WANTED: A leader for the Australian Indian Community

It’s the time of the year when United India Associations, claiming to be the largest Indian community organisation in Australia elects its office bearers. The prize is the claim to be representing the prospering Australian Indian community and rubbing shoulders with Australian politicians and businessmen who are desperately trying to get the community on their side.

However the flip side is being a target of constant criticism from some of the sections of the community who feel frustrated at the lack of direction and want the community organisations and leaders to punch more weight and produce visible results.

Enter Dr Yadu Singh, an eminent Cardiologist who has now thrown the gauntlet at the UIA Governing Council members and wants change and wants to declare UIA elections as illegal. Demands Yadu, “UIA constitution does not allow a religious association to be its member yet this is exactly what has been allowed. Basava Samithi [BS] is a religious association. Its mast-head had lord Shiva in it.  It is the association of the devotees of ‘Viswaguru Lord Basava’ BS should not be a part of UIA as per the UIA constitution. Similarly, Sri Anang Datta Inc is a religious association and should not be a part of UIA.”

THE INDIAN met with the outgoing UIA President Raj Natarajan and asked him for clarifications. Says Raj, “BS is a completely non profit, non religious body. In Indian culture we have a tradition of using God names and Saintly names and even cricket clubs are named after the great saint Basava. BS has got 50 members and its induction was vetted by all GC members.”

Yadu also questions presence of some members in UIA and says, “Sydney Kannada Sangha [SKS, www.kannada.org.au] is the association of Kannada people in Sydney. Its members and office bearers are common with BS [www.bsoaa.org]. Mr Halagali is the president of Basava Samithi and also the treasurer of Sydney Kannada Sangha. Mr Halagali also happens to be the public officer of UIA. Similarly, you will see the names of Mr Suresh Bangalore, Dr Orekondy and Mr OnkaraSwamy Goppenalli in both associations. What is this? Is it meant to rort the UIA constitution and give an unfair advantage to Kannada group in UIA elections as every association is given 3 votes? I thought branch stacking happens in certain political parties in Australia but it is happening in UIA too.”

Raj completely rejects the accusation, “Halagali is not part of multiple associations and any person can represent himself only as one GC member. This is completely wrong. This is day dreaming and insulting the intelligence of 60 GC members.”

Dr Yadu has also alleged that UIA is dominated by regional groups. “We have 2 Telugu, 2 Tamil and 2 or 3 Kannada associations in UIA. Why is one regional group being given multiples of 3 votes, rather than just 3 votes? Is it to stitch up the outcome of the elections?” asks Yadu

Replying to Yadu Singh’s accusation that UIA is dominated by South Indian organisations, Raj lambasts “There are more votes for North Indian associations than there are for South Indian associations. There are 9 North Indian associations, 7 South Indian associations and 4 neutral organisations in UIA. This is a false accusation.” Raj likens the opposing elements to the separatist elements in India who have no love for democratic institutions and says the fringe groups have a lot in common with these separatist elements. Says Raj, “A lot of North Indians enjoy the functions and hospitality of Kannada association. When we are so far from the Indian subcontinent we should not be raking these issues in this land.”

Dr Yadu has raised the question of UIA using “pocket associations” and asks, “India Sports club [ISC, www.indiasportsclub.org.au] claims to have 45000 members/friends with an annual growth rate of 27%. It’s an amazing claim. How many are the members and who are the office bearers and the EC members? Is it an association or a company? Mr Natarajan of ISC has been to UIA GC/EC before via Sydney Kannada Sangha.”

Clarifies Raj, “ISC is a sports body and was inducted into UIA as a youth body. The best way to attract youth is to have such organisations in UIA and I must say they have 45,000 email database and not 45,000 members. Ask Sports Club who they want to represent. For this election I was the only one person from Sports Club to vote in the elections as two other members were in Brisbane. The UIA GC meets every month and takes up time. People in the age group (18-35) don’t have much time as they need to look after their young families.”

Yadu Singh has also raised the question of member rotation and also challenged the presence of Technocrats Association in UIA. “UIA constitution prevents people to be in its GC beyond 4 years. It used to be 2 years before. Why are we seeing the same people from some associations in UIA GC years after years and coming back after a token break if they are challenged temporarily? Why is UIA stifling its own growth and acceptability in addition to be breaching its own constitution?”

Raj says, “The accusation about Technocrats Association is wrong. “We have referred the matter to our Solicitor who did an independent investigation and verified the membership of this association and confirmed that they can be part of the UIA as per UIA constitution. We don’t interfere in the nomination of member associations. It is up to each member association to remove their member representatives.”

