Three decades have gone by since Indians began immigrating to the United States of America in large numbers. Currently, we have about 1.7 million people of Indian descent living in this country. Early on, most of us firmly believed that we were here temporarily to acquire technical skills, professional stature or wealth. Most of us dreamt of returning to India at some future date.

At present, it appears that most of us have made a decision to stay here and make this country our permanent home. We have to come to terms with the reality and prepare ourselves as a community to plan for the future. We have to understand that we will be living in this country in an environment and culture that are vastly different from what we are accustomed to. Time has come for us to reflect upon the short history of our community in this country and plan for a glorious future. Successive generations of immigrants prior to us have gone through similar phase of "soul-searching" to take stock and to come to grips with reality.

If we have to succeed in this country as a community, we need to get organized and participate in the civic duties and political processes of the land. Granted that some of us have been politically active and have raised millions of dollars for political campaigns. Yet, these efforts have been disorganized with no coherent theme as to what we would like to gain as a group or achieve as a community. Many who have been active in politics and fundraising have been content with photo opportunities and private dining with politicians for the sake of impressing their friends and acquaintances. Many politicians have not taken our community seriously either. For them, we are a divided community unable to forge a common ground on priorities.

It has been estimated that over 6 million dollars were raised by our community leaders in the 1992 Presidential elections and 10 million dollars in the 1996 Presidential elections. Money was raised and contributed by individuals without an agenda or a clear vision as to what the community would expect in return from the political candidates who were the beneficiaries. We are yet to see any tangible results from the political fund raising activities so far. We do not have even a single individual of Indian descent in a position of power to have any impact on policy decisions in this country.

In order to achieve our goals and provide a forum for future participation in the political arena, we propose the formation of two organizations - "Indians for Democrats" and "Indians for Republicans". These organizations will be charged to develop short and long term goals and set up mechanism to achieve these goals. Individuals can make contributions to either of these organizations or both depending upon their political philosophy. These organizations will set up committees to evaluate the records of the candidates based on their performance as it relates to Indian community in this country and our country of origin. These organizations will be empowered to oppose the candidacy of certain individuals whose known views are detrimental to the Indian community here and India as major super power of southeast Asia. These organizations would have the obligations to educate the Indian community here in the political process and encourage them to develop and nurture suitable candidates of Indian descent at local as well as national level.

Power in a democracy resides in the hands of those groups that are well organized and well funded. Political campaigns funds channeled to field proper candidates can change the outcome of elections. If we want to be player on the political game in this country and not mere passive spectators, this is the right time to get involved.