Inside the Mind of a Leader
Aruna Chandrala, President United India Associations, had a tough year in 2009. She is also a member of CRC working committee which has been set up by NSW Premier to address the issues effecting Indian student community and is also a member of Community Safety Precinct Committee(NSW Police). Originally from Andhra Pradesh in India, she is married to businessman Viswanath Chandrala, Director of Bocar Pty Ltd, and is also the CEO for this company. Her daughter Shalini is a chartered accountant and son Pavan is a doctor. She also works as a Telugu language interpreter.
Rohit Revo spoke to Aruna Chandrala in a free wheeling conversion.
How difficult is it to be a women and be the head of 23 bodies, with men manning almost all the executive positions.
At the time of my birth my father was young and successful President of the village, I had the privilege of watching village court proceedings while sitting in his lap in the foyer of our house. Being youngest in the family I was pampered a lot. I had 3 older brothers and more male cousins in an extended family which made me very competitive and I think it was the foundation for my determination and confidence. My father named me Vasantha Lakshmi, Aruna is the name I chose for my self at the age of 6.
My association with a loyal Muslim and a priest from Rama mandir, working for my father and a converted Christian who is my mother’s uncle at a very early age gave me tolerance to all these religions.
And this was in India.
Yes in Gowripatnam village in West Godavari district. We came to Australia in 1986 and before that we went to NZ in 1982.
Was it easy to adjust in UIA
UIA is a good and well established organisation to work with. UIA has most efficient and dedicated team of volunteers which I have never seen in any other organisation. UIA Governing council members are prominent members of the Indian community and each one of them has their own support networks and have been serving the community for long time. Most of them are presidents of their member organizations. I find it intellectually stimulating and challenging to work with these GC members. Although I had to face unforeseen family circumstances and my personal health issues I have been able to perform efficiently to keep UIA as the number one organisation with the support of UIA EC/GC members. My Family has been excellent support for me throughout my life.
When you first told your family you want to be President of UIA, did they ask you how much time will you commit for this
It didn’t surprise them as I was involved with UIA as GC member and have worked hard to set up of UIA office prior to becoming President of UIA. I have been in public life since long and have been member of several committees. I was a representative of my class, President of Telugu Association here for their 8th, 9th and 15th year, have been member of committees like Sri Venkateswara temple, Diwali Festival, CRC working committee among others. I also broadcast on Telugu Vani programs for community radio on 98.5FM MHZ.I was called a born leader and community work is my passion!!
I conduct study classes on every last sunday of the month at Strathfield Satya Sai centre. I am always doing community work and take it in my own stride. I guess my family will be worried if I don’t do these things.
Did you face any harassment or resistance in conveying your ideas in UIA
In any organizations people would always welcome me as I work hard. Once they see my work, they believe in me and support me unconditionally. So far I have never felt any harassment in UIA. Infact I was called Mahalakshmi after the India Australia Friendship Fair 2009 for getting the Premier’s grant $50,000 for the first time as this nothing happened in UIA before.
But is this amount in UIA Bank account.
Yes it is already in the bank account. India Australia Friendship Fair is a high budget program, last year we had 130K budget. As you know we are all volunteers in UIA when we put so much effort in showcasing Indian culture, although we had major sponsors and gate collections we were worried we may not break even. I actually had sleepless nights, fortunately having Premier’s grant this year IAFF 2010 would be a pleasurable experience.
How much money did you make in the UIA Friendship Fair last year
Last year we made $10,000 profit. April 25th was the election last year and once we realized our committee had to organise India Australia Friendship fair 2009 on 9th of August in Sydney Olympic Park. Once I started working for the IAFF 2009 as a Fair Director it was mind boggling as it is a high profile and high budget program and there are lot of expenses involved. I realized there is no way to get the money quickly and till last minute we were not sure if we could get the sponsorships in the light of Global Financial Crisis.
What is your biggest achievement
Apart from getting Premier’s grant I would say setting up UIA office and making sure it is open Monday to Friday during working hours with the help of volunteers, UIA member organisations and other Indian community groups have been using this office for their committee meetings free of cost.
Is it a fully functioning office now
It is fully functional working from 10 to 5 and phone lines, computer and printer are all in working order.
