Executive Summary
The author is a research analyst with the Indo-Pacific Studies Program of the Takshashila Institution in Bengaluru.
This document examines the evolution of the US Congressional perspectives towards India from 1947 to 2024. It identifies key institutional determinants and systemic determinants, which have contributed to the evolving approach of the legislature towards India. Institutional determinants refer to internal dynamics within Congress, including the Congressional structure, executive-legislative alignment and pressure-group interests. Systemic determinants refer to the conditions in the international system, such as derivative bilateralism, economic exchange and regional security, guiding these perspectives.
This historical analysis categorises Congressional thinking on India into four phases:- 1947 to 1974, 1974 to 1991, 1991 to 2008 and 2008 to 2024. While the institutional determinants take precedence in the first two phases, systemic determinants drive the Congressional perspectives in the later phases.
Acknowledgments: The author would like to express his immense gratitude to Manoj Kewalramani, Amit Kumar, Shambhavi Naik and Ameya Naik for their valuable feedback and comments.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools were used to assist with language refinement, and grammar.
The study identifies a persistent lack of an organised long-term policy approach of the Congress towards India as a hurdle for strengthening India-US ties. It concludes that in the contemporary phase, the Congress is actively attempting to amend this approach.
By mapping the interplay of institutional and systemic determinants over time, this study sheds light on how Congressional perspectives on India have shifted, and contribute towards building a knowledge capital that Indian policymakers can use to enhance India’s influence in the US Congress.
1 Introduction
The United States Congress is established by the US Constitution as the first branch of government and holds the primary authority to legislate. In matters of foreign policy, it controls funding, declares war, confirms senior officials, regulates foreign trade, and oversees all executive agencies and actions. These powers are carried out through a bicameral legislative set-up consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. These chambers operate through a structured system of committees and subcommittees, which shape how Congress forms its views on international issues.1
The Constitution grants the Senate exclusive foreign policy powers, including treaty ratification and the confirmation of ambassadors and senior Defence and State Department officials, while the House must rely on Senate approval where authority overlaps. As a result, the executive places additional weight on Senate’s preferences when seeking support for its foreign-policy agenda.2
Extensive literature exists on India–US relations from the perspective of the executive branch, most notably in the works of Dennis Kux, Harold A. Gould, Sumit Ganguly, Andrew J. Rotter, and Masud Sarker, among others.3 However, the role of Congress and its committees remains comparatively under-explored. This paper aims to address this gap by examining how the US Congress has viewed India over the years between 1947 and 2024.
By studying the key issues that have dominated Congressional discussions on India through the four phases, this paper identifies key institutional and systemic determinants shaping Congressional perspectives. Here, the institutional determinants refer to factors within the US Congress that guide its perspectives towards India. These include the Congressional structure, executive-legislative alignment, and pressure-group influence. Other factors such as party stance, ideology, influence of the constituents, electoral relevance etc. are considered secondary as they only had occasional, short-term influences rather than a consistent influence on the legislature in the selected time frame of 1947 to 2024.
The first institutional determinant is Congressional structure, covering how power is distributed between the chambers, committees, and subcommittees, and how these bodies interact. It also includes the influence of individual legislators and their coalitions, whose reputations, roles, and electoral incentives shape foreign-policy behaviour. Party organisations and chamber rules further guide debate, bill referrals, and committee allocations.
The second institutional determinant is executive-legislative alignment, which shifts over time with changes in party control, interpretations of institutional duty, and the relative priorities of each branch. Alignment or divergence between the two has strongly influenced how India-related issues have been handled.
The third determinant is pressure-group interests, consisting of lobbies, caucuses, informal networks, and voting blocs. These actors shape committee behaviour through bloc voting, endorsements, and financial support, and often draw Congressional attention toward or away from specific aspects of India-US relations.
Alongside institutional factors, the relationship has been shaped by systemic determinants. These refer to external conditions in the international system arising from global power distribution, pervading security considerations, and economic structures. These include derivative bilateralism, economic exchange, and regional security; the paper focuses on these over other factors such as international organisations, cultural exchange, immigration etc. due to their long-term relevance in influencing the Congress.
The first systemic determinant is derivative bilateralism. Congressional perspective on India-US relations has rarely been viewed independently on its own terms. Instead, Congressional decisions and perceptions have been derived through the US and India’s relations with Britain, the Soviet Union, Pakistan, and China. A framing that is inherently independent of any third parties has proven to be essential for greater Congressional focus resulting in a stable relationship that is safe from any occasional turbulence in the relationship. The US relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia and most Western Europe or even with rivals like China and Russia are accurate cases in point.
The second systemic determinant is economic exchange which includes both economic aid and trade. For much of the early period, Congressional engagement focused on foreign aid. Nuclear technology exports became relevant in the 1970s but were driven more by ideological concerns than economic ones. Trade emerged as a sustained Congressional interest only in the late 1980s, as Indian exports to the United States expanded. Since then India-US trade had expanded from USD 5.7 billion in 1990 to over USD 128 billion in 2024.4 The third systemic determinant is regional security, shaped by India’s post-colonial territorial consolidation, India-Pakistan conflicts, terrorism, and the strategic implications of China’s rise.
Through this analysis, this study establishes that sustained Congressional focus is critical for building a partnership with the US that remains resilient to short-term tensions and disruptions. Such focus has historically been strongest when relationships are embedded within formal agreements or recognised institutional structures. The US Constitution provides the Congress a greater scope to exercise oversight and influence foreign policy when relationships are anchored in formalised frameworks rather than informal understandings.
Read in this context, the findings highlight the importance of differentiating between areas that require long term insulation and those that benefit from flexibility. They point to the value of identifying sectors where formal structures can stabilise Congressional engagement, while avoiding rigid institutionalisation in domains where policy adaptability remains essential. This distinction helps explain how legislative support can be sustained without constraining strategic autonomy, and offers a clearer basis for engaging Congress in ways that align with both its institutional incentives and India’s long term interests.
2 1947-1974: Cold War, Non-Alignment Anxieties, and humanitarian aid
Year 1947 was critical for both India, that was newly independent from the British colonial rule and the US Congress which was experiencing post-war reforms.
2.1 Institutional Factors: Committee government and the rise of SFRC dominance
By the mid-1940s, Congressional authority narrowed as executive power expanded under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration during the Great Depression and the Second World War. Post-war responsibilities and the growth of US global engagement placed additional oversight demands on Congress, prompting the 1945 Joint Committee on the Organisation of Congress (JCOC) to declare the existing structure inadequate. This led to the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, which consolidated committee authority and strengthened the Legislative Reference Service. These reforms, combined with demographic shifts within Congress, expanded its capacity to engage more meaningfully with regions and countries that had previously received limited attention, including India.5
2.1.1 Committee Government and the dominance of SFRC
The JCOC found the committee-subcommittee system inefficient and lacking a clear jurisdiction. Among other things, this meant that countries like India received little Congressional attention as they did not appear central to US interests. Yet the expansion of post-war US foreign policy and the Cold War made understanding such regions increasingly important.
