US Congressman Jim McDermott, the Democratic co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, has urged President-elect Barack Obama that when he makes his first overseas trip as President that it be to India.
McDermott, who represents Seattle in the US Congress, speaking at the 15th biannual convention of the National Federation of Indian-American Associations, said, he had called his former Congressional colleague, Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief-of-staff and told him to convince Obama to visit India before he does any other country because it would send a powerful message to the entire world.
The lawmaker said the Emanuel served on the House Ways and Means Committee on which he serves and the latter was also a member of the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support which he chairs "and he and I put in bills together and have worked together a good deal and so I know him well."
"I called him the other day, after it had been announced that he was going to be the chief of staff for the President," McDermott said, and acknowledged that "the first reason for calling him obviously was to congratulate him on taking a very responsible position in the administration."
But secondly, McDermott said, "I told him this. In my opinion, the President will make his (first overseas) trip some place in the world, and his first trip in my view ought to to be India."
He said that he had stressed to Emanuel that "the reason Barack Obama should go first to India is because they are a democracy like the United States. They share the same values, they have the same problems of trying to get things done with a democracy, but they understand and they are committed to the principles of democracy."
And, McDermott asserted, "If the President is going to take a place where he wants to go first, he's got to think about that as one of the places he goes."
He argued that Obama "could got to China for business reason or other places for whatever reason, but if the goal of the United States and the President is to raise our image again as the beacon of democracy in the world, there ought to be a statement by where he goes first."
McDermott said Obama visiting India early in his presidency, "would be a statement about where he intends to go".
He said he had also told Obama that if he visits India he would get the kind of reception that would make the reception he received in Berlin pale in comparison.
"I also told Barack that if you think that crowd you had in Berlin --when he made his speech before the election there was something -- you wait till you get to Delhi. That whole -- down at the government block and down the center mall there, will be filled as it was during the filming of the movie Gandhi."
McDermott said he had told Obama, "You will see, two or three or four or five million Indians show up to welcome the President of the United States and it will be a statement that will not be missed by the rest of the world."
He exhorted the NFIA to work with "people in Washington,DC, to encourage people in the White House to make this happen".
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