Why United States should have more consulates in India than in Canada

The United States has seen itself as a global power for only a century. President Woodrow Wilson sought assiduously to stay out of World War I, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt preferred isolationism to involvement in World War II up until December 7, 1941, when the Japanese Empire attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Initially, the US diplomatic corps was scattershot. The State Department might appoint “ministers” but they often acted in an ad hoc capacity, often had to fend for themselves, and simply declared the houses they bought or rented to be embassies. The modern US foreign service only came into existence a century ago with the May 24, 1924 Rogers Act.

In 1930, the US maintained only 57 embassies and legations and 299 consulates and consulates-general posts. As decolonialisation swept the globe, the number of US embassies surged to 162 while the number of consulates plummeted to just 75. Today, the US maintains 193 embassies and 78 consulates. Today, that represents the world’s largest diplomatic footprint after China.

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Size alone does not correlate to effectiveness. Generally, the US seeks to have an embassy in every country apart from countries like North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan that refuse diplomatic relations with the United States or Washington considers adversarial. Even by this standard, however, the United States falls short. The State Department maintains no embassy in Bhutan, for example, instead coordinating diplomatic affairs from New Delhi, and maintains embassies in only half of the Caribbean countries it recognises.

The problem is with the consulates. Many US consulates are legacies of the 20th if not 19th century and serve no strategic and little diplomatic purpose in the 21st century. Given how resources are finite, every legacy consulate represents an opportunity lost when the State Department cannot afford consulates elsewhere.

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There is no better example than Canada. Beyond the embassy in Ottawa, the US consulates in Calgary, Halifax, Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. Even the embassy should not be so important as the two countries share language, time zones, and even phone systems. When a problem emerges between the two countries, the US president and Canadian prime minister, or the US Secretary of State and the Canadian Foreign Minister are likely to call each other directly; the idea each might instead turn to their embassy is laughable. The same holds true with U.S. states and Canadian provinces. A New York State representative representing a border district likely has his Canadian counterpart in Ontario or Quebec on speed dial or WhatsApp.

US diplomats are not businessmen; few have had a private sector job in their post-college careers which is why most businessmen ignore any commercial advice American diplomats may offer. This means that the local consulates serve little commercial purpose. They do not benefit ordinary diplomacy either. To learn about the United States or US policy, Canadians would turn on the television and tune into an American news station like CNN or Fox; they would not call up their local American consulates. This leaves “American citizens services” as the only purpose for the United States to spend millions of dollars maintaining facilities in Winnipeg, Quebec City, or Halifax. Americans do get arrested or robbed in Canada (though Canadian criminals are more likely to say please and thank you than their American counterparts) and sometimes they lose their passports. In the age of email and Zoom, however, Americans can just as easily contact their embassy in Ottawa, or receive forms necessary via FedEx. Consulates may provide a convenience, but not a necessary one.

Contrast Canada’s oversaturation with American consulates to their general paucity in India. Beyond the US Embassy in New Delhi, the State Department maintains consulates in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai. Each of these are necessary, but just a drop in the bucket of the diplomatic investment the United States should make in India given its role as the world’s largest democracy, most populous country, and third or fourth largest economy.

Unlike Canada whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau embraces Canada’s superficial diversity, India is truly diverse, with more than 1,000 spoken languages. India is a haven of religious freedom. It boasts not only the world’s largest Hindu community, but also the world’s largest Sikh, Jain, and Zoroastrian populations. While Iran, of course, hosts the world’s largest Shi’ite Muslim community, India—not Lebanon, Iraq, or Azerbaijan—is the runner up. Indeed, India boasts the second largest number of Muslims in the world after Indonesia. India’s Christian population is as large as Spain’s, and India has more Jews than Poland, Portugal, or the Czech Republic. Baltis, who fuse Shi’ism and Buddhism flee Pakistan into India to practice their faith freely.

India’s diversity makes local representation essential. There are only so much diplomats can learn from reading Indian newspapers or watching its robust television debates. The US absence in key Indian states and territories leads to errors. The State Department, for example, warns Americans not to travel to Jammu and Kashmir “due to terrorism and civil unrest,” but there are fifteen times more murders in Washington, DC than in Srinagar, even though Washington has just half the population of Kashmir’s capital. Perhaps if American diplomats lived in Srinagar and travelled across Jammu and Kashmir, they would recognise that the union territory has grown fundamentally safer since its status was normalised with the long overdue abrogation of Article 370.

Then there is Punjab, a state where Sikhs form the majority, especially after Pakistan drove Sikhs and other non-Muslims from its Punjab province. As Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency seeks to create an artificial “Khalistan” movement, a US consulate in Chandigarh, Ludhiana, or Amritsar would render such propaganda worthless.

Bangalore, too, deserves a dedicated American consulate, not only because it is India’s third most populous city, but also because so much of the American tech industry depends on the graduates from the city’s universities and researchers from its companies. To ignore India’s equivalent of Silicon Valley is foolish. At 335 kilometres away, diplomats in Chennai are simply too far away to appreciate truly the intellectual and tech engine that Bangalore has become. The list goes on: Of India’s top ten cities, only half have American representation. For strategic reasons, the State Department should have permanent representation in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh.

Of course, relations are not unidirectional. The State Department should not only prioritize missions in Pune, Lucknow, and Kochi, closing its redundant consulates in Canada, France, and Italy if necessary, but should also welcome new Indian consulates across the United States. The new Indian consulates in Boston and Los Angeles represent a good beginning; not the end. Huntsville, Alabama has the highest proportion of engineers in the United States for example; it is no coincidence that so many are Indians. The “research triangle” in North Carolina, too, deserves its own consulate rather than being an after thought for diplomats in Washington, DC. Denver, too, is too big and important to be run from Houston. For that matter, if California—America’s most populous state–can now have two Indian consulates, why should India not open a second one in Texas, which could soon overtake California? Permanently stationing Indian diplomats in Dallas could only strengthen India’s commercial position in the United States. The same holds true for Florida. As India becomes a global economic powerhouse, what better spot to launch its wares into the Caribbean than from Miami or Tampa, Florida? Tampa may not be a household name in India, but it and Pensacola are important centers for the U.S. military and therefore, for India as cooperation deepens.

The India-United States partnership has developed in important ways over the past quarter century. It has survived hurdles, crises, and defied expectations. If the partnership is to continue, then it is time the State Department structure its diplomatic footprint to look forward towards India and into the 21st century, and not backwards toward Canada and the 20th.

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, USA and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.