Do you think the constitution of UIA should change
My personal view is that constitution is in order but member organizations have to maintain their standards and come up and meet the standards of constitution.
Some organisations are 15 years old and are taking it easy. How do you purge those members from UIA
At the moment we are thinking that we will bring out guidelines and give it to all member organizations and ask them to meet them which will improve their organizations and increase standards of UIA.
What about member organization who don’t hold elections
When we issue these guidelines and ask them to provide AGMs and this will clean up their act.
Do you think UIA is worse off or better off after you became President
I would say better off as we have fully functioned office to work from, we have 50,000 grant money in bank, Benevolent fund has been established with seed money of $5000 to help the community as the need arises, Voice Of India news letter has been launched at our Republic Day 2010 function and 3 organisations are showing expression of interest to join UIA. I would like to make one point clear though, any success of UIA is a combined effort. You may see my photo or hear my name as a President of UIA, my success has been possible only due to our EC/GC members and well wisher’s support.
Some other bodies have reclaimed leadership for Indian community
I think because of my mother I had to go to India couple of times and I was away from action. We never had this kind of situation in Australia before. When the fireball effect of students issues came, no one knew how to solve it but everyone came forward. Although lot of people from UIA were involved in student issues, we have organized 4 student forums I think we have not been given due recognition in the community.
Whatever work we have done we have involved CG, CRC, student leaders including Anglo Saxon. But some people don’t mention UIA at all and some people are doing negative publicity for us. I have been asking the UIA committee elders about this as this is puzzling me.
When the Indian External Affairs Minister was here you had to wait for 2 hours before meeting him. Were you hurt?
It was bit disappointing because 4 minutes before the room was closed I was called and it was known I was coming. There was possibly some misunderstanding which caused this. I waited there till the meeting finished so that I could give the Invitation to the Minister for the India Australia Friendship Fair. I would say I was more disappointed that Minister SM Krishna missed the opportunity to address the largest Indian community gathering at the fair which was also well attended by both State and Federal Parliamentarians.
Do you feel victimized when people hurl accusations at you. How do you react when such things happen.
I work hard and sincerely and my focus is always to bring the name of organization to higher levels. I believe empty vessels make more noise than full vessels. When we are in public life we have to be responsible and I believe in actions speak louder than words.
What is your message to your critics
Whatever questions they have I would prefer that they pick up the phone and clarify their criticisms. I do receive lot of respect and support from the Indian community and I do appreciate constructive criticism. I am still young and I would like to improve myself in serving the community at large.
So there was no active interest in getting these grants earlier
Organisations like UIA should be getting Federal as well as State government grants. In May 2009 when I have attended the meeting which decided Federal Gov’t grants. Then we realized we should have applied in October 2008 for getting the grant for 2009. Now we are applying for all the grants as they advertise.
Is the Indian government liaising with you correctly or do you think there should be more interaction.
Most of our UIA organization members are Australian Indians, still we have always maintained good relationship with Indian Consulate office in Sydney and High Commissioner’s office in Canberra. UIA’s main aims and objectives are to help the Indian community especially the most disadvantaged sections of Indian community which are students, women and seniors. we conduct the forums for these groups to bring their concerns affecting these communities to the attention of both Indian and Australian relevant departments to get results. Each and every one of these forums are always attended by the representatives from the Indian consulate office.
Will you stand for next UIA President Elections.
Yes, I would like to continue. Usually UIA President can stand for 2nd year term. I now know in and out of UIA and I have been able to establish the contacts. We have also applied for CRC and few other grants which I would like to make sure they materialise.
