Obama nominates Indian-American Nisha Biswal as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs

In a striking development unlikely to go well with Pakistan, US President Barack Obama on Thursday nominated an accomplished Indian-American administrator, Nisha Desai Biswal, to head the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs in the US Department of State.

After confirmation by the Senate, Desai would become the first person of Indian or even South Asian origin to head the bureau, which oversees US foreign policy and relations with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan.

The White House announcement said the president intended to nominate Biswal as assistant secretary of state for “South Asian Affairs”, although in the State Department it is formally known as Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, dealing also with five Central Asian countries – Kazakhstan, Kirghiztan, Tajkistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.

Biswal is currently United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Assistant Administrator, which is headed by another Indian-American, Rajiv Shah.

Biswal’s nomination was unprecedented as the bureau had always been headed by “all-American” diplomats, although there were many mid-level staffers who were US-born, but of sub-continental origin.

Former assistant secretaries of the bureau, since its inception in 1991, include Robin Raphel, Karl Inderfurth, Christina Rocca, Richard Boucher and Robert Blake.

While the Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) portfolio was largely managed by a special representative (currently James Dobbins), Biswal’s nomination was bound to cause alarm in Pakistan, as a former Pakistan ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani had once complained about the growing number of Indian-Americans in the Obama administration.

However, no Indian-American appointee had ever been accused of biased dealings regarding the India-Pakistan issue.