India ties represent early test for Clinton

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State-nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton faces an early test of her influence in South Asia with tensions rising between India and Pakistan after last week's deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Both Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton, have maintained warm relations for years with India and the Indian-American community.

As New York senator and as a 2008 presidential candidate, she toured India and visited with Indian officials and entrepreneurs, and her campaigns profited from the largesse of Indian-American fundraisers.

Bill Clinton's charitable foundation has been funded by some of the same well-heeled Indian businessmen who backed his wife.

Ties between the United States and India improved dramatically, as did Pakistani suspicions of pro-India bias in Washington, during the Clinton administration, which embraced India as a major power and market as it opened its economy in the 1990s.

During the presidential campaign, Indian Americans reciprocated Hillary Clinton's long-standing embrace of India by giving generously — $2 million at a single fundraiser in New York in 2007.

At one point, the Obama camp prepared, but then disavowed, a campaign memo that carried the headline "Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)."

The memo, which created a furor in India and among Indian Americans, also referred to the Clintons' investments in India, Sen. Clinton's fundraising among Indian-Americans and the former president's $300,000 in speech fees from Cisco, a company that has moved U.S. jobs to India.