The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 addressed this by limiting the number of committees from 81 to 34, merging several of them and clearly demarcating their jurisdictions.6 Simultaneously it allowed for the expansion of subcommittees within the consolidated committee framework, from 83 by 1955 to 151 by mid the 70s. This consolidation process allowed greater scope of discussions on peripheral countries like India through dedicated regional subcommittees and issue-based select committees, such as those discussing refugees, foreign aid and nuclear proliferation.7
The Senate’s influence over foreign policy was exercised through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), which took a leading role in foreign policy oversight, while its House counterpart, the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) remained secondary. SFRC discussed India through the Consultative Subcommittee on Africa and the Near East, and the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs. However, the discussions pertaining to India remained peripheral, especially during the tenure of William Fulbright as SFRC chair (1959-1975), whose focus remained on the Soviet Union.8 Even during the 1971 Bangladesh crisis, the committee that engaged most substantively with India was not the SFRC or HFAC, but the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Refugees.9
2.1.2 Subcommittee nomenclature of India
The nomenclature of the subcommittees also reflects India’s position in US strategic calculus. The House primarily discussed India within the HFAC Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs and the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. In the Senate, legislators initially examined India through the Consultative Subcommittee on Africa and the Near East, thereby positioning India within West Asia, before shifting discussions to the SFRC Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Several commentators like Arthur Rubinoff have interpreted this as Congress viewing India through a colonial European lens.10
Members of Congress also belived that India’s inclusion within the Subcommittee on Asia–Pacific risked its being overshadowed by the Vietnam War, which dominated congressional attention throughout the 1960s and 1970s.11 This led to the initial inclusion of India with the Near East, however, this too, was dominated by the issues of West Asia. The situation changed briefly during the 91st session with the 1971 liberation of Bangladesh, which highlighted India’s role in the context of South-East Asia.
2.1.3 LRS reform and shift in Congressional knowledge sources on India
The Act also expanded the Legislative Reference Service (LRS) with an increase in the funding, staff, and focus on domain expertise. This would allow a new scientific knowledge source for members to study India whose knowledge had largely been influenced by biased missionary reports and ill-informed public perceptions.12
2.1.5 Executive alignment and Senate Foreign Relations Committee dominance
The executive-legislative alignment during this period over India remained largely consistent. The main reason for this was the dominance of the SFRC over the HFAC. The Vice President’s constitutional authority to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate worked strongly to cement this alignment. Another potential reason for this alignment was the fact that only one out of six Presidents during this time came from a non-Congress background; of the five who had served in the Congress, only one lacked Senate experience. These factors likely allowed additional executive influence in the Senate, or vice-versa.
2.1.6 Role of Indian Lobby, Doves, and Hawks
Three pressure groups whose role became central to this period were the Indian diaspora lobbies, the anti-proliferation lobby, and the anti-communist lobby. Indian diaspora lobbies in the US played an active role in organising and furthering the anti-colonial sentiment against British colonisation of India.15 Supported by Congressman Emanuel Celler, the Indian lobby also furthered the cause of Indian independence in the US Congress through the establishment of India League of America (ILA) in 1938.16 The ILA would also play a critical role in lobbying for humanitarian aid to India and would remain an active pro-India lobby on the hill throughout the 1950s until the return of its head, J.J. Singh, to India in 1959.17
As the Congress sought a greater role in shaping the US Foreign Policy, new factions emerged within the legislature. Traditional isolationists favoured withdrawal from global affairs, while internationalists argued for an active US role abroad. Two dominant blocs in this debate were the “Hawks,” who advocated hardline anti-communist interventionism, and “Doves,” who argued for diplomatic restraint, negotiated solutions, and multilateral approaches to managing the Cold War.18
The Hawks were sceptical of India and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, viewing non-alignment as morally questionable. They opposed US aid for India’s public sector projects and, influenced by John Foster Dulles, increasingly equated socialist economic models with Soviet alignment.19 As a result, India’s democratic credentials did not shield it from suspicion, whereas Pakistan under Ayub Khan was viewed more favourably due to its market orientation and willingness to join US alliances.20
The Doves saw India as a democratic partner in genuine need of humanitarian support and believed that strengthening its institutions would reduce Soviet influence in the region. They championed food aid, emergency assistance, and support through the United Nations and other US-linked financial bodies.21 The support of the Doves would decline with India’s Pokhran-I nuclear tests, and the declaration of Emergency. India also benefited in the early years from pro-Israel members such as Celler and Jacob Javits, though this support waned as India distanced itself from Israel.22
2.2 Systemic Factors: aid, non-alignment and anti-colonialism
2.2.1 The pre-Indian independence era
Views over immigration and anti-colonialism shaped US Congressional perspectives towards India on the eve of independence. Pre-Independence India was a source of a dilemma for the US Congress. Indian immigration to the US was restricted with the Immigration act of 1917 or Barred Zone Act.23 These restrictions were strengthened under the Asian Exclusion Act of 1924, and received heavy criticism in India.24 These tensions were resolved by the time of Indian independence in 1947 with the passage of the Luce-Celler Act of 1946 that ended discrimination against Indian immigrants.25
As a state, India’s introduction to the US Congress came as a British colony, and this framing continued during the early years of Indian independence. Through this period, the US Congressional views towards India were not determined by their bilateral socio-cultural relations or relations between leaders and ideology alone, but also by US relations with Britain. With the decline of the British Empire and imperialism globally, the United States also set a twin objective for itself. The first was to establish its influence in the post-colonial countries by filling the vacuum left by the colonial powers. The second was to prevent the spread of Soviet-communism to these states.26 In this context, India garnered new attention from the policy makers.
2.2.2 Foreign aid and the logic of Cold War
Following Indian independence, Congressional engagement with India centred less on trade and more on questions of aid and stability. This orientation reflected the broader Cold War logic of viewing economic and political stability as the most effective means to deter communism. The SFRC and HFAC, played critical roles in authorising and overseeing assistance programmes, framing India as a poverty ridden site for aid, rather than as an economic partner.27
The period also saw friction between both the states on the issue of Kashmir, which was seen to be contradicting India’s absorption of Hyderabad.28 India’s policy of non-alignment was also seen as opposing the US mission to unite the “free world” against communism. This led to disagreements over aid to India, which were often introduced as aid by authorization committees only to be passed as loans, conditional aid packages, or partial grants by the appropriation committees.29 Even these conditionalities catered to short-term US interests rather than adopting an organised long-term strategy, as described accurately by Ambassador Chester Bowles at a HFAC hearing in 1978:
“What we have given India, and we have given a lot, has been the result of a vague humanitarian effort to help an impoverished people. At no point has it been related to a concrete US political strategy in Asia. This helps explain why our aid has been given grudgingly and with a certain resentment.”30
Members of the US Congress viewed Kashmir’s accession to India as inconsistent with India’s annexation of Hyderabad. Kashmir was a Muslim-majority princely state ruled by a Hindu monarch, while Hyderabad was a Hindu-majority state governed by a Muslim ruler. US policymakers regarded Maharaja Hari Singh’s Instrument of Accession as having been executed under Indian pressure rather than popular consent. They also viewed it as conflicting with the broader religious logic that underpinned Partition.
