Newsmaker: US Ambassador-Designate Eric Garcetti and the agenda for India

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (50) had to face searching questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when it debated his nomination as ambassador to India.

Indo-US relations have a lot going for them. For the nth time, the two countries have underlined the importance of their strategic partnership. Post-pandemic economic recovery process will force interdependence. But the challenges to the partnership are many. And they stem from geopolitics as well as from divergence on specific domestic issues.

On the plus side there’s talk of an India-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The two countries have reached “political agreement” on India phasing out the Equalisation Levy (2 per cent tax on the Indian earnings of big tech companies) in line with other OECD countries and the US will not impose reciprocal punitive taxes (25 per cent is what President Donald Trump had threatened).  And whatever his other colleagues think about the state of India’s democracy, President Joe Biden still invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a summit on democracy.

But Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (50) still had to face searching questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when it debated his nomination as ambassador to India. And here, Garcetti underlined what is a potentially sensitive issue in India US relations: human rights.

Garcetti told the committee what he thought the US agenda for India in the Indo-Pacific should be: making India an even more key US partner in the push-back to China’s expanding power and influence. It is another matter whether India will fall in with these plans. He will, however, have to navigate choppy waters among lawmakers in his own country who need serious convincing that India isn’t out to get its religious minorities.

Garcetti represents a party that has very strong and definite views on how minorities are treated in India. At his confirmation, he underlined his own academic credentials (he has an MA in human rights) and said human rights would be a "core piece" of his engagement with India. "And human rights, defence of democracy is a pillar of our foreign policy but to answer specifically, if confirmed, I will actively raise these issues or raise them with humility. It's a two-way street on these, but I intend to engage directly with civil society," the LA mayor was quoted as saying to the committee.

As India has absolutely no intention of accepting gratuitous advice on human rights from the US, Garcetti might find this is easier said than done.

There is another reality as well. The latest Pew survey on religion in India (released in August this year) tells us that although minorities worry about the rise of Hindutva forces, they do not see themselves as victims of institutional discrimination. Moreover, the rise of Hindutva sees pushback from the majority as well, the survey tells us. It will need allinstead Garcetti’s political acumen to persuade folks back home that a Pehlu Khan is not being lynched on every street in India.

Politics is central to Garcetti.  He’s a personal friend of President Biden, and in picking him for India, the president is rewarding a loyalist. He’s from Los Angeles and was a rival of Kamala Harris for vice presidentship until he pulled out of the race and opted to serve on the committee that vetted Biden’s vice presidential contenders instead. At this point, this is only a factoid. But if Harris sets her sights on bigger things, he could be a crucially important figure for India.

And as his record as Mayor left a lot to be desired (homelessness and crime in LA touched record highs during his tenure), it seems he has left  all that behind to start anew. The White House pointed out in its introduction to him that as Mayor, he oversaw the western hemisphere’s busiest container port, the country’s largest municipal utility and one of the world’s busiest airports.

Geopolitics shouldn’t be a challenge for him. He has served in the US military (an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve) for more than a decade and, as such, will need no help understanding strategic and military issues in the subcontinent. He was on the Pacific Fleet, which covers India. He has excellent academic credentials: a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and the London School of Economics and an MA from Columbia. He has also taught diplomacy.

But he may be forced to temper his expectations on making India toe the line on climate change. When he was nominated, the White House emphasised Garcetti's role in co-founding the bipartisan "Climate Mayors" network and in leading more than 400 US mayors to adopt the Paris Climate Agreement. He told lawmakers about his experiences as Mayor: Los Angeles will reach 100 per cent renewable energy by 2035. Given that India intends to “phase down” not “phase out” coal, Garcetti could face problems adopting a "similarly bold approach to promoting green energy", the promise he’s made to US lawmakers.