Welcome to Capitol Debates. This time we are not in New Jersey, we are in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the AAHOA Annual Convention 2005. We have with us current chairman Naresh 'Nash' Patel and in two hours there will be a switchover, M.P. Rama will be the new chairman. We have both of them with us.

From left, Veena Merchant, editor-in-chief of News India-Times and Capitol Debates’ Host; Naresh ‘Nash’ Patel, current chairman of AAHOA, and M.P. Rama, the new chairman. ‘Capitol Debates’ is a political talk show presented by the Indian American Center for Political Awareness (IACPA) and T.V. Asia on Sundays at noon Eastern Time. (Photo: T.V. grab)

VEENA MERCHANT : Nash what would you say is your legacy that you are leaving behind?

NARESH ‘NASH’ PATEL : One of the things that we are leaving behind is running the administration withess, not taking advantage of your position as chairman of AAHOA. More importantly, the independent reservation system, we just launched it yesterday (March 25) and today we are at 75 properties that have signed up.

MERCHANT : That is wonderful. Yesterday (March 25) when I was at the session there were only 7. So that is great progress. Mr. Rama picking up from his legacy what is your vision?

M.P. RAMA : The legacy is always built on what you do during your tenure as chairman. We are going to continue working on the program that we have put in place. We are supposed to continue to work this year on unfinished businesses.

MERCHANT :Would you like to tell us what do you think in your opinion are unfinished businesses?

M.P. RAMA : We just launched an Independent Reservation System for independent hoteliers and now we have to make sure that this is successful.

MERCHANT : That is one. What else?

M.P. RAMA : Mediation program that we have established.

MERCHANT : This is in case there is a litigation or dispute?

M.P. RAMA : Dispute between franchisee and franchisor. We want to make it more solid.

MERCHANT : These are the initiatives I have heard for many, many years. What is going to be the Rama touch?

M.P. RAMA : There is no Rama touch per se it is AAHOA board's touch.

MERCHANT : I specifically said Rama touch because there are five Rama brothers. Your brother was the first chairman. You are the second and there are others in the fray I am sure. It is a dynasty. I am saying it with great honor.

M.P. RAMA : What I see is that this association was established in 1989 with 200 members, now we have close to 9,000 members. We have not changed our bylaws per se so far to manage those 9,000 members. We are expecting to grow to 10,000 members.

MERCHANT : So this is the new initiative. Is it something I heard at thesession in terms of voting,voting, etc.?

M.P. RAMA : Yes I made these statements about the complete revision or fine-tuning of our by-laws, fine-tuning of governance of AAHOA and making sure we address non-subjective things that become subjective matter.

MERCHANT : Nash, I heard consistently from you that numbers matter and the Indian American Center for Political Awareness being the co-sponsor of the show, I salute you people for holding 37 percent of the hospitality industry but what do you plan to do with these numbers in terms of any kind of political power? I am asking you because of current problems (denial of visa to Gujarat chief minister), if you had more clout I am sure things would have been different.

NARESH ‘NASH’ PATEL : One of the things that we tried in the past (reference to AAHOA, AAPI and NFIA alliance) is form an alliance with other associations of Indian origin, unfortunately it didn’t prevail the way we wanted to.

MERCHANT : Can I talk about that? Why didn’t it prevail?

NARESH ‘NASH’ PATEL : My opinion is that egos, personalities, people were not in touch with the current agenda that needed to be touched on and people were going in different directions and of course financial contributions were not there either. Each association that aligns itself with this particular task (of combined efforts) or the organization is going to represent all Indian Americans in this country. They have to realize that and they have to do their fair share and not let AAHOA carry the burden of the weight whether be it financial or political.

MERCHANT : Do you see a future there?

NARESH ‘NASH’ PATEL : Yes I do. We were talking about trying to form such an organization without the politics, egos, personalities where it is based on agenda-based items.

MERCHANT : Let us put it this way it is your dream. But how many of your members do you think urgently feel the need for political action?

NARESH ‘NASH’ PATEL : Based on current situation a vast majority.