For some members of the authorization committees and the executive, humanitarian principles remained a core motivation to provide aid to India. This humanitarian emphasis reached a high point under President John F. Kennedy, with India occupying a central place in his foreign aid agenda. His 1962, Fiscal Year request famously earmarked approximately USD 500 million (equivalent to ~USD 5.3 billion in 2025) for Indian development programmes, a figure that underscored the importance of India in US foreign aid calculations. SFRC deliberations, alongside those of the HFAC, were preoccupied not only with the size of these allocations but also with the architecture of delivery mechanisms, such as the consolidation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).31
These debates reveal an important cause-and-effect dynamic where Congressional willingness to underwrite large-scale aid was closely tied to the perception that development constituted the most potent counterweight to communist influence in India. This perception was opposed by the hard-line anti-communist groups, who, despite being a minority during this period, were occasionally successful in pressurising the Senate to make the aid conditional.32
2.2.3 1962 war and brief rapprochement
Congressional attitudes toward US partnerships were strongly shaped by formal agreements and alliances. Countries linked to the United States through alliances or formal treaty structures received sustained Congressional attention and sustained long-term support. This would reflect in Congressional support to Pakistan, a treaty ally, that received consistent military and financial aid, despite several embargos, agreement violations, and nuclear proliferation. For countries like India that did not have formal frameworks supporting the ties, this attention remained peripheral and dependent on short-term interests.
This dynamic was visible during the 1962 Sino-Indian War. The conflict shifted Congressional focus from viewing India primarily as a humanitarian case to recognising the strategic urgency of military support. The Executive responded rapidly with emergency airlifts, while balancing commitments to Pakistan. Congress broadly endorsed the assistance but questioned authority, end-use monitoring, and the implications for regional stability. The overall approach captured a familiar pattern of willingness to aid India in a crisis, coupled with caution about escalation and the need to preserve the US-Pakistan relationship.33
2.2.4 PL-480 and the decline of aid as leverage
Since the 1950s, legislators recognised the urgency posed by India’s recurring food shortages, yet also viewed food aid as a potential instrument of leverage. Many supported the linking of aid with policy changes, but this idea garnered serious executive attention only under President Lyndon Johnson.
PL-480 was a US government initiative under which the US provided aid to developing countries such as India. Under this, the US supplied food assistance to “friendly” states either as grants or in return for political and economic concessions. These concessions ranged from domestic policy adjustments to the adoption of foreign policy positions favourable to the US by the recipient.
Through PL-480, India became a major recipient of US food assistance, and Johnson’s “short-tether” policy made shipments conditional on agricultural and economic reforms.34 The Congress believed that conditional aid could shape Indian policy, by liberalising its economy and distancing it from the Soviets.35 India was pressed to adopt agricultural reforms and liberalise its economy, resulting in the Green Revolution that succeeded in improving India’s food security. However, broader economic liberalisation was rejected by the Indira Gandhi government, which adopted a pro-socialist, pro-Soviet shift as a result of the short tether and the 1971 war.
This episode marked a rare moment when Congress and the executive attempted to use aid as a strategic tool rather than a reactive humanitarian response. Its eventual failure revealed the limits of this approach. It demonstrated that Congress had underestimated India’s ability to pursue alternative strategic and economic partnerships, particularly with the Soviet Union, and had misjudged the extent to which US aid could shape Indian policy.36
Pigeonholing refers to a legislative tactic in the US Congress whereby a bill is prevented from reaching the floor for a vote by being stalled within the committee and subcommittee system. This is done to signal that the Congress acknowledges an issues, but chooses not to act upon it or treat it as a matter of priority.
By the early 1970s, conditionality lost momentum with the success of India’s Green Revolution. Bills proposing new restrictions were pigeonholed, and India’s growing food security reduced the political appetite for coercive aid.37
2.2.5 1971 war and legislative divergence from executive
The 1971 Bangladesh crisis was an important event that shaped Congressional engagement with the Indian subcontinent, and the first instance in which Congressional views diverged from those of the Executive.38 These congressional views reflected a continuation of efforts to halt all military aid to both India and Pakistan following the 1965 war, aid that the Nixon administration partially resumed for Pakistan in 1970.39
The Nixon administration, prioritising the geopolitical logic of its opening to China, leaned decisively towards Pakistan, even as the humanitarian toll of the crisis mounted. In contrast, several members of Congress, most notably Senator Frank Church, pushed for amendments to halt military and financial assistance to Pakistan, citing both the refugee burden borne by India and the widespread atrocities occurring in East Pakistan.40 The SFRC’s hearings and floor actions conveyed a position far more sympathetic to India’s concerns than that adopted by the White House. This episode not only highlighted Congress’s capacity to act as a normative check on the Executive, but also left an institutional legacy of diverging from the executive’s strategic calculus. This phenomenon is also attributed to the increasing number of liberal internationalists in the US Congress who viewed the humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh as more concerning than US partnership with Pakistan. The House and Senate majorities of the Democratic party under the Republican Nixon administration is also cited as a reason for the diverging perspectives during this episode. Although after the 1971 war, India-US relations remained at the periphery for the Congress, the Senate reports and hearings highlight the Nixon administration’s desire for rapprochement.
3 1974-1991: Nonproliferation Statutes, Sanctions, and a Slow Pivot
The year 1974 was a watershed moment for the US Congress, which rigorously carried out reforms in both chambers for nearly a decade. Similarly, for India-US relations, 1974 marked the lowest point, with growing Congressional opposition against India following its nuclear tests.
3.1 Institutional Factors: HFAC dominance and the rise of subcommittee government
The late 1960s and early 1970s, marked by the Vietnam War and Watergate scandal, revived Congressional efforts to challenge what many termed an “imperial presidency.” However, Congress lacked the institutional capacity to do so. Uneven staffing, limited resources, and a fragmented committee-subcommittee system left it poorly equipped to assert authority, allowing the better-funded and more unified executive to dominate foreign policy.
These weaknesses prompted the 1965-66 Joint Committee on the Organisation of Congress and ultimately the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970. The Act strengthened subcommittees, expanded professional staff, enhanced minority-party participation. This allowed a greater focus on countries like India that were previously overshadowed by broader committee priorities.
3.1.1 Formation of CRS and advancement in Congressional knowledge sources on India
The act transformed the Legislative Reference Services (LRS) to the Congressional Research Services (CRS). The LRS was influenced by the majority party and its committee chairs, with its staff consisting of clerks who produced information heavy reports without notable analysis. The CRS aimed to change that with a mandate of producing non-partisan reports with a greater analytical focus. The CRS was also authorised to hire more domain experts to carry out its expanded research role.
