Obama\'s Win Closely Watched in India

Rafiq Maqbool/Associated PressAn American national watching the election results during an event organized in Mumbai, Maharashtra on Wednesday.

The U.S. presidential election results were closely followed in India on Wednesday morning at breakfast parties across the country, in private homes and on television news channels, which ran nonstop coverage of the event.

On the lawn of the art deco Imperial hotel in New Delhi, hundreds of Americans, Indians and people with ties to both countries gathered for a breakfast sponsored by the U.S. Embassy, watching CNN on a big screen as a band in boater hats pl ayed Johnny Cash tunes with a polka beat.

Hurricane Sandy helped President Barack Obama, said Gaurang Kanth, a New Delhi attorney who was at the Imperial breakfast. “It was divine intervention,” he said. “It was all about praying to the Indian god,” he added with a laugh. Before the 2008 elections, a group of Indians gifted a statue of the Hindu god Hanuman to Mr. Obama, after Time magazine reported that he carried a tiny statue of a monkey as a good luck charm.

Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse - Getty ImagesObama supporters celebrat ing at the Imperial Hotel in New Delhi after news came in that President Barack Obama had been re-elected on Wednesday.

English-language news channels in India ran continuous, uninterrupted coverage of the election Wednesday morning from U.S. channels, and brought in experts with experience in the United States to explain what was happening to viewers. “The right-wing Tea Party thing is just not working,” G. Parthasarathy, a retired diplomat who was stationed in Washington, told CNN-IBN.

At the Hard Rock Cafe in Hyderabad, American expatriates tucked into a breakfast of bacon and eggs and watched the election results on CNN. When the network declared Mr. Obama's victory, there were cheers.

Though the Internet provided minute-by-minute coverage of the election, some expatriates said it was no replacement for experiencing the race in person.

“We streamed the debates at our apartment and I read Ezra Klein every morning, but I still felt a bit disconnected trying to stay abreast of the news,” said Kelsey Coates, who lived in Washington before moving to Hyderabad for a fellowship in social enterprise. “I lived in D.C. You can't trade anything for the experience of being there.”

Elvin John, an official at the U.S. Consulate in Hyderabad, which organized the breakfast, said the event was a chance for Americans in Hyderabad to share the election with each other. “If you're living abroad, you want to feel at home when you're dealing with such a huge event,” he said. “That's why we picked an American venue.”

Just over 40,000 Americans were registered as residents in India in 2009, the latest figures available. But the number of Americans with roots in India is much higher, and strong trade and diplomatic ties are considered integral to both countries.

As CNN called the election for Mr. Obama, cheers rang out on the lawn of the Imperial hotel in New Delhi, and groups of businesspeople, students and embassy staff members waved American flags. The volume on the big screen was turned down and the band's amplifiers turned up. They lit into a celebratory rendition of “Tequila.”

Courtesy of American Embassy, DelhiU.S. Ambassador Nancy J. Powell addressing the gathering at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi on Nov. 7.

Then the U.S. ambassador to India, Nancy J. Powell, addressed the crowd.  “Election Day in America, like India, is a very special day,” she told the crowd. While the United States has the world's oldest democracy, India has the largest, she noted. The election process “makes me proud t o be an American, and a small-d democrat,” she said.

At the World Economic Forum's annual India conference outside New Delhi, many participants were following the U.S. election on their phones and tablet computers during a speech by the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper. The group seemed to generally be supporting Mr. Obama.

Sanjay Kapoor, managing director of Genesis Luxury, a fashion company based near New Delhi, said he found the election unexciting, particularly for Indians, because he felt Mr. Obama had done little to improve U.S.-India relations and because he did not think his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, would do much for bilateral relations either.

“I don't think bilateral trade or relations with the United States have really changed with him,” Mr. Kapoor said about Mr. Obama on the sidelines of the conference. “I am really concerned about us, and I don't think he has done much.” But he added that even if Mr. Romney had won, he would not have expected much of a change in U.S. policy toward India.

No matter who wins, “it is not going to make a substantial difference to India,” agreed Ashok Swarup, a corporate lobbyist at the Imperial Hotel breakfast. “It is a relationship that has been growing, and no President wants to rock that boat.”

Sruthi Gottipati contributed reporting from New Delhi.