Rejecting the accusation that his group will continue to maintain a grip on the UIA, Raj says, “Not a single cent gets spent without the authorisation of the Governing Council Committee of UIA. Everything is a collective decision. Aruna Chandrala is a clever woman and has shown leadership and collected 110,000 dollars and also has expanded the membership of her association to 25,000 to make it the second richest Indian community organisation. She got elected by a majority vote and was a deserving candidate.”

When asked about the imprint he was leaving back on UIA, Raj said, “Today UIA is recognised as a major Indian body by all levels including the mainstream Australian community. UIA today has a paid membership of 8000 to 9000 members which is a great thing to achieve.”

When asked that the UIA website is not kept current and not able to disseminate information for those seeking help, Raj said, “We are addressing the website and have put in place a website subcommittee to address the failings of the UIA website.” In fact posting of the new UIA Team for 2009-10 was available on the UIA website more than 2 weeks after this had happened.

Says a prominent Strathfield Bengali community member who wanted to remain anonymous, “An organisation can survive if it represents people. We need to set criteria for organisations to be members of UIA. Organisations that have 50 members get 3 votes in the UIA GC whereas an organisation with 1500 members also gets 3 votes. The democratic principle of “proportional representation” is not obeyed. Till this happens we can’t say that UIA is representing all the real people. Constitution of UIA needs to be reviewed. We also need to ensure that umbrella organisations chose organisations that truly represent people and need to check what activities do these organisations do.” Commenting on the disillusionment with UIA, he says, “We need to see if there is any force within UIA which is de motivating the member organisations to come forward and work freely in UIA.”

Says another UIA member anonymously, “The issue is why don’t people speak up when the need arises or why do these organisation members not feel getting involved with UIA? They just give up.”  With the result a sense of false harmony is being presented to the world.

Why Leading The Indian Community Is Not Easy

• The venue is Surjit’s Restaurant in Sydney where E Ahmed, Indian External Minister for State is being felicitated. One of the management committee members managing the entries for the event got piqued at not being introduced to the minister as one of the office bearers of UIA when the introduction rounds were happening. Having lost the photo opportunity, he left the venue but not before making a big ruckus with other members outside the restaurant and shouting openly that he had given his time for UIA and does not like being treated this way. The tamasha is there for all to see.
• UIA Friendship Fair 2007 at Olympic Park Homebush. It is around midday and the festival is about to reach its peak and the then NSW Premier Morris Iemma made it a point to be a part of this event, along with Federal Ministers Philip Ruddock and Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews and many of local Federal and State MPs. The arrangement was that each of these VIPs will be called and a general council member from the UIA will come and escort them to stage. There is also another group of sponsors who need to be sitting on the stage while the speeches go on. So in total there were around 20-25 seats to be filed by this group. As the voluntary members try to organise the seats with the name tags of people, there is commotion. As few VIPs walk up to stage one of the UIA members who was not meant to be on the stage, occupies a seat which was clearly not meant for him and refuses to move. The members try to plead with him to walk off from the stage with no luck. With some VIPs on the stage and few waiting below, the drama is enacted in full public view and it takes 25 minutes to get people on the stage not before each of the VIPs realises what the problem is. All because, the ego of one of the persons was hit and he wanted a seat on the stage.
• At the thanks giving ceremony post UIA fair, one of the GC members is given the task of sending an email to all volunteers asking them to come for the ceremony so that they can be recognised. At the party most of the volunteers did not turn up as it turned out that the person to whom the task of sending emails was delegated had conveniently forgotten about this.
• When it comes to interacting with prime nodal government agencies, there is a plethora of Indian associations asking for the same thing thus confusing the departments. The underlying opinion which these organisations have formed is that the Indian community is divided and there is no unity amongst them, with the result that the excellent work which each of the community member is doing does not get translated into benefits for the community. Most of the members doing community work are working in isolation with each other and the synergy is lost. (2+2 > 4).
• At this moment there are 2 Indian community organisations in touch with SBS to have Indian news presented on their station. SBS TV carries a plethora of news programs in many different languages. There is even Maltese news but no news in any Indian language. Both UIA and Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan claim to have approached SBS first and there is no cohesion while taking up the case with SBS.
• When the new Consul General called a meeting of community leaders for brainstorming at his office, it turned into a mud slinging match amongst the so called community leaders who were flying cheap accusations at each other.
• Some of the community associations have just 1 function – dinner or a picnic a year which they organise attended by a handful of people but still call themselves as community organisations.
• According to insiders most of the UIA meetings are shouting matches with members frequently raising their voices to prove points, resulting in pandemonium.
• The past UIA President hardly attended any UIA events hosted since the past 2 years by the outgoing President, clearly highlighting the tension and unease between different groups.

