After a slight lull over the summer, President Barack Obama's drive to recruit persons of Indian origin into his government is back to full throttle.
This week the White House announced a string of appointments to the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and they included three Indian-Americans: Farooq Kathwari, Amardeep Singh and Sunil Puri.
Mr. Kathwari, Chairman, President and CEO of the Ethan Allen Interiors company, serves on many non-for-profit organisations including the chair of the Kashmir Study Group, the White House said. It added that he was also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Director of the International Rescue Committee at Georgetown University and a Director of Refugees International.
Mr. Kathwari's personal story is also an unusual one — despite family opposition his son Imran went to fight the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s and died in a mortar attack. Mr. Kathwari was quoted as saying, “My son is lying in rubble in Afghanistan.” However it spurred him on to get involved, “not in Afghanistan but in Kashmir, as a diplomat of sorts.”
Mr. Kathwari, who was a student activist in Kashmir, was said to have brought together a group of predominantly American politicians, academics, and former diplomats in 1996 to suggest ways to end the civil strife.
Speaking in an interview years ago Mr. Kathwari said: “I wanted to try to save parents from the agony of losing a child. And Kashmir helps me maintain perspective.”
Another Obama appointee this week was Amardeep Singh, co-founder and Director of Programmes at the Sikh Coalition, the U.S.' largest Sikh civil rights organisation according to officials. Mr. Singh has also served as a researcher at Human Rights Watch, where he authored a report, “We are not the enemy: Hate crimes against Arabs, Muslims, and those perceived to be Arab or Muslim after September 11.”
Mr. Singh was also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race where he taught a course on the intersection of ethnic identity and the law, the White House said.
A third Indian-American appointee to the President's Advisory Commission is Sunil Puri, head of the First Rockford Group, Inc. Company, a real estate development firm he founded in 1984. Mr. Puri is a Board Member for the Rockford Area Economic Development Council and the Rockford College Board of Trustees.
He was born in Mumbai in 1960 and immigrated to the U.S. in 1979. According to reports, Mr. Puri has been active in Democratic politics for over 20 years, even advising President Clinton and travelling to India with him in 2000 and 2001.
