New Delhi: US President Joe Biden’s key aide Eric Garcetti’s nomination as the US ambassador to India has advanced to the next stage, after the US Senate’s foreign relations committee on Wednesday, March 8, voted 13 to 8 in his favour.
His nomination will now move to the Senate floor, which comprises 100 members, and he will have to secure at least 51 votes to be confirmed as the next US envoy to India. With the improved tally of the ruling Democratic party in the Senate House after the recent mid-term elections, his confirmation for the position appears to be a foregone conclusion. The role of the US ambassador to India has been vacant since January 2021 – the longest it has ever been in the history of the US-India bilateral ties.
Garcetti as the US envoy to India assumes significance given that he had told the Senate foreign relations committee in December 2021 that he would bring up human rights and discrimination such as via the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as a “core” piece of his engagement rather than as an obligation, The Hindu had reported.
Asked about how would he strengthen ties between India and the US, he had said the relationship between the countries was based on their commitment to human rights, democracy and civil society.
“It’s a two-way street on these, but I intend to engage directly with civil society,” he had said. “There are groups that are actively fighting for the human rights of people on the ground in India that will get direct engagement from me.”
With Garcetti’s nomination likely to be confirmed, the view among the supporters of the Narendra Modi government who wrote on Twitter that he “must not be allowed to touch down”. One Twitter user – calling Garcetti “dangerous” and tagging external affairs minister S. Jaishankar – sought to know “do, we need him in the country?”
Garcetti had made the above remarks about human rights in India when he first appeared before the Senate’s foreign relations committee in December 2021, five months after he was nominated by the Biden administration to be sent as the envoy to India. However, the due process for his confirmation has been stalled for 17 months by the Senate panel due to the accusations that he had mishandled sexual harassment allegations against his top aide whilst he was Los Angeles mayor. Garcetti served as mayor between 2013 and 2022.
He was renominated by President Biden in January this year after a new US Congress was convened on January 3 and the earlier nominations awaiting confirmation stood nullified.
This time around, two Republican members on the panel – Todd Young and Bill Haggerty – voted in favour of the Democratic party nominee. In fact, Garcetti had received more number of votes from the other side the last time around.
“It’s in our national security interest to have an ambassador immediately in place in India in order to balance China, work with the US throughout the Indo-Pacific…He has an imperfect resume, but the skills to succeed in this capacity,” said Young, according to Hindustan Times.
However, Republican Senator Jim Risch, who had voted earlier in his favour, opposed his nomination this time around. Risch said he reconsidered his decision only because of “new evidence” about Garcetti and his alleged mishandling of sexual harassment charges against his top aide. “We must ensure that any chief of mission will, without question, protect our foreign service officers and embassy staff from all types of harassment,” the HT report quoted him.
Meanwhile, State Department spokesperson Ned Price expressed happiness over Garcetti’s nomination advancing.
“We heartily applaud that. Put simply, the United States needs a confirmed ambassador in India. Our team on the ground, including chargés who have served in the place of an ambassador, have done extraordinary work. But this is one of the most consequential bilateral relationships we have. When Secretary Blinken was in New Delhi last week, much of the breadth and the depth of that relationship was on full display. And our embassy staff, our Mission India, deserves to have a Senate-confirmed ambassador who is —again, with the consent of the Senate — a representative ofnot only the secretary of state but also the President of the United States,” he said, according to The Telegraph.
Price also acknowledged that it is not favour either the US or India to keep the position vacant in “strategically important” place like India for long. “There is no other country around the world that would put itself in a position to have a vacancy open in a strategically important and valuable place like India for two-plus years now. We certainly hope that the action that the Senate took today was — foretells additional action. It would be in our interest. It would be in the interest of India. It would be in the interests of both of our people to have a confirmed ambassador in place, and we hope that mayor and soon to-be ambassador Garcetti is able to take up that post before long,” he added.
Garcetti was among key members of the Biden presidential campaign, and said to have played a crucial role in selecting Kamala Harris as the President’s running mate.
