Eric Garcetti, the US ambassador-designate to India, on Tuesday said he plans to “double-down on our efforts to strengthen India’s capacity to secure its borders, defend its sovereignty, and deter aggression” when he takes office and, at the same time, raise with Indians the issues of Indian purchases of Russian arms, specially S-400 missile defence systems, and human rights and democratic values.

A long-time Democratic operative and Los Angeles mayor, 50-year-old Garcetti is President Joe Biden’s nominee for ambassador to India and appeared before a US senate committee for confirmation along with ambassador-designates Donald Armin Blome for Pakistan and Amy Gutmann for Germany.

“If confirmed, I intend to double-down on our efforts to strengthen India’s capacity to secure its borders, defend its sovereignty, and deter aggression – through information sharing, counterterrorism coordination, joint freedom of navigation patrols and military exercises (which I have participated in as a naval officer alongside my Indian counterparts), and sales of our best defence technologies in order to realise the full potential of our Major Defence Partnership,” Garcetti said in his opening statement for the hearing.

SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS IN TIES WITH INDIA

Garcetti lauded the progress made in the relationship from 1992, “the year I graduated from college after studying Hindi and Indian cultural and religious history”, and now. Annual trade stood at a paltry $2 billion then (it’s over $145 billion now) and defence trade was zero ($20 billion in 2020). He also spoke of his visit to India as a teenager, along with his parents.

Senators from both parties pressed Eric Garcetti during questioning to raise several issues with India, even as they appreciated the close nature of the partnership between the two countries and the upward growth trajectory. Two key issues they sought to task Garcetti – India’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defence missile systems that could trigger sanctions under a US law that seeks to punish Russia by scaring away its big defence clients, called the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA); and “democratic backsliding”, as one senator put it, and human rights.

“I don’t want to prejudge the Secretary’s decision about sanctions or a waiver and I do want to tell the chairman and all the members, I do fully support the law of the land, implementation of CAATSA as law and here and part of that is the waiver provision as you mentioned,” Eric Garcetti said in response to a question about his stand on the India’s purchase of S-400s.

“If confirmed, though, I would advocate following the continued diversification of India’s weapon system, the threats to our own weapon systems if that diversification doesn’t occur, because we have to protect our data and our systems and work towards really growing this Major Defence Partnership.”

COMMITMENT TO DEMOCRACY

On questions about “democratic backsliding”, a phrase used by Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and questions about the Citizenship Amendment Act, Garcetti said, “There’s no question that the US-India relationship should be underpinned by our common commitment to democracy, to human rights and to civil society (as enshrined) in our constitutions, both the oldest democracy in the world and the largest democracy in the world.”

“And human rights, defence of democracy is a pillar of our foreign policy but to answer specifically, if confirmed, I will actively raise these issues or raise them with humility. It’s a two-way street on these, but I intend to engage directly with civil society.”

Eric Garcetti has been the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles since 2013, following 12 years as a member of the City Council, including six as Council President.

Garcetti co-founded Climate Mayors and led more than 400 US mayors to adopt the Paris Climate agreement, according to the announcement. He is the current Chair of C40 Cities – a network of 97 of the world’s biggest cities taking bold climate action and has led the organisation’s engagement and expansion in India as well as C40’s global response to the Covid pandemic through the sharing of best practices and resources, said the White House.

Garcetti’s familiarity with the region owes also to his 12 years as an Intelligence Officer in the US Navy Reserve Component, Garcetti served under the commander, US Pacific Fleet and the Defence Intelligence Agency, retiring in 2017 as a Lieutenant.

He is a Rhodes Scholar and studied at Queen’s College, Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His website as LA mayor says he is also a jazz pianist and photographer.