This shift allowed for a more non-partisan, non-ideological, scientific study of India by the CRS. Until this point, Congressional understanding of India had been shaped by limited information and entrenched stereotypes, portraying India as impoverished, indecisive, and politically weak.41 Bodies like the LRS lacked the capacity and independence to examine peripheral regions in depth. With expanded staffing, professional expertise, and growing input from external research institutions and think tanks, CRS enabled a more informed and systematic approach to countries like India.42 Over time, these improved knowledge inputs contributed to a gradual shift in Congressional perceptions, supported further by broader systemic changes and rising Indian immigration to the United States.43
3.1.2 HFAC dominance and disagreements over India
While the 1946 reforms had consolidated committees, the rapid growth of subcommittees by the late 1960s diluted chair authority and fragmented decision-making. The rise of younger, liberal members furthered this shift as they assumed subcommittee leadership and frequently clashed with senior conservative chairs.44
This also led to HFAC gaining prominence over SFRC, which struggled with increased partisanship and individualism.45 The Senate became a hub for members aspiring to higher office, producing internal divisions that weakened the SFRC’s ability to lead on foreign policy.46 In contrast, HFAC’s larger membership, greater number of subcommittees, and lower level of personalist politics enabled it to take a more active role in oversight and policymaking.
India, however, remained peripheral for most members. Its 1974 nuclear test, US rapprochement with China, and reports of Pakistan’s nuclear programme shaped the limited debates that did occur. India was initially grouped with the Near East and later moved to the Asia-Pacific subcommittee. Although this structure produced a few India-focused legislators, concrete policy outcomes were minimal. Stephen Solarz, who chaired the Asia-Pacific subcommittee in 1980 and was known for his interest in India, succeeded in advocating the creation of the South Asian Bureau at the State Department. Yet his tendency to operate independently of party and committee leadership, along with disagreements with Reagan-era policies, reduced his influence and left India without a strong institutional advocate until the creation of the House Caucus on India and Indian Americans in 1993.47
During this period, India also lost many of its earlier supporters in Congress. Liberal members who had once backed India on humanitarian grounds became critical after the 1974 nuclear test, the Emergency, and unrest in Punjab and Kashmir, all of which damaged India’s image as a stable democracy. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s geopolitical utility, first as a CENTO and SEATO ally and later as a frontline state against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, appealed to centrists and hardliners alike. This produced a pattern in which Congress sought to restrict aid to India over its nuclear programme while simultaneously supporting aid to Pakistan despite its active nuclear program.48 Pro-India voices attempted to counter this by emphasising India’s potential as a regional power, and by highlighting that improved ties might limit Soviet influence, especially after the US opening to China.
3.2 Systemic Factors: International institutions, economic reforms and Cold War logic
3.2.1 1974 nuclear test and executive-legislative divergence
The early 1970s produced two moments of executive-legislative divergence. In 1971, Congress criticised the administration’s support for Pakistan despite mounting humanitarian concerns during the Bangladesh crisis. In 1974, several non-proliferation-oriented members opposed executive attempts to maintain civil nuclear cooperation with India following the Pokhran test.
India’s 1974 nuclear test at Pokhran marked a major turning point in Congressional oversight of US-India relations. On Capitol Hill, the test was primarily viewed as a challenge to the emerging global non-proliferation regime, rather than an isolated sovereign action. Congress responded by embedding a restrictive statutory framework through the Symington Amendment (1976), the Glenn Amendment (1977), and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978 which tightened export controls, required full-scope safeguards, and significantly limited executive discretion.49
At the same time, US-Pakistan relations were also strained. Although Pakistan had been a key CENTO and SEATO ally and facilitated the US opening to China, Washington’s inability to deter India’s actions in 1971 weakened the partnership, contributing to Pakistan’s eventual withdrawal from both alliances in the 1970s.
Despite these tensions, Congress remained cautious about pushing India further toward the Soviet Union. Between the 93rd and 96th Congresses, more than 25 bills referenced India, most focused on non-proliferation. Many called for strong restrictions on the sale of low enriched uranium and other civil nuclear exports to India, a proposal that was stalled by the Carter administration repeatedly.50 A smaller set of drafts sought to end military assistance to both India and Pakistan or to suspend aid to India over the Emergency and civil rights concerns.
Yet only two major restrictive measures ultimately passed, and many others stalled in HFAC, SFRC, or the Atomic Energy Committees, often under administration pressure. This pattern suggests that while Congress sought to signal non-proliferation concerns, it was reluctant to openly antagonise India or deepen the diplomatic rift during a period of intense Cold War competition.
3.2.2 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the beginning of India’s economic liberalisation
Following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, the region regained some amount of prominence in the strategic calculus of the United States, with Pakistan playing the central role. Pakistan was viewed as a core node for the US-China relations and US strategy towards the West Asian countries who were concerned about Soviet influence. India remained a distant factor for the executive.51
However, the US Congress was critical of India’s stance in not condemning the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This criticism was expressed in a successful joint resolution by the HFAC and SFRC, that called for India to follow an independent foreign policy by opposing Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.52 There were also bills criticising India’s handling of disturbances in Punjab and Kashmir, which failed or were pigeonholed. 53
Under PL-480, India paid for US food aid in Indian rupees rather than in US dollars. This arrangement resulted in the US accumulating large holdings of non-convertible Indian rupees. Following a settlement in 1974, the US addressed this issue by using these funds to finance development projects in India.
By the 1980s US-owned rupee holdings had grown large and difficult to utilise under existing restrictions. To provide a structured mechanism for their use, Congress authorised the establishment of a United States–India Endowment, funded from excess rupee balances, to support cultural, educational, and scientific cooperation between the two countries.
Since the 1980s, India began transitioning towards liberalisation of its economy under Indira Gandhi and later under Rajiv Gandhi. This was viewed very positively by both the Reagan administration and the US Congress. This positively continued with the visits of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1982 and Rajiv Gandhi in 1985. Congressional intent was reflected notably with the creation of the US-India Endowment out of excess US-owned Indian rupees.54
Legislative patterns in the late 1980s reflected a decline in non-proliferation-focused bills and the emergence of a more explicit India-Pakistan “hyphenation.” While Congress had long favoured Pakistan on strategic grounds, it also understood India’s regional and economic importance. Thus, the early 1990s saw an increasing tendency to consider both states together, particularly in legislation calling on India and Pakistan to sign the NPT and accept IAEA safeguards. Following the end of the Cold War and subsequent nuclear tests in the next decade, this hyphenated approach would evolve into a broader policy embraced by both Congress and the executive.
4 1991-2008: Economic liberalisation, post Cold-war politics and war on terror
4.1 Institutional Factors: End of subcommittee government and rise of caucuses
By the 1990s, the expansion of subcommittee power had fragmented decision-making and a series of corruption scandals exposed the risks of their autonomy. In addition, an expanding Congressional bureaucracy slowed legislative processes.55 These resulted in the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1994, which restricted the jurisdiction of committees and subcommittees, reduced their number and downsized the committee staff levels by one-third.56
With the disintegration of USSR and the arrival of Globalization and internet, 1991 became an important turning point not only for the US Congress and India-US relations but also for the world. For Congress, this became the start for an era of reforms and shifting power dynamics. For India, this year marked the beginning of strategic cooperation, economic integration, and rise in immigration.
This led to a considerable decline in the Congressional independence and oversight capabilities, causing members to seek alternative platforms, such as Congressional Member Organisations (CMOs) and other informal groupings (referred to as caucuses).57 This changing inclination can be best illustrated by the growth in the number of caucuses from 5 in 1970-71 to over 124 by 1992. These caucuses impact legislation by allowing members to specialise on issues, act as an issue-dispute resolution platform for committees and subcommittees, attract member attention to important issues, and become a source of increased awareness and knowledge on niche topics.58 Their membership trends are also symbolic of growing Congressional interest on a topic.
