The Indian American Security Leadership Council, an organisation set up last year to push through the enabling legislation to facilitate the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal through Congress, will next week fly in some top erstwhile Indian military leaders to try and convince US lawmakers and the American public of the importance of an Indo-US security alliance.
The organisation, founded and headed by Ramesh V Kapur of Boston, a stalwart of the Democratic Party, and a former Democratic National Committee Trustee and longtime fund-raiser for Democratic candidates, is flying in Admiral K K Nayar, Air Marshal B D Jayal and Lt Gen J F R Jacob (all retired) to participate in an invitation only luncheon and conference on an envisaged US-India Security Alliance on September 5, on Capitol Hill.
Kapur told rediff.com that several senior Pentagon officials like James Clad, deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia, and Admiral Walter Doran, a former Admiral with the US Navy, who served as Commander of the Pacific Fleet from May 2002 to July 2005, would also participate in the conference.
Doran, an alumnus of the Indian Defense Staff Services College in Wellington, which he attended in 1979, in 2002, along with his Indian counterpart Arun Prakash, headed up the Malabar naval exercises, which marked the first time such cooperation between India and the US took place after the interruption sparked by India's Pokhran nuclear tests in May 1998.
The luncheon and conference, is also slated as a 68th year reunion of Indo-US armed services, according to the IASLC's invitation, since September, 2007, "marks the 68th anniversary of the onset of World War II in which the largest volunteer army (Indian Army) and the most powerful military in the world (US Army) fought side by side in the steamy jungles of Burma, arid deserts of North Africa and the sharp spine of Italy to defeat the forces of fascism, totalitarianism, and genocide."
Kapur said the rationale behind sponsoring the trip by the former top brass of the Indian armed services was essentially to have them meet with senior lawmakers in the US Congress and also the American public to convince them of the importance of a security alliance between the US and India, which can also serve as a counterweight to China.
"We want them to meet with lawmakers in Capitol Hill so that people who have reservations over issues like Iran-India relations will be able to hear a different perspective so that their concerns can be alleviated," he said.
"The essence of their talks will be security and strategy and a military partnership between India and the US," Kapur explained, adding, "they will talk about the benefits of an Indo-US strategic alliance on the military side -- about how important it is."
"These are some of the most respected Indian military leaders with years of experience and those who have had a great relationship with their counterparts in the US military. So, it is also going to be a little celebration in terms of a 68th year reunion because they fought together," he noted.
Krishna Srinivasa of Atlanta, a former Republican Party stalwart and fund-raiser, who co-founded IASLC with Kapur and is its vice president, told rediff.com that "these military leaders will talk about the potential security cooperation between India and the US and how good it is for both countries -- how we can have a strategic relationship in such a way that in years to come, India will be a solid, reliable and trustworthy partner."
Kapur said, "We had always planned to have a conference here in Washington and another one in Delhi, and in January, we are planning a similar conference in Delhi also because we had always felt that it's a security relationship that will result in a paradigm shift in Indo-US relations. The nuclear deal is one part of it."
"Our future is a 28-state strategy in the United States where we will go across America to mobilize the average American in support of such a Indo-US security alliance," he said, adding, "That when he (average American) thinks about India, we don't want them to think of India as just an outsourcing hub taking American jobs from Americans, but as a country that can offer up a security blanket for us in Asia."
"That India will help us to keep the 300 million plus Americans safe and as a bulwark against China, and this is what we want to do and start this strategy instead of just public relations. We want to shift the whole paradigm," he argued.
Kapur said that Nayar, Jayal and Jacob besides Washington, during the two-weeks they will be in the US, will also be taken to San Jose, Chicago, Houston, Orlando, Boston and New York to address several US-India Security Alliance conferences the IASLC was putting together in concert with organizations such as the American Jewish Committee and TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs).
He said that the ex-military leaders "are not getting paid to come over here and spend over two weeks of their time. They are not getting any honorarium or anything like that. The only thing we are doing is flying them in and paying for their room and board."
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