Indians are coming...
Uday Dhumatkar, president, AISG, welcomed the gathering.
Discussing political consciousness amongst Indian Australians, its focus was to see whether more from the Indian community was ready for “direct active participation and whether young Australian Indians would now move forward from “participation to winning” and give a voice to the ever-increasing Indian-origin populace.
Speaking at the forum, Dr Gurdip Aurora led the charge by zeroing in about the absence of the “critical mass that was necessary to propel an Indian candidate to the Parliament”, as has been the case with other migrant communities.
He elaborated that Indian migrants in general were “skilled, educated, spoke Eglish and hence did have the necessity to form ghettos”. He however stated that now the Indian Community was now ready to have itself represented and should fall behind potential Indians aspiring to enter active politics to which the next speaker, Dr Raman Marar, OAM agreed. He added that the community needed to be united and fall behind the potential candidates.
However voicing the need to consider ourselves as only Australians, Dr Conrad D’Souza, the Liberal Candidate from Jagajaga who secured 37.4% of the votes, said “any potential (Indian) leader should think mainstream and not pigeonhole themselves into sectarian politics – because Australian politics is mainstream and not sectarian”.
“The time has come and it is always the time to make the move from being a complainant to the position where you can participate in the decision making process” he added.
Sounding the warning about the nature of the game, Dr. D’Souza said, “If you are ready for the mainstream game – (only then) go for it”.
A prominent Indian businessman who pioneered Maharajah’s Choice brand of Indian foods in 1969, Abul Hasnat, told the Forum that businesses did not have a role to play in the specifics of affiliated political candidates; however businesses “should give back to the community”. He felt that businesses would be affected promoting a political party or candidate.
Disagreeing Gangadhar Bevinakoppa, an accomplished entrepreneur in the field of engineering, concluded that involvement of the business should be on moral and financial grounds and exhorted Indian businesses to get behind potential, aspiring leaders.
Ms Alex Bhathal, who is half Indian (Punjabi) and the Australian Greens candidate for the Senate seat of Batman, speaking at the forum said, “while it seems little difficult to see the idea of a community support mechanism getting behind a candidate actually functioning to fruition although community feeling solidarity with their own (candidates) is understandable.”
“We are a diverse community and have diverse political views but it would be good to see your community behind you although the community actually endorsing the candidate rather than promoting him can be an issue”, Ms Bhathal added.
Mr Nitin Gupta, a young liberal and Indian businessman, however, differed with Ms Bhathal and said, “If a candidate is worth his game, he would not only be promoted and supported by our community but also endorsed by the community”.
The Forum threw up some interesting facts - Indians being one of the top constituents of the migrant Victorian population, mostly professionals and rating at the top on per capita income basis, amongst the other migrant communities, they needed
to adopt the mentality of politics being a career in
to find that balance between maintaining Indian tradition and culture and thinking of oneself only as an Australian;
to eschew small ethnicities within the Indian fold and support deserving candidates
Dr Pradeep Taneja concluded the forum saying that “politics is the art of making distinction between friends and enemies. Politics is commitment, commitment is passion and passion for a cause is necessary”. Further elaborating on his views, he said that the new generation has a passion for politics.
“The talent that comes through my door at the university is very promising, they are bright and talented Indian Australians are far more switched on and polished in the game and in the years ahead we are definitely going to see them sitting there (in the parliament)”, Dr Taneja told the audience.
Dr Taneja lectures at the
Mr George Lekakis, Chairperson, VMC – the chief guest at the Forum congratulated AISG members for the initiative and urged more young Indians to engage in the political process.
With Indians in high political positions in
by Deepti Baruah
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