Thus, Congressional focus on India is reflected in the formation of a bi-partisan House India Caucus in 1993 consisting of 50 members.59 It is argued that this caucus was a reaction to the “India bashers” in the Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees who were regularly critical of India through the 1980s and early 90s.60
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and the Immigration Act of 1990 marked early successes for ethnic lobbies, including Indian Americans.61 These laws facilitated a surge in Indian immigration and established the modern H-1B visa system, backed by business lobbies seeking high-skilled workers.62 Although administrations generally supported expanding such visas, Congressional concerns over domestic employment often led to restrictive measures such as visa caps and tighter conditions.
By the early 2000s, the House India Caucus had grown to more than 120 members and had become highly influential, signifying a growing interest of members in India. However, pro-Indian groups and members recognised that Senate support was essential for larger strategic initiatives, especially the civil-nuclear deal.63 This led to the creation of the Senate India Caucus in 2004 by Senators John Cornyn and Hillary Clinton. This became the first country-specific caucus in the Senate. These caucuses, together with the diaspora and business lobbies coordinated pro-India lobbying efforts and played a central role in strengthening India-US bilateral cooperation and the successful enactment of the nuclear deal.
As India deepened its strategic partnership with Israel, the Indian American lobbies also formed strong ties with the influential pro-Israel lobby. This helped correct an earlier situation when India’s distance from Israel had alienated pro-Israel members of Congress.64 On the other hand, the Pakistan lobby also became active in this period, leading to increased competition with the Indian lobby for greater Congressional influence.
4.2 Systemic Factors: Terrorism, Pakistan, China and bipartisan support to India
4.2.1 India’s economic liberalisation
Following the disintegration of the USSR, India-US relations saw a gradual improvement. This rise was centered around India’s liberalisation and privatisation reforms under P.V. Narasimha Rao. The efforts of the Rao government were greatly appreciated in Washington, particularly after his address to the US Congress in May 1994.65 After the 1991 Economic reforms, the US Congress increasingly recognised India not only from a regional security focus but also as a market for US products and as a source of cheap labour. The success of Rao’s 1994 visit is reflected clearly in the legislation during the 102nd to 106th sessions of the US Congress.
By the early 1990s, India experienced the assassinations of its two top leaders, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. India also witnessed changes of multiple governments with the beginning of the era of coalition governments. India’s internal security challenges also began to worsen since the mid-80s, with heightened tensions in Punjab and Kashmir. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US became the sole remaining superpower of the time. This limited India’s foreign policy options and diminished India’s global standing. This also allowed the US Congress to be less restrained about commenting on India’s sensitive domestic issues.
Several bills critical of India’s domestic issues, which had previously failed or been pigeonholed, passed the Congress through voice votes in early 1991. These measures criticised India’s human rights situation in sensitive regions, called for international monitoring groups, and proposed suspending aid over concerns about India’s suspected nuclear weapons programme.
One important development in this direction were the House amendments that allowed the President the authority to assess the status of India’s nuclear weapons and human rights conditions, and determine its aid and financial assistance accordingly.66 It is important to note the last among a series of these amendments passed by 102nd Congress would come on June 19th 1991, right before India’s economic liberalisation.67
By late July 1991, the P.V. Narasimha Rao government would go on to announce India’s New Economic Policy, opening its markets for all global businesses, including from the US A potential impact of these reforms would reflect on Congressional legislation as the 102nd Congress entered its second session. The US Congress would resume its old tactic of pigeonholing legislation commenting on India’s domestic politics, as a few bills relating to India’s detention laws and human rights situation would fail to pass. It can be reasoned that India’s economic reforms made the US Congress sense an economic opportunity in India, leading to this change in stance. It can also be argued that the steps taken by the Narasimha Rao government to address the domestic disturbances in India were viewed positively by the majority of members, reflecting in their voting patterns post June 1991.
4.2.2 India-Pakistan hyphenation and non-proliferation
The “India-Pakistan” hyphenation emerged as a consistent Congressional practice mainly from the 1980s onward.68 Earlier, even though both countries fell within the jurisdiction of the same subcommittees, Congressional criticism of Pakistan was limited due to Cold War alliance obligations and US interests in West Asia and Afghanistan. While the executive had regularly used the term “India-Pakistan”, Congressional usage of the term increased markedly in the 1990s, as both states gained prominence in US strategic thinking. Following a brief spike in the term’s use during 1971-74, the most sustained rise occurred between 1991 and 2014, with usage doubling between the pre- and post-102nd Congress, indicating the institutionalisation of this hyphenation.
This data only highlights the trends in term use, but the legislation also reflects this when analysed through the definition of Hyphenation as a policy approach of linking two countries together in policy decisions and treating them as a single entity.69
As once jokingly recalled by House India Caucus member Gary L. Ackerman, until the 1990s, the majority of the legislators believed “IndiaPakistan” was a single world.70 One early example of this attitude was a Fascell amendment that allowed the President to halt aid to India if it were found developing nuclear weapons, a provision explicitly stated to apply equally to Pakistan.71 Although this constituted only a limited form of hyphenation, given that India could retain its existing capability while Pakistan was barred from further development, the linkage intensified in subsequent Congressional debates. By the time of the 1998 nuclear tests, both states were routinely grouped together in discussions of a regional nuclear arms race.
Hyphenation extended beyond strategic legislation to symbolic acts. The 105th Congress repeatedly stalled a resolution congratulating only India on its 50th Independence Day, eventually passing a joint resolution honouring both India and Pakistan.72 The Senate, however, separately adopted a resolution recognising 15 August 1997 as “A National Day of Celebration of Indian and American Democracy.”73 Throughout this period, both the Indian government and the Indian-American diaspora expressed frustration at being bracketed with Pakistan, an issue that persisted until the 2010s, when US reliance on Pakistan began to decline.74
This period also saw several failed attempts by members to limit financial aid provided to India. Similarly, a bill calling for India’s nomination for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council would also emerge for the first time in 1997 during the 105th Congress.75 Although it was pigeonholed, it marked the beginning of sustained Congressional discourse on India’s UNSC aspirations.
India’s 1998 nuclear tests disrupted the improving bilateral relationship. Unlike 1974-when proliferation was viewed as a global security threat, non-proliferation in the post-Cold War period was framed as a question of global compliance. Tests by states such as India were seen as undermining US leadership in the non-proliferation regime and sending problematic signals to states considering nuclear retention or acquisition. The response was automatic: the Glenn Amendment triggered sanctions, and Congress issued resolutions of condemnation. Yet the episode soon demonstrated the limits of a purely punitive approach. By mid-1998, members had already proposed bills to carve out exceptions for India and Pakistan.76 Although these early attempts stalled, Congress shifted toward enabling presidential waiver authority, creating greater flexibility in managing both relationships over the next 18 months.
