If there was one wish which any Indian American today was asked to make as the Parliament starts debating the confidence motion of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh it would be its successful passage, even if it is by one vote.
This is not out of any love or affection for the ruling United Progressive Alliance, which has occupied the South Block for more than four years. It is not that the Indian Americans are satisfied with the performance of this Congress-led coalition. The large Indian American community here wishes the UPA Government to survive, simply because they want the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal to see the light of the day.
Living in this country, thousands of miles away from their homeland or country of birth, they see in this deal a rare opportunity to change the relationship between the United States, the only superpower, and India, the emerging world power, forever. It is this community which also seems to benefit the most at personal levels -- from further cementing of ties between the two nations be it the businessmen, entrepreneurs, academicians, scientist or the students.
So much so, that even the supporters of the BJP in this country are in favor of the deal. While none of the leaders of Overseas Friends of the BJP would come on record to state this, they do concede that they differ from their leaders back home as being on the other side of the world; they know its significance for themselves, for the community and for the India-US relationship.
The Indian American community has its own personal and emotional attachment with this nuke deal, which has been in the news for nearly three years now, since Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the United States President, George W Bush, agreed on the deal in July 2005.
After that the Indian American community has been involved in every phase of it. There have been leaders like Swadesh Chatterjee, who took leave from work for months to work full time lobbying for the deal, uniting the community behind the agreement. There were at least a few dozen leaders like him, who did the same. And in 2006 when the nuke deal was being debated on the Capitol Hill, the community from every nook and corner of the US canvassed to their lawmakers in various ways writing letters, making telephone calls urging them to support the nuke deal.
Community leaders across the country went out of their way to hold fund raising events not only in Washington or New York or Los Angeles, it was held in other smaller cities as well. The who's who of the Indian Americans held meetings at the Capitol Hill several times. In fact, for the first time, in decades, the community which so far was known for opening only its money bags was urging the US lawmakers seeking some favor in exchange.
It was also for the first time that Indian American held rallies at the Capitol Hill in the run up to the vote on the nuke deal in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Hundreds of Indian Americans spend their own money to come to this rally and move from one chamber of Congress to the other urging the lawmakers to vote for it. The result was there for all to see, after initial hiccups, the nuke deal sailed through the Congress.
Then came the phase of disappointment, when Manmohan Singh decided to give a pause to the nuke deal in view of the opposition from the Left parties, which provided crucial support from outside. Many of them rushed to New Delhi to meet the political leaders who opposed it. They were unsuccessful. As time passed by, the community virtually gave up, as the visiting leaders and ministers from the UPA told them in the US that they would not move ahead with the deal until they achieve political consensus on this issue in the country.
Be it the Foreign Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath, or the Science and Technology Minister, Kapil Sibal, and several of their colleagues, all of them who visited this country in between spoke in one language. "We will not move till we achieve political consensus," these leaders said. But the way, things have been moving in New Delhi ever since the Prime Minister declared that he would go ahead with the nuclear deal, following which left parties withdrew their crucial outside support, the Indian Americans here are quite amused.
While they are highly appreciative of the "courage" of the Prime Minister, although they would have expected this to be much earlier, many of the Indian Americans who are possibly not aware of how the Indian political system works, probably because they have lived in the US for years together, are having difficulties in understanding as to why there is lack of consensus on an issue which is of national importance.
Their immediate reference is the US political system. At a time when, the opposition Democratic leaders have ripped apart the policies of President Bush, specially his foreign policy, the political leadership of this country has come together to support the Indo-US nuclear deal as they believe that it is in their national interest. It has the support of the two presidential candidates, Senator John McCain the presumptive Republican nominee and Senator Barack Obama, his Democratic rival. It has the bi-partisan support from lawmakers, both chambers of the Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate.
"Why can't there be a similar bi-partisan support on issues of national importance?" is the question being asked by Indian Americans as the Indian Parliament the all important debate on the Manmohan Singh's trust vote.
But having left the motherland for greener pastures at their own wish, are the Indian Americans at the liberty to pose such questions or shouldn't it be left to Indian leaders to take a decisions in a manner which is peculiar and unique to Indian democracy and its political system.