Ram
651 days ago
Namaskar Rohit Ji,
Now when you have said it already that UIA organised two events last month thats why you have focussed on them in your latest issues but I think you people are still unaware of the things and the movements happening around us and for our community by the other community groups some to name the major one is HINDU COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA and I think most of our community thinks that they organizes only this DIWALI MELA but to let you know this organisation doing lots of other things along with helping out other small organisation by all means ie providing manpower, logistic and even financial help which UIA don’t, recent example is this month first time ever YOUTH CONFERENCE was organised in Australia at UWS Parramatta by the UNI STUDENT which was a huge success in means of first timer unfortunately so far not covered by our media not even in half scale, because they were busy to make other people happy. Some of our kids/youth have taken some initiative at this level we should encourage them and give them broader exposure so our own culture and heritage can survive longer and better. Next month HCA is organizing Interfaith meeting at pennant hills will you be covering that or do you know about that? Why I am bringing these in your notice so as a mediaman who are running a community base Newspaper/letter must cover and encourage those who are doing some positive to the community not to those who are telling about their own family, upbringing or personnel profile these things are use less and has nothing to do with me or you or anyone in the community. It really completely useless to know whether the person coming from rich/poor family caste creed color post or any other thing as long as he or she or the organisation they belong to doing something positive for the community/nation. Coming back to UIA if anyone can tell me in last 16 or so years how much contribution they have done to Indian community if you count then it will be hard to make em to two digit that means even less that one good thing in a year average except some mela and fair (public profile) thats why the people involve in are fighting with in to take the advantage of the profile. “Bhaiyya sab power struggle mein lage hai sasur kay naati”. I will rather request you PAKSHAPATI MAT BANO and give equal chance to all and try to find out who is doing what?
All the best
Ram
ROHIT REVO
652 days ago
I wish to highlight that I was the first one to highlight the comments of Dr Yadu Singh and also got the then UIA President, Raj Natarajan to answer the questions raised by Yadu Singh. This was the cover story of THE INDIAN newspaper two years back in which I had covered the issues regarding providing leadership for our community. The article still has a lot of relevance and the URL for the article is below:
http://rohitrevo.com.au/wp/2009/12/wanted-a-leader-for-the-australian-indian-community/
Australian Indian community needs to be represented in the mainstream and we need the youth and new leadership to emerge. Someone needs to be the interface for this growing community and someone needs to liase with the government on our behalf. I will be glad if there is a credible leadership which emerges either within UIA or outside UIA and we will give equal space to them.
You have seen more articles on UIA in our paper in this issue because they organised two events last month – A seniors forum and also organised a seniors function. When Australia India day function council organised a function, we gave it more coverage than UIA event.
Moral of the story is we need a more credible and visible leadership for our community and this is frustrating for many of us.
Ram
653 days ago
Rohit you have caliber of some strength when it comes to media write up but in my view you are wasting it by giving preferences to some particular organisation or person even in your recent issue of the Indian News paper it is all about UIA this is not fair at all if you have courage go and intrerview Mr Yadu Singh and print it as it is. Frankly I have never met either him or Ms Chandrala but all I know about UIA in last twenty+ years since been to Sydney ie even before this organisations birth that they haven’t done anything absolutely anything for the Indian community ecxept introducing the typical south indian style sh… politix over here also.
Rohit if you really have some guts show it and come out of the shadow of them and talk to few more people who are in this arena and bring out the truth. Be a man and stand up for the right people. After all you are a mediaman not era gera nathu khera!
write my essay
659 days ago
Yes I agree with Sharma too,,
Always irritating other guys . UIA is a good and well established organisation to work with… Nice article…..
ROHIT REVO
660 days ago
This interview was about Aruna Chandrala and what she has been doing in UIA. People are free to make their own judgements after reading this. The comments have for some reasons drifted towards Dr Yadu Singh and other issues. I completely agree that we should not make personal comments and instead of finger pointing lets direct our thinking towards positive things we can do for our community. Each one of us can be a change agent if we wish. As requested, over a period of time we will have more interviews with other people on this site to broaden our thinking.
Anuj
661 days ago
According to me, we don’t need to give any personal Comments to any one, Everybody has own thinking, and style to do community work, but i know very few people are doing real community work, Mr yadu singh is one of them. everybody should declare their full name when they make comments.
Anuj
662 days ago
According me, we don’t need to give any personal Comments to any one, Everybody has own thinking, and style to do community work, but i know very few people are doing real community work.
Mukesh Pindoria
663 days ago
Dr YADU SINGH
Whoever is saying things about him (Dr Yadu Singh )has to come forward.I dont believe that if someone comes forward to him can be refused of any help.You have to be true and with proof and geniune in your facts .Thats all it takes.
Me and my collegues in an Aviation School were so desparate and went thru all other organisations you can name Fair Tradind ,DEEWR ,VETAB ,the supreme court and also the other INDIAN ORGANISATIONS who held a few meetings and nothing came out of it.