OUR VERDICT

• Most of the individual Indian community members have doubts whether the organisations that claim to represent them, do actually represents them. With most of the community members staying away from paid or even unpaid memberships, it is difficult to judge the claims of these associations that they represent their respective communities.
• Constant UIA hatred may not be healthy for Indian Australian community either. We need to give them a chance and the fact is that UIA has over a period of time developed a brand name which can be exploited for the wider Indian Australian community. Constant bickering with different factions need to stop and the solution to this has to come within UIA itself, if it intends staying in the game. It needs to reform itself and make itself amenable to different warring factions. There is frustration in the community about the existing leadership, if at all it exists.
• Tit-for-tat demonisation and petty politics will only poison our community life and will make it even harder to address community issues. Our community members need to rise and community organisations currently dominated by personalities need to expand their reach and include youth elements in their hierarchy.
• Appealing to self interest of a particular linguistic caste or religious group is self harming and needs to be curbed.
• The answer is not to create more organisations but to merge these into one bigger group.

WHAT IS EXPECTED OF COMMUNITY ORGANISATIONS

• All major community organisations need to share with the community the quantum of funds collected and funds dispersed during the last year.
• Share with the community, details of the membership of your organisation – Paid members, unpaid members, members on the Database.
• Members should step aside after serving a period of 2 years and should discourage rotation and recycling of members which would encourage new members to join.
• Form a proper functioning secretariat and look into the possibility of paid positions/volunteers.
• Minutes of major meetings should be made public.
• Information dissemination and maintaining websites should be of paramount importance.

UIA REPORT FOR 2008-2009

UIA made big strides during the year 2008/09. The main achievements are as follows:

A successful India Australia Friendship fair in spite of inclement weather;
Opening of UIA Office at Parramatta;
Four new members of UIA  – Indian Association of Newcastle; Maharastra Assocation of Sydney Inc.; Australian Indian Medical Graduates Association; Federation of Indian Students of Australia;
UIA recognized as the representative of Indian Government in NSW to address Women’s Issues;
Seniors’ issues discussed and progressed with Minister for Immigration and also NSW Minister for Ageing;
Several financial/other  helps given to needy – cancer patient of Adelaide, Swathi Patel, Srilankan woman child custody, Tarun Shivanna’s relative’s visa, Shivji – A senior citizens Indian Visa;
UIA lobbied for retaining the SBS Hindi Radio Executive Producer in Sydney  successfully;
UIA lobbied for starting the Indian News program on SBS with Managing Director;
National Forum for Indian Australians given a start;
Another  very successful Australia Day/Indian Republic Day Celebrations at Darling Harbor;
Women’ Forum on 7th March 09 attended Minister for Fair Trading, representing the Premier;
Senior Citizen’s Forum on 21st March 09 attended by NSW Minister for Ageing;
Financially supported one major event of all member associations which sought assistance from UIA; and
Finally achieved the highest revenue in the history of the Association

This list was given to THE INDIAN by the outgoing UIA President, Raj Natarajan.

New UIA General Council Elected

The annual General Meeting 2009 of the United Indian Associations was held on 19th April 2009 at Parravilla function Centre, Campbell St, Parramatta.

UIA Executive Committee -

From Left to Right 1st Row : Mr. Sunil Salunke, Treasurer ; Mrs. Aruna Chandrala, President ; Mr. Dilip Chopra, Vice President
From Left to Right 2nd Row Mr. Moninder Singh, Secretary ; Mr. Sunil Srivastava, Joint Secretary ; Mr. Logessan Pillay, Joint Treasurer

Following individuals were elected to the UIA executive committee for the year 2009/10 :

President:  Mrs. Aruna Chandrala of Telugu Association Inc.
Vice President:  Mr. Dilp Chopra of Hornsby Senior Citizens Association
Secretary:  Mr. Moninder Singh of Punjabi Council of Australia
Treasurer:  Mr. Sunil Salunke of Marathi Association Sydney Inc
Joint Secretary:  Mr. Sunil Srivastava of Hindi Samaj
Joint Treasurer:  Mr. Logessan Pillay of The Indian Samagra  Ikya  Sangam
Public Officer:  Mr. Vijaykumar Halagali of Basava Samithi

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