'America is being redefined. We must be at the table'

It's no secret why Washington, DC-based information technology entrepreneur Rajeev Sharma has been unanimously cajoled into serving as the chair of the Indian American Leadership Initiative's advisory board.

Sharma, founder and chief executive officer, ABSi Corportation, has over the past few years been IALI's staunchest supporter and generously underwritten many an IALI event. Last week was no different.

On the eve of the IALI national convention, he sponsored a lavish cocktail reception attended by several hundred guests, including senior officials in the Obama administration like Raj Shah, Preeta Bansal, Vivek Kundra and Ro Khanna, congressional candidates like Dr Manan Trivedi, Dr Ami Bera, Raj Goyle and Ravi Sangisetty and community political leaders like Kumar Barve and Jay Goyal. And then Sharma opened his wallet to partly fund the convention itself.

At the reception, Sharma said he was elated that the last frontier for the Indian-American community, politics, "where for too long the community had remained outside the mainstream, was also being conquered."

"As we embark on this new decade," he said, "we can be proud of our candidates from different parts of the country, many of whom are here tonight. A Majority Whip in the Ohio legislature (Goyal), Majority Leader of the House in Maryland (Barve), a Harvard law grad running for Congress in Kansas(Goyle), an Iraq War veteran in Pennsylvania (Trivedi), a physician from California (Bera) and many more. We also have an unprecedented number of Indian Americans serving in important positions in the Obama administration and they have all generated so much excitement."

The community, he argued, "has matured and established ourselves in this great country and now our participation in the political process is no longer an option. We have the duty of civic responsibility even activism to preserve the freedoms and privileges that are ours in a democracy and of responsible stewardship to the generations that follow."

He cautioned: "We do not have the luxury of taking for granted the fruits and the benefits of the American Dream… Two years ago who could have predicted the Tea Party movement where the fringe is trying to become or influence the mainstream? Who could predict that a state (Arizona) could pass a law where a police officer can challenge anyone to show proof of citizenship and can act as he or she sees fit in that situation?"

He bemoaned: "For our community, (for) too long the operative term has been comfortable inaction."

Thus, Sharma said, it was imperative that "we must send forth our best and brightest to represent not only our community, but also the greater mainstream society as America is being redefined. We must be at the table. Those of us in the community who are successful professionals or who own small businesses or corporations must step forward first and set an example and support IALI and other such organizations."

The next day, kicking off the discussion titled 'Supporting Our Political Pioneers,' Sharma hoped that he could "serve as an example for those who do not want to make a career of politics but find it important to be involved; and IALI helped me with that."