The Kumars At Capitol Hill

He was a ‘double max’ donor to Donald Trump’s electoral campaign and as the founder of the Republican Hindu Coalition, Chicago-based industrialist Shalabh ‘Shalli’ Kumar is perhaps the most important Indian-American in the US president’s inner circle. The story of how Kumar, a little-known business tycoon, made it to Trump’s high table is a fascinating one of hustle, hard work, self-promotion and luck – not unlike the rise of the new president himself.

- Niha Masih

At 9pm on a chilly January night, on the eve of Donald Trump’s swearing-in as the 45th President of the United States of America, I found myself among some of the country’s most powerful, wealthy and well-connected politicians and businessmen. Union Station in Washington, DC, a transport hub, had been turned into a palatial banquet hall to host an exclusive black-tie dinner for the new president, ticket packages for which cost up to $1 million.

As the President-elect finished his pre-dinner speech and made his way down to the First Family’s table, the well-heeled crowd dropped any pretence of propriety and surged forward, attempting to penetrate the Secret Service wall for a handshake, a quick word or even – if lucky – a selfie.

Among them, the slender hand of former Miss India Manasvi Mamgai waved out to Trump. As Washington’s power elite looked on, the new leader of the free world walked over, gave her a kiss and spent the next half hour deep in conversation with Manasvi, and the man who had brought her there: a short, stocky, white-haired Indian-American entrepreneur, Shalabh ‘Shalli’ Kumar. “We’ve become so close. He (Trump) was at the event for an hour-and-a-half – we occupied a third of his time,” Kumar, a member of Trump’s Transition Finance and Inauguration committee, told me.