Shalabh Kumar wired $449,400 to the campaign over the weekend and pledged an equal amount through his wife, al... Read More

CLEVELAND (Ohio): Conventional wisdom — and various polls and surveys — shows that Indian-Americans largely lean towards the Democratic Party, and notwithstanding the "nuclear leap" that Republican President George Bush initiated in US ties with India, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are their political heroes. From all accounts, Hillary Clinton will be the inheritor of a large majority of the Indian-American vote.

But there are exceptions; those who swim against this tide — and no one does it better than Shalabh ("Shalli") Kumar, the Ambala, Punjab-born Indian-American industrialist from Chicago. After creating a stir some years ago by putting together a trip for US lawmakers to meet Narendra Modi when he was a persona non-grata in Washington, Kumar has made a splash at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland by pledging a $1.1 million political contribution to the Trump campaign.

Kumar wired $449,400 to the campaign over the weekend and pledged an equal amount through his wife, all routed through the Republican Hindu Coalition (RHC), he said, to confirm the strict standards of complicated campaign contribution rules. "This is just the beginning," he told this TOI in an interview, putting at $1.1 million the total contribution he has organized for the Republican candidate. "This is not just for Trump but for the future of US-India relations."

Asked for his views about some of Trump’s more controversial statements, including rants against Indian guest workers and immigration, Kumar said Trump is much misunderstood man, and the candidate had cleared many misgivings in a 45-minute one-on-one meeting over the weekend.

"He will be the most pro-India president in Indo-US history," he maintained. "We want to make the 21st century an India-US century."

Kumar pointed to the Republican platform (manifesto) released this week as a pointer to better US-India ties ahead, suggesting he and his associate Steven Yates, along with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, were instrumental drafting parts of it, particularly the sections devoted to the subcontinent.

The platform called India a "geopolitical ally," and a "strategic business partner," of the United States, with censorious references to Pakistan and the need to secure its nuclear weapons.

An electronic engineer (Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, and Illinois Institute of Technology), Kumar made his fortune through AVG Advanced Technologies, a company he founded in the area of automation controls, semiconductors, telecommunications, thick-film hybrids, electronic component manufacturing and distribution. He was initially a Democrat before becoming a "Reagan Democrat," inspired by the late President’s support for small businesses such as his (at that time).

More recently, Kumar has become an unabashed Hindu champion, forming the Republican Hindu Coalition with support from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has dallied with running for the White House and was in contention to be Trump’s running mate till recently. Counting him as an old friend going back to the 1980s, Kumar commandeered Gingrich to talk up Trump’s positive outlook towards India and Narendra Modi on the margins of the convention in Cleveland.

"They (Trump and Modi) are a natural fit and will get along with each other," he said, echoing Gingrich, who said they are both tough defenders of their respective countries and dealmakers who know how to negotiate for the good of their respective countries.

