those are three extremely important issues. At the same time we talk about national security issue, it is vitally important for the U.S. and India to talk about the economic issues, the education issues, the alleviation of poverty issues, where 650 million people in India live on less than $2 a day, the public diplomacy issues that the President has tasked me with – getting out and meeting people, broadening and deepening this relationship. It’s not just only about national security but about economic security, development security, energy security — that’s where this relationship really has the ability to grow.

Teach for America and India

I had a very productive, interesting, and expansive discussion with your new Minister of Human Resources and Education, Kapil Sibal. We talked about the opportunities for moving forward on higher education and legislation that, I think, is soon to be introduced. Hopefully this is legislation that might allow these partnerships to grow and prosper in the future, between American universities and Indian universities, that would guarantee a sound curriculum, good faculty, good partnerships.

The Teach for America idea, originated by Wendy Kopp in America, where we now go out in America and try to recruit some of our best and brightest to teach under some of the most difficult circumstances in inner city schools and rural schools, where it is hard to place teachers in American schools – how might we replicate that in India?

There is a Teach for India programme – how might that be scaled up to get more and more teachers into the communities? I heard from people in the Indian community in this Round Table that they are concerned that we need more and more people going into the teaching profession in India.

Quality and access in education

Access to education in America is broad, wide, and expansive. Whether you are living on a native American Indian reservation, whether you are in an inner city school, whether you are a disabled student, you have access to public education in America.

We worked on this bill called “No Child Left Behind.” We were able to pass that legislation with bipartisan support. There were two fundamentally important goals.

One, we said in a global economy it is absolutely essential that when you are passed from the sixth grade to the seventh grade or out of high school, there need to be specific goals and curricula and standards you have attained. It does not do anybody any good, whether you be poor or disadvantaged, or rich and advantaged, to be passing somebody through school but they cannot read at the right level, or they do not have the right sense of history, or they haven’t attained the goals of the technical training and drafting or an animation that it required, the computer skills.

So we set strict standards in this legislation saying you need to be able to attain certain goals going from one grade to the next. A diploma will mean something and you have to earn this in this 21st century global economy, which is so competitive.

Secondly, we said that we need to continue to be able to recruit, train and promote the best teachers in the world. If you are teaching students physics, you should be certified in physics. If you are teaching English you should be certified in English and have a broad background in Shakespeare and Byron and the great writers of the world rather than be trained in a different area. So we insisted on certain goals being reached on teacher training and teacher qualifications.

I think both of those goals try to get to this issue: with a vast opportunity of access in America, extended to so many groups of people, how do you insist on quality? How do you improve quality going forward with the teacher training programmes, with the teacher certification programmes, and with the student performance programmes? I think we found a good balance in “No Child Left Behind.”

Labels: 26/11, Al-Qaeda, Barack Obama, climate change, IAEA, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Mumbai attacks, No Child Left Behind, Taliban, Teach for America, Teach for India, Timothy Roemer, U.S. Ambassador

# posted by Narayan Lakshman @ 6:39 PM