WASHINGTON: The Indian-American community’s political coming of age crossed another milestone on Friday when President Joe Biden nominated Shefali Razdan Duggal, a Democratic party activist, and fund-raiser, as the US envoy to the Netherlands.
Duggal, an immigrant to the United States from Kashmir, India, “is an experienced political activist, women’s rights advocate, and human rights campaigner,” the White House said in an announcement, citing several civic awards she has received and her service as the National Co-Chair of Women for Biden, and as a Deputy National Finance Chair at the Democratic National Committee.
While there have been a few Indian-American ambassadors from the US foreign service, notably Atul Keshap, till recently the US ambassador to Sri Lanka, Geeta Pasi, the US ambassador to Ethiopia, and Krishna Urs, who served as the US ambassador to Peru, this is the first time a grassroots party activist has been nominated as ambassador to a major country. Richard Verma, who US ambassador to India from 2014 to 2017 served as a senior Hill staffer and in US State Department before going to New Delhi.
Duggal, 50, a Kashmiri who was born in Haridwar and moved to the US with her family when she was two, has been a major fund-raiser for the party in California. After schooling in Cincinnati, Ohio, and degrees from New York University, she began her political career volunteering for Senators Ted Kennedy and Dianne Feinstein. She later worked on the Al Gore campaign in 2000, for the Obama campaign in 2008 and 2012, and most recently for the Biden campaign.
Duggal will have to be confirmed by the US Senate before she takes up her post.
(Chidanand Rajghatta / TNN)
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Good achievement question is as an activist who did she campaign for? The persecuted Kashmiri Hindus or others