FFleet Center in Boston where the Democratic National Convention 2004 was held July 26-29. (Photo: Ela Dutt)

Boston : Sometimes one wonders whether it is a tragedy and a crisis that has energized South Asian Americans to steer into the Democratic political machine more expeditiously than ever before. The tragedy was the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and the crisis is the ongoing backlash against the community and in some cases, the abuse of national security laws like the Patriot Act.

This lethal combination of circumstances catapulted more than 50 South Asian delegates, a majority of them Indian Americans, to the Democratic Party’s National Convention in the birthplace of America’s freedom, Boston.

The 55 delegates of South Asian descent made up more than the proportion they represent in the total population of this country, being 55 out of the 4,964 delegates (4,353 delegates and 611 alternates). While some of this historic rise is a natural result of hard work by activist Indian and Pakistani Americans, much is also because of the Democratic Party’s increased appreciation and the mathematics of minorities in elections, in the backdrop of the narrow and rocky victory of President George Bush in 2000 that pushed the party to rigorously pursue ethnic groups which are typically counted as undecided or swing votes.

Indian Americans were ubiquitous on the hallowed bowl of the convention floor at the Fleet Center –– not just as delegates from 25 of the 50 states of the Union, but as young volunteers working for diverse organizations like the Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) Caucus of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Sierra Club, or the AFL-CIO.

Over four days, July 26 to 29, Indian Americans rocked to music, waved signs, screamed for former Governor of Vermont Howard Dean and former President Bill Clinton, partied with other Democratic faithfuls, and generally felt a greater sense of ownership of the American dream, whatever that may mean for each of them. Many of these delegates, alternate delegates, and at-large delegates, have been part of the Democratic political scenery for more than a decade, but some are novice activists.

While leading Indian American Democratic fundraisers and DNC members like Massachusetts physician-cum-businessman Ramesh Kapur, and California’s Devinder Varma, Illinois’s Sunil Puri, or New Jersey businessman Pat Sarma, to name but a few, hobnobbed with the inner circle in the DNC and with Massach-usetts Senator Edward Kennedy and other De-mocratic bigwigs, those working in the trenches saw their efforts recognized when they were called upon to sit in the places of honor behind valued speakers in the Convention. That group included people like California activist Rajen Anand, Yamini Adkins, delegate from Ohio, or Harjit Singh, delegate from Pennsylvania, to name just a few. Not least were several South Asians brought as “honored guests” of top Democrats in their respective states.

Most of all, a sense of exuberance, confidence, and pride resonated through the South Asian community as it basked in the attention. At least three major events involving them in particular, were held in Boston –– the reception launching the Indo-American Leadership Council of the DNC, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s “celebration of South Asian Americans,” and the Boston Indian community’s luncheon for Indian American delegates at the Convention.

Apart from that, delegates also participated actively in the APIA’s several caucus meetings and the gala for Asian-American delegates.

Eighteen-year-old Sameer Kanal, delegate from Washington State to Amarjit Singh Buttar, in his 60s; or the almost all-Muslim South Asian delegation from Texas, inspired by newly-engaged political activist delegates Arif Gafur and Yasmin Khan, to elected officials like Iowa State Rep. Swati Dandekar and Maryland State Assembly Majority Leader Kumar Barve, the South Asian contingent that came to the convention was as diverse as the Subcontinent of its origin, and brimmed with the immigrant determination to no longer remain silent and unquestioning, but to stake a claim to political space on the American national fabric and be heard.