Asia Society Dinner For Gujral Angers Indians In Us

A high-priced gala dinner, organised by the Asia Society for Prime Minister I K Gujral during his visit next week, has led to a controversy here.

Indian American organisations and community leaders are incensed over what they perceive as the Asia Societys ostensible use of Prime Minister Gujrals name to garner funds for its own coffers.

Some of them expressed such animus over the gala dinner organised by the society, which will feature Gujral as the guest of honour making what is billed as his first public address in the United States as Prime Minister, that they were considering demonstrating outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the dinner venue. Tickets for the September 23 dinner have been priced at $700 and $350 each.

Several of the community leaders said they would boycott the Asia Society event, with one of them, Kanu Chavan, president of the Federation of Indian American Associations (FIA), saying he hung up on an Asia Society official who had called him requesting the FIA mailing list.

Subhas Razdan, national president of the National Federation of Indian American Associations (NFIA), wondered if some of the funds raised with Gujral as the drawing card would not help the society sustain its programmes on Pakistan, besides other non-India events.

Nirmal Mattoo, a Kashmiri pandit leader in New York, expressed anger over how the Asia Society had some months ago allegedly convened a closed-door session with a delegation of Kashmiris advocating independence for Jammu and Kashmir from India, and flatly refused the Kashmiri pandits requests to include them in the discussions.

Thomas Abraham, president of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO), said Gujrals first public address in the US should have been to the Indian American community and not to those who buy high-priced tickets to attend an Asia Society bash.

Abraham said, I strongly believe that when an Indian Prime Minister visits the United States, he should honour us with his presence, especially when Indian Americans are actively involved in promoting India and going out on a limb to defeat things like the Burton Amendment which are against India.

Abraham said the Asia Society dinner,which is expected to raise at least $1 million, is a very unfortunate thing, particularly when the community was struggling to raise money for an India Chair at Columbia University.

Abraham said we are short of about $1 million for the India Chair, and this money (that the Asia Society dinner featuring Gujral is expected to raise) should be utilised for something like that (the India Chair), and not to fill the Asia Society coffers.

He noted that several months ago when former Finance Minister Manmohan Singh visited New York, a $1,000 a plate dinner featuring the protagonist of Indias economic reforms had helped raise $300,000 for the India Chair at Columbia.

But I was totally surprised to see this Asia Society ad, Abraham said, when all the time he was hoping there would be a community event scheduled with Gujral who arrives September 21 for the United Nations General Assembly session and a September 22 summit with President Clinton in New York.

Abraham said that he had written letters to Ambassador Naresh Chandra and Indias Permanent Representative to the UN Kamlesh Sharma, requesting a few minutes with Gujral so that GOPIO and other Indian American organisations could discuss some of the initiatives and resolutions approved at their recent conferences, but I have not heard from them.

Shekhar Tiwari, the key BJP organiser in the United States, said that the Asia Society had offered BJP leader and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who visits the US in October, a similar forum as Gujral, but that had been rejected. Tiwari said the Asia Society had informed the embassy about a month ago that it would like to invite every important leader, including (West Bengal Chief Minister) Jyoti Basu and (Congress Party president) Sitaram Kesri and feature them as guest of honour at a gala dinner.

So this is simply not $1 million they are thinking of, they are thinking of this as a long-term (fund-raising) opportunity, Tiwari added.