4.2.3 Kargil war and India-US rapprochement
1999 emerged as another critical year in Congressional expression with the Kargil War. In a House resolution, Congress condemned this war as Pakistan’s “incursion” into Kashmir, blaming Pakistan for the resumption of armed hostilities. The resolution also called on the President to instruct US representatives in the IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank to oppose any non-humanitarian loan applications by Pakistan.77 This was different from the Congressional approach during previous India-Pakistan conflicts that distributed the blame on both states equally.
This was followed by a military coup in Pakistan led by General Pervez Musharraf. Although official US policy displayed reluctance to condemn this coup, several members in the US Congress expressed strong concerns over this development. Although the legislation condemning the coup was pigeonholed, the coup strengthened India’s image as a resilient democracy in the US Congress that was briefly disturbed during the emergency period.
In the year 2000, the Burton amendment that restricted aid to India was withdrawn with unanimous consent.78 This was followed by the announcement of the first visit of Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to the US in anticipation of which the House passed a resolution calling for increased India-US bilateral ties by cooperating on their fight against terrorism and expanding mutual dialogue.79 The resolution acknowledged the Prime Minister’s visit as a key step in achieving this goal. As the decade came to an end, India-US ties not only strengthened but proved to be resilient; the US Congress, through acts of commission and omission, played a central role in this seeming pivot of US perspectives towards India.
This pivot was shaped by India’s democratic resilience, its emerging economic profile and US interests in balancing a rising China. By late 1990s, Congressional attitudes had evolved from strict punishment to cautious accommodation, an early signal of the legislative recalibration that would underpin the civil nuclear agreement less than a decade later.
This period was also distinct in the areas of economy and trade. US-India trade was initially focused on US export of critical nuclear and space technology to India which was disrupted after India’s first nuclear tests in 1974. The State department has also had a significant role to play in India-US trade, which was expanded to other sectors such as computers and jet engines.
The late 1980s and early ’90s saw a gradual rise in exports of Indian primary goods such as pharmaceutical material and steel, to the US This became a cause of concern in the US domestically, as discussed in several Congressional bills of the time, which sought to protect the domestic suppliers in these sectors, or as in case of pharmaceuticals, became a law-enforcement concern associated with narcotic production. However, service sector cooperation between the countries continued to further their economic and technological exchange by the year 2000.
The late 1990s marked an important period of progress in India-US ties, however, from a Congressional perspective, India remained a secondary priority. With deepening US-China ties following China’s inclusion in the WTO in 2001 and the strategic utility of Pakistan in the war on terror, India continued to remain a secondary partner, consistent with its status since 1991.
4.2.4 9/11 and US need to balance India and Pakistan
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks served as a pivotal inflection point in US foreign policy, recasting counterterrorism from a peripheral objective to the centerpiece of Washington’s global agenda. Within this new strategic lens, the United States began seeking deeper cooperation with partners facing similar jihadist threats. India, having long confronted Islamist militancy on its soil, naturally emerged as an important collaborator.
In the wake of 9/11, US policymakers recognized the utility of engaging India not merely as a counterterrorism partner but as a stabilising force in the Indian subcontinent. This translated into a heightened emphasis on intelligence sharing, capacity building, and joint counterterrorism operations, as both countries sought to align on disrupting terror financing, improving border surveillance, and enhancing law enforcement coordination.80 However, it is also important to note that the US cooperation with Pakistan was also reestablished during this period. This also led to the reestablishment of Congressional hyphenation that was disrupted during the Kargil war.81
Moreover, the 9/11 attacks helped soften US domestic and legislative resistance to strengthening ties with India on strategic and security fronts. In Congress and in executive circles, India’s role was reframed from being a troublesome non-aligned player to a pragmatic partner in the global war on terror. Over time, this shift in perspective laid important groundwork for subsequent cooperation in civilian nuclear trade, defense technology transfers, and strategic dialogues. The shared threat of Islamist terrorism, thus, created the political space for the US to carve out waivers and exceptions for India, forging a new template for deepened India-US strategic engagement.
4.2.5 India-US Nuclear deal
The India-US nuclear deal remained the defining development in India-US relations and central to this was the passage of the Hyde Act of 2006, shepherded through both the SFRC and the HFAC.82 The Act enabled US nuclear cooperation with India despite its non-signatory status under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a statutory exception that only Congress could authorise. The India lobby and the India caucuses of both chambers played a central role in supporting the Bush administration’s efforts in the passage of this bill.
The overwhelming bipartisan support the Hyde Act received in both chambers also reflected a fundamental re-rating of India’s position in US strategic thinking. During markup and floor debates, committee leaders framed the agreement not as an abandonment of non-proliferation principles but as a pragmatic means of bringing India into the mainstream while unlocking a wider strategic partnership.83 This logic was codified through subsequent steps—the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards agreement, the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s waiver, and finally the 2008 bilateral “123 Agreement.”84 Collectively, these moves demonstrated Congress’s ability to legislate exceptions while embedding guardrails, providing a template for reconciling normative regimes with geopolitical imperatives.
The year 2008 saw the beginning of a new chapter in India-US relations with the signing of the India-US nuclear deal. The year also saw important partisan shifts within the US Congress.
The economic crisis of 2008 gradually positioned China as a rival to the US while also marking the decline in US-Pakistan ties following the sudden spike of US drone strikes and cross-border raids into Pakistan. These shifts in external relations worked to enhance India-US ties, marking 2008 as another watershed moment to the Congressional views on India.
Beyond the nuclear domain, the first decade of the century also saw the steady normalisation of defence and technology ties. Congressional hearings during this period scrutinised issues of export controls, co-production arrangements, and joint exercises, with legislators pressing administration witnesses on licensing and end-use assurances.
5 2008-2024: China, Economic integration and support for a siloed sectoral structure
The contemporary Congressional perspective on the India–US partnership is evolving from the gradual rapprochement of the 1990s and 2000s to today’s more siloed structure of sectoral engagement. This era is experiencing the entry of new hardline groups within both the Republican and Democratic parties, as moderate and centrist establishments in each struggle for stability and consistency. This, in turn, is resulting in an increase in partisan tendencies, where members are required to demonstrate party loyalty by toeing the party line. During this same period, the importance of India has also been increasing in US strategic calculus. As a measure of caution, Congress seeks to shape the relationship as more bilateral rather than multilateral, long-term in orientation, and insulated from short-term fluctuations at both the executive and legislative levels. This is being achieved through the aforementioned siloed sectoral engagement, which involves identifying sectors of bilateral and bipartisan alignment and promoting dedicated formal frameworks to secure cooperation in these areas.
5.1 Institutional Factors: Partisan loyalty and competition
Since the Obama era, Congress is experiencing an unprecedented rise in partisan polarisation. In spite of no major reforms at the committee level, this period has become synonymous with growing party loyalty at the expense of Congress’s institutional responsibility to balance the executive. Under such circumstances, the threat of a rising China invites bi-partisan competition in offering policy alternatives to address this challenge. This also allows a bi-partisan support towards the US developing its relations with India- as a dependable counter weight to China in the region. Siloed structural engagement emerges as a common bi-partisan strategy to achieve this objective of enhanced India-US ties.