MERCHANT : Mr. Rama how do you feel about political preparedness? I would like to describe it as people understanding the process, knowing what to do, voting, being involved at the grassroots level. It is not just about campaign funds.

NARESH ‘NASH’ PATEL : As far as the awareness among the membership goes we just started this awareness campaign two years ago when we started making the Legislative Day in Washington D.C., we have not worked as much as we should have to do that. We are going to start aggressively to spread that awareness among our membership.

MERCHANT : As a person who is going to be at the helm how strongly do you yourself feel about political action?

NARESH ‘NASH’ PATEL : I strongly feel that to protect our assets, to protect our investment, to protect the future of our children it is very vital for us to take active part in the political process.

MERCHANT : Let me explain to you why I am asking. In the latest issue of News India Times we have gone into the history of AAHOA, we interviewed Mike Levin and he said “organizations in the hotel industry discriminated against them,” (meaning the Indian American hotel owners), “personally I find discrimination of any sort an abhorrent condition.” Then he says I called H.P. Rama (your brother), and urged him to start an association that will provide a “voice to the Indian American hoteliers. How far have we come from then in terms of discrimination?

NARESH ‘NASH’ PATEL : We have come quite far. In 15 years we have done a tremendous job in educating people, educating the lawmakers, educating the general community about what we are and who we are, where we come from and what business we are in. So I think discrimination is now not what we used to face 15 years ago.

MERCHANT : Nash I was at the Legislative Day in Washington if you remember, to some extent we helped you, the IACPA. The Republican co-chair of the Congressional India Caucus, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), had no idea what AAHOA was and we had to brief her. That I feel is a sorry state of affairs from our perspective that is Indian American perspective because you are the best success story that we can put forward. Somewhere our PR is lacking wouldn’t you say?

NARESH ‘NASH’ PATEL : I would agree 100 percent with you here. We have room to grow, we need to grow, we need to continue to put out our name in the media. We need to meet Congressmen and Senators. Board of directors need to be more proactive when it comes to local state legislative issues. They need to attend meetings. They need to be part of campaigns. That is what we preach and hopefully we can motivate them (hoteliers) enough.

MERCHANT : Sometimes I feel we in media get a little skeptical about everything — the point I am trying to make is our generation, my generation particularly prefer photo-ops, we like to give campaign money because we think at the national level we are getting access but it is not really giving us access at all. What are your thoughts on this?

NARESH ‘NASH’ PATEL : I agree with you. Photo ops are one thing but we are not getting the recognition we should be getting.

MERCHANT : Mr. Rama in terms of grassroot work where do you see the potential? I mean in what AAHOA members can help you achieve goals you want to realize in terms of political process?

M.P. RAMA : I think it should start at the local level. They should start communicating with the councilmen, county commissioners and then they can go upwards and talk to the state legislators regarding the issues within the state.

MERCHANT : Do you think they are educated enough to know how to talk because sometimes I feel we talk the talk in terms of even the national elections but we don’t walk the walk. What I mean by that is we speak of subjects that are national but do we really understand them? Do we really understand the process as such?

M.P. RAMA : Probably no if we talk of complete process. But we are trying to create awareness through the regional meetings, through regional directors, probably we will extend support from AAHOA headquarters.

MERCHANT : Do you see any help coming from IACPA? Do you think we can help you in any way?

M.P. RAMA : We have been approached by some other people asking us 'do you need any help? We will be glad to help you.' We haven't used it yet. I think the time has come for us to start using that.

MERCHANT : Now coming to the morning session with Dinesh D’Souza, basically the way I saw his message was that work from the inside. Do you have a comment on that?

NARESH ‘NASH’ PATEL : He is right. We need to work from the inside and I hope that message carried over to our membership. If we don’t get involved and work from the inside, from the outside we are a group that represents 37 percent of entire lodging industry and that is what we are going to remain.

M.P. RAMA : You have to also remember that we have been here since 70s onwards. We are infants. We have been here 30-35 years. I rather work from the inside because we are still a minority. We have to work harder than the majority.

(Transcribed by Bhavna Kaul)