She pointed out that "before he became a Congressman, Saund supported immigrant rights and was part of the force to grant naturalisation rights to Asian-Indians and Filipinos, signed by President Truman in 1946."
Eric Saund, the eldest grandson of Saund and the family spokesman and archivist, in his remarks thanked Congress "for commissioning this very symbolic portrait of our grandfather, who we knew as Bapu."
"Bapu was very optimistic," he recalled. "He took a positive attitude to everything. He encountered barriers and he acknowledged them, but he did not dwell on them. Instead, he reasoned his way past them and in that way he was the quintessential American."
Eric Saund said, "It is our hope that through this portrait, the life and service of Congressman D S Saund will continue to inspire others to their own form of great work."
The portrait shows Saund in the Cannon House Office Building, on the upper level of the Cannon Rotunda.
On the right of the portrait, a series of images, painted as it is carved in stone, trace Saund's life-journey.
Saund's oft-quoted remark, "There is no room in the United States of America for second-class citizenship," appears below the portrait and visual narrative. It is rendered illusionistically using a conceit of gold carved letters on multi-colored marble.
Also read: The fight of the other India
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