5.1.1 Areas of disagreement and siloed structural engagement
A siloed structure of sectoral engagement involves identifying sectors of India-US cooperation and insulating them from short-term disturbances by embedding sectoral cooperation in formal frameworks. This would help sustain the relationship despite the partisan disturbances of internal political divisions within Congress or impulsive executive decisions. There is a broad recognition within Congress that the absence of a long-term strategic perspective and the lack of a formal framework guiding the relationship contributed to the historically limited Congressional attention to India. This approach aims to address this , but the partisan Congress differs on sectors of cooperation and areas of disagreement.
Partisan polarisation, with the introduction of hardline factions to both the parties, has only furthered these differences. The Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republicans and the Progressive Social-Democrats are refining party loyalty by pressuring the moderates and centrists to adopt increasingly hardline policy stances. This in turn is also reflecting in Congressional attitudes towards Indian Americans and India-Russia ties.
The hardline Republicans are critical of India on trade and immigration while supporting deeper cooperation on defence and strategic technology. Progressive Democrats, by contrast, are critical of human rights and democratic freedoms in India, while supporting India’s greater role in multilateral institutions.
Since 2008 non-proliferation concerns have been discussed in trade terms, particularly regarding India’s nuclear liability laws and the impact on US exporters. Trade is also a source of contention with India’s high tariffs and mutual allegations of dumping featuring consistently in Congressional debates. These concerns heightened after 2007, as bilateral trade expanded from USD 30 billion in 2006 to USD 212.3 billion in 2024. Simultaneously, the unprecedented rise of the Indian diaspora, now the highest-earning ethnic group in the United States, has also become a significant factor in bilateral relations. Yet both trade frictions and immigration-related tensions have remained prominent in Congressional discussions. Several bills have proposed restricting trade with India across various sectors, coinciding with a broader surge in anti-immigration sentiment in the last decade.
This siloed structure of sectoral engagement has become a key mechanism for preventing policy differences from undermining the long-term stability of the partnership. Congress applies this approach by clearly distinguishing between areas of alignment and areas of dispute. Sectors of agreement are formalised and publicly highlighted, while disagreements are handled quietly, with an emphasis on gradual progress and long-term resolution.
5.2 Systemic Factors: China threat and the natural partnership with India
5.2.1 Areas of cooperation
This approach is reflected in bills like the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2017 where Congress recognised India as a “Major Defense Partner.”85 While falling short of a formal treaty status, the designation expressed a legislative intent to treat India in practice more like an ally in technology transfer, licensing, and interoperability. Although this initiative originated in the defence committees, members of SFRC and HFAC amplified its logic in hearings and public statements, underscoring a bipartisan consensus that closer defence cooperation with India served long-term US interests in balancing China.
Despite the occasional criticism of India’s domestic political developments as seen during the HFAC headings on abrogation of Article 370, the larger rhetoric highlights convergence over shared strategic interests.86
This illustrates a mature and pragmatic Congressional approach to the US-India partnership that has only been furthered with its handling of the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” (CAATSA) after India’s acquisition of Russian S-400 systems. Despite a mandate for sanctions, bipartisan voices in the Senate, including leaders of the India Caucus, urged the administration to exercise waiver authority. Their argument was grounded in strategic pragmatism that penalising India for legacy Russian equipment would undermine momentum in defence cooperation and weaken the Quad. During hearings, SFRC members pressed the State Department to articulate a clear waiver rationale, particularly in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the tone of preserving strategic gains rather than enforcing punitive orthodoxy prevailed.87
However, the members would cite India’s S-400 imports also as the key reason in opposing India’s inclusion as a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA)88. This differing stance can be interpreted as the members being reluctant to antagonise India by sanctioning them, but also preventing the advancement of India-US partnership due to concerns over India’s traditional partnership with Russia.
5.2.2 Growing importance of Siloed sectoral partnership structures
By 2024-2025, White House fact sheets and joint statements have articulated concrete steps on reducing trade barriers, promoting co-production arrangements, and supporting technology ecosystems. Committee calendars and draft legislation have also reflected this consolidation, with bills calling for furthering Quad and oversight hearings, embedding the partnership into Congressional architecture.
The Congress also aligned with the executive branch in advancing a broader agenda of industrial and technological statecraft. The US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) 2023, reframed cooperation around semiconductors, critical minerals, export controls, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and defence co-production.89 Committees in both chambers played an active role in shaping and overseeing this agenda. The HFAC pushed for legislation embedding a Quad strategy, while SFRC served as a venue for monitoring the implementation of iCET through oversight of co-production initiatives (such as jet engines), technology safeguards, and allied coordination.
This approach has been recently challenged by the second Trump administration through rhetoric against Indian immigration, India’s import duties, India-Pakistan conflict and India’s purchase of Russian oil, publicising previously private differences. However, even during these times, India-US relations remained rooted in institutions such as the Quad, with Congress pushing for increased funding and enhancement of India-US partnership across the space, defence, and technology sectors.
6 Conclusion
The evolution of Congressional perspectives on India from 1947 to 2024 shows a gradual shift from limited, episodic engagement to a more structured and bipartisan partnership. Institutional determinants of Congressional structure, executive-legislative alignment, and pressure-group interests shaped the content and tone of discussions in the first two phases (1947-1991). Systemic determinants like derivative bilateralism, economic exchange, and regional security guided Congressional priorities in the later phases (1991-2024), as India’s strategic and economic relevance increased.
During the era of committee and Senate dominance (1947-1960s), India appeared chiefly through the prism of broader Cold War considerations. Aid dominated discussions, oscillating between humanitarian need and anti-communist scepticism. Although India entered the Congressional agenda, it did so largely as a peripheral actor within debates centred on Soviet influence and containment rather than as a subject in a bilateral relationship.
In the period of subcommittee and House dominance (1960s-1990s), Congressional perspectives became more reactive and short-term. Nuclear proliferation, the India-Pakistan equation, and debates over economic exchange, particularly PL-480 and nuclear fuel exports, became the core issues. This era also marked the rise of appropriations committees, which imposed stringent conditions on aid and nuclear cooperation. Meanwhile, India’s non-alignment and the US relationship with Pakistan remained defining factors. Senior conservative members tended to support Pakistan on realist grounds, whereas younger subcommittee leaders criticised India over nuclear tests, the Emergency, and human rights issues in Punjab and Kashmir. These dynamics produced volatile, issue-specific swings rather than a stable long-term approach.
From the 1990s onward, in the era of party dominance, Congressional behaviour aligned more closely with the executive. Unlike in earlier decades, the strategic priorities of the United States during the war on terror or, later, the pivot to Asia and competition with China, increasingly overlapped with India’s regional interests. This convergence, combined with the rise of pro-India caucuses and diaspora lobbying, helped institutionalise a more cooperative and bipartisan orientation toward India.
Across these phases, the internal structure of Congress produced a pattern of inconsistent and frequently shifting perspectives on India. By contrast, the executive branch exhibited greater continuity, with fewer veto points and more stable strategic incentives. Congressional recognition of this imbalance is visible in its growing emphasis, since the 1990s, on building long-term frameworks and formal mechanisms to anchor the relationship.