DR YADU SINGH ,when we met him i thought trully that he might be like the other who we have ment in the past BUT he came thru like an angel to us .thru him VETAB started talking to us in person which we had tried soo many times before and was impossible to have a meeting with,this is just example.There are so many things he has done for us till date ,we cannot even count.
He is still fighting while some of the students have lost the courage to fight .Dr yadu singh always comes back to give us strenth to fight and he is still in the front line fighting for us.He has sat with us thru nights ,bear in mind he is a doctor and has his own responsibility.
Anyone who says otherwise is full of crap or he has no genuine froblems to be justified to fight for.
That person might not have the courage to fight for himself.Everyone has to fight there own battle and people will help.Dont expect Dr Yadu singh will do everything.You have to be hand in hand with him.NO ONE WILL SPOON FEED YOU.
yaswanth mudunuri
666 days ago
i am a victim of the flying school in sydney where i lost lot of money in the flying school
at that time no one helped us including indian high comission or this UIA except yadu singh
He is not pulling the legs of comunity people or any one and he is raising issues so that u people will change and help the people who are in need who are far away from there homes.
karthikeyan varman
666 days ago
first of all i would take this opportunity to express my gratitude towards dr yadu singh and i think this is the right time for that. I am also one of the students affected by the flying school . I have known dr yadu singh for about a year now and the amount of help and support dr yadu singh has given us cant be expressed by words. I doubt if some of the parents now will do such things for i have examples. Being a busy doctor and having all the name and fame from his community works he has nothing else to do for the society.who has time for all this now.Even then dr yadu singh has devoted time, arranged for meetings with government bodies and is still doing even unknowingly it will succeed or not and still motivating us and guiding us .I still remember the day when we students had the court proceedings the next day dr yadu singh was there sitting with us till 5 am in the morning guiding us. I on behalf of all the students are really very grateful to you and will keep supporting you no matter what.thank you sir for being there for us. No one can judge a person by just looking at him or in one meeting.so people leave your jealousy behind and unless and until you know a person completely dont comment.
Surendra
667 days ago
I am one of the student got effected from a school in Sydney. At that time when we are in need of help no one has come forward the so called “Indian Leaders” expect Yadu Singh. He helped and still helping us. He used to sit with the students discussing the problems whole day and night even though a busy doctor, this shows how dedicated he is. He even gave us some funds when we don’t have any money. Sir, we are very thankful to you, we are with you.
VIGGY
677 days ago
Mr Yadu isn’t it better to suggest good ideas to improve rather than fault finding and prosecuting those who are trying to do better than nothing.
Rohit – you are doing a good job in bringing up all the issues and views to community.
For UIA president, it seems like you are doing your work, but a good suggestion would be to have a more aggressive approach in involving more and more community members and bettering the organisation for the good of community. This will shut your opponents without saying a word.
Jaideep
680 days ago
Mr Rohit i like your all article , you always raise every Indian problems very strongly, I think no one needs to tell you about your duties, you are really doing your great work without any shouting.
Yadu Singh
690 days ago
Rohit, I read the interview with UIA president with interest. I can’t believe that she finds no need for the review of UIA constitution or reforms in UIA. How come there are Governing Council members in UIA who have been there for more than 4 years, often a decade when its constitution does not allow it? She is saying a lot of things in the interview which UIA does not do. For example, UIA has a habit of not responding to emails people send to it. I have no doubt that UIA is a dusfunctional body which has no real agenda for the community except for a fair, few forums with no practical result for the community and spin doctoring. Mate, you asked very easy questions including describing UIA as an umbrella body of 23 associations. Please refer to UIA website and you will find that it is incorrect. 21 are listed and 1 of them [FISA] is not a full member.This is a very soft interview. You did not ask the questions which needed to be asked. It is a crying shame that there is no accountability or transparency in UIA. UIA is simply unable to lead our community. Having given space to UIA with this very soft interview, are you going to give the same chance to those who don’t believe UIA is doing anything which is worthwhile for our community? Yadu Singh
vijay handoo
691 days ago
Good efforts indeed. Keep it up. Interaction is the key to success. Miles to go.