Last week Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi was granted the rare audience of the entire US Congress, and Virginia lawmakers were listening especially closely.
India may feel like a faraway place, but most Virginia lawmakers consider the nation a close neighbor. On a windy day outside the Capitol, Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine got excited when asked about the nation and offered this personal story.
“So we went to Mumbai to the Mazagon docks to see the Indian ship building industry, and they were so proud to show us and we said you have to come back, and so I arranged when I got back, talked to the Navy and said invite the Indian ship builders here and they went down to the Newport News ship yard.” Kaine says India does more defense operations with the United States than any other country. He says the ties have only gotten stronger in the last eight years.
“This is a very historic moment in the relationship and we already see it paying off the warm personal relationship between the Prime Minister and President Obama,” Kaine said.
And there's even a touch of Virginia in India. Northern Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly says a county in his district has a technology office in India to bring their brightest minds - and dollars - to his district.
“The technology center of India is Bangalore, and as result to those ties deepening Fairfax county economic development office actually has an office is Bangalore to promote more investment across investment, and so fourth. But it’s all based on technology ties between the two communities and the two cultures and we have a very strong and growing Indian-American community of course in Northern Virginia,” Connolly said.
And Northern Virginia Democrat Don Beyer says the relationship is really a win win.
“It’s incredibly strategic, I mean figure that their middle class is greater than our population of our whole country, they have an amazing amount of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. They are a powerhouse and will be a powerhouse,” Beyer said.
Beyer says the market for US goods is exploding.
“Unlike China too, they have not begun to grapple with population management and population control," Beyer said. "China has the 4-2-1 problem, four grandparents down to one grandchild. India on the other hand has these different religious groups competing with others to see who can have the largest families. So they’re quickly going to surpass China in terms of population, which on the positive side means ever bigger markets for us.”
Besides buying Virginia ships, India also exports many workers to Virginia, according to Beyer.
“They are great entrepreneurs and tend to be in the technical fields, data management, so things like that. Although, a number of them have done very well as US Government contractors," Beyer said. "I’m sure they are American citizens also, but they have a link back to India and family and they are a big, vital, important part of our community.”
And Virginia Republican Dave Brat says the US can learn a thing or two from their government.
“They chose free markets roughly 20 years ago and they’re catapulting their people toward a better life and we’re moving in the opposite direction and we’re stifling markets from working, and every turn it results one percent growth,” Brat said.
While Virginia Democrats are praising the White House for getting India to sign onto the Paris Climate Agreement, Republicans say it represents yet another step by the administration to kill the state's coal region.