Systemic factors reinforce this interpretation. Although both branches operated under the same international conditions, the decentralised and frequently shifting power centres in Congress responded more reactively. Committee chairs, subcommittee leaders, and partisan blocs each shaped debates at different moments, producing varied and sometimes conflicting motivations for engaging India. The executive, with its centralised structure and longer planning horizon, faced fewer such fluctuations. This left Congress with a shorter-term, often shallow engagement shaped by limited staff expertise and fragmented authority.
Recognising these constraints and aware of India’s growing economic and geopolitical value in the US strategy to balance China, Congress has increasingly approached the relationship through a more strategic lens. Its recent preference for embedding cooperation within long-term, issue-specific frameworks reflects an attempt to insulate India-US ties from both impulsive executive shifts and the reactionary tendencies of a polarised legislature. This siloed, structured approach now serves as a stabilising mechanism for the partnership.
Taken together, the analysis offers a structured way of interpreting Congressional behaviour toward India beyond episodic political events or leadership preferences. By tracing how legislative attention has been shaped by institutional and legislative variables, the paper clarifies why certain India related issues acquired durability within Congress while others repeatedly stalled or remained largely symbolic. This perspective allows Congressional engagement to be understood as an institutional process rather than a sequence of ad hoc reactions, helping distinguish moments of transient attention from those that produced longer term legislative anchoring.
Read in this manner, the findings provide a lens for evaluating the likely trajectory of Congressional engagement across different issue areas. Legislative support has historically been most sustained when cooperation was embedded within formal frameworks, routinised committee processes, or bipartisan statutory mechanisms. By contrast, engagement proved more volatile when it relied primarily on executive signalling or crisis-driven convergence. This distinction allows a more precise assessment of which aspects of the relationship are structurally resilient within Congress, and which remain exposed to partisan shifts, leadership turnover, or changing committee priorities.
The institutional design established by the US Constitution allows Congress greater scope to exercise oversight and influence foreign policy when partnerships are embedded in recognised and legislated structures rather than informal understandings. As India-US relations deepen amid rising political polarisation in the US, this institutional reading becomes increasingly relevant. The shift toward sector-specific and framework-based engagement reflects an effort to align the relationship with Congressional incentives and constraints, following longer term patterns rather than exceptional responses. This perspective offers policy makers, lobbyists, and diplomats a clearer basis for assessing both the opportunities and the limits of Congressional support for the partnership and for engaging with it accordingly.
Footnotes
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US Congress, House of Representatives. International Cooperation Act of 1991, H.Amdt.185 to H.R.2508, 102nd Cong., 1st sess. (1991), Link; US Congress, House of Representatives. International Cooperation Act of 1991, H.Amdt.144 to H.R.2508, 102nd Cong., 1st sess. (1991), Link.; US Congress, House of Representatives. International Cooperation Act of 1991, H.Amdt.183 to H.R.2508, 102nd Cong., 1st sess. (1991), Link.↩︎
US Congress, House of Representatives. International Cooperation Act of 1991, H.Amdt.187 to H.Amdt.186, 102nd Cong., 1st sess. (1991), Link.↩︎
Hathaway, Robert M. 2001. “Unfinished Passage: India, Indian Americans, and the US Congress.” The Washington Quarterly 24 (2): 21-34, Link.↩︎
Subhodeep Mukhopadhyay, “De-hyphenation of India and Pakistan: An Empirical Assessment,” International Journal of Political Science and Governance 6, no. 1 (January 1, 2024): 230–34, Link.↩︎
Hathaway, Robert M. 2001. “Unfinished Passage: India, Indian Americans, and the US Congress.” The Washington Quarterly 24 (2): 21–34, Link.↩︎
US Congress, House of Representatives. International Cooperation Act of 1991, H.Amdt.131 to H.R.2508, 102nd Cong., 1st sess. (1991) Link.↩︎
US Congress, House of Representatives. Congratulating the people of India on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of their nation’s independence, H.Res.22, 105th Cong., 1st sess. (1997) Link ; US Congress, House of Representatives. Congratulating the people of India and Pakistan on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of their nations’ independence, H.Res.157, 105th Cong., 1st sess. (1997) Link.↩︎
US Congress, Senate. A resolution designating August 15, 1997, as “Indian Independence Day: A National Day of Celebration of Indian and American Democracy”, S.Res.102, 105th Cong., 1st sess. (1997) Link.↩︎
ibid.↩︎
US Congress, House of Representatives. Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that India should be a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, H.Res.248, 105th Cong., 1st sess. (1997) Link.↩︎
US Congress, House. India-Pakistan Sanctions Flexibility Act, H.R.4209, 105th Cong., 2nd sess. (1998) Link.↩︎
US Congress, House of Representatives. Expressing the sense of the Congress in opposition to the Government of Pakistan’s support for armed incursion into Jammu and Kashmir, India, H.Res.227, 106st Cong., 1st sess. (1999) Link.↩︎
US Congress, House. H.Amdt.1005 to H.R.4811, 106th Cong., 2nd sess. (2000), Link.↩︎
US Congress, House. Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that it is in the interest of both the United States and the Republic of India to expand and strengthen United States-India relations, intensify bilateral cooperation in the fight against terrorism, and broaden the ongoing dialogue between the United States and India, of which the upcoming visit to the United States of the Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, is a significant step, H.Res.572, 106th Cong., 2nd sess. (2000), Link.↩︎
Afroz Ahmad and Najish, “Before and After 9/11: Indo-US Counterterrorism Cooperation,” Journal of International and Global Studies 9, no. 2 (2018) Link.↩︎
Arthur G Rubinoff, “3. From Indifference to Engagement: The Role of US Congress in Making Foreign Policy for South Asia” in Making of US Foreign Policy Towards South Asia: Regional Imperatives and Imperial Presidency ed Lloyd I Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, (Concept Publishing Company, 2008). (169-227) Link.↩︎
US Congress, House. Henry J. Hyde United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006, H.R.5682, 109th Cong., 2nd sess. (2006) Link.↩︎
Vijay Prashad, “Hyde-bound,” Frontline (The Hindu), September 7, 2007 Link.↩︎
US Department of Energy, 123 Agreements for Peaceful Cooperation, National Nuclear Security Administration Link.↩︎
US Congress, Senate. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, S.1356, 114th Cong., 2nd sess. (2016) Link.↩︎
US Congress, House. Urging the Republic of India to end the restrictions on communications and mass detentions in Jammu and Kashmir as swiftly as possible and preserve religious freedom for all residents, H.Res.745, 116th Cong., 1st sess. (2019) Link ; US House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights in South Asia: Views from the State Department and the Region, Panel II, 116th Cong., 1st sess., October 22, 2019 Link.↩︎
“US House votes for India-specific CAATSA waiver,” The Economic Times, July 15, 2022 Link.↩︎
Observer Research Foundation, “India’s Cheerleaders in the US Congress - a Preview.” (2019) Link.↩︎
US Congress, House. To express the Sense of Congress relating to the United States-India Defense Partnership, H.R.8757, 117th Cong., 2nd sess. (2022) Link.↩︎