The Indian American Center for Political Awareness’s (IACPA) Washington Leadership Program (WLP) has placed 15 Indian-American students in Congressional offices this summer and another in IACPA’s Washington policy office as interns.

Since its inception in 1995, WLP’s internship program has become one of the most prestigious, effective and competitive leadership programs in the nation’s capital. Over 120 Indian- American college students from across the United States applied to participate in this year’s program.

As in past years, almost every applicant for the WLP was an outstanding student and leader in his or her university and community.

Over 115 students have participated in the WLP since Gopal Raju, chairman of IACPA’s board of directors, founded it. Alumni from the WLP have gone on to do amazing things, such as be founders of companies, influential lawyers and community leaders. “I am very excited about the continued high quality of the applicants the program receives. They are truly the best and the brightest of our community,” says Raju. In its ninth year, the program, which began on June 16, will run through till Aug. 8; six weeks of this time are being spent working and learning on Capitol Hill, while the rest will be spent in intensive orientation and leadership training programs run by IACPA.

WLP interns are gaining a valuable inside, first-hand view of the intricacies of how American government and leadership really function. Through the WLP, these interns are getting opportunities to not only work in a fast-paced congressional office, but interact with members of Congress at private meetings, attend committee hearings, learn from seasoned congressional staff and conduct extensive and timely legal research.

During their first week in the program, WLP interns learnt how Congress and Washington, D.C., operate. In the final week, program participants review the lessons of the summer and partake in specialized leadership training designed to enable them to translate what they learned into specific actions when they return to their universities and communities.

While the participants invariably gain a better sense of their identity as Indian Americans, a little-appreciated side benefit is that the host members of Congress and their staff also have an opportunity to learn from these students about the culture of Indian Americans and the issues of importance to the community. Just by being there, these young representatives of the community become the most effective “lobby” Indian Americans can have on Capitol Hill.

Additionally, during their time in Washingaton, WLP interns have been partaking in an impressive list of Speakers Series, discussion groups and dinners with noted community, policy and political leaders. In addition to countless member of Congress, interns learnt from and interacted with former assistant secretary of state for South Asia Karl Inderfurth, Majority Leader of the Maryland House of Representatives Kumar Barve, New Jersey Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula, noted South Asia scholar Bob Hathaway, deputy Indian Ambassador to the U.S. Alok Prasad, Iowa State Representative Swati Dandekar and Sayu Bhojwani, New York City Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs, among many others.

Another highlight of the summer is the annual Congressional reception. This event, scheduled for July 22, enables interns, community members and members of Congress to meet and interact. This year at the reception, IACPA and the WLP were to honor former Congressman Dalip Singh Saund, the first Congressman of Asian origin, and the only Indian American ever elected to the House.

While the WLP certainly benefits the participants, it also assists the entire community by creating a solid base of future leaders who are able to relate their summer experiences to their friends, relatives and classmates. Small wonder that Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who has hosted eight interns from this program and will host another this summer, has called the WLP “the best program of its kind.”

Former minority leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO), who has long supported the WLP said, “the WLP is on the cutting edge; it empowers young Indian Americans to become engaged in the political process.” Without question, all of the students who applied to participate in the WLP, both those who were accepted and those who could not be accommodated due to the limited size of the program, represent the future of the community in America. Every Indian American has a right to feel a sense of pride at the past and likely future accomplishments of these fine young leaders.

Interning with Senators

ALKESH AMIN

Alkesh Amin, from Chattanooga, Tenn., is a rising junior at Harvard College, where he concentrates in Economics. He interned with his home state Senator, the Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN). Amin graduated cum laude from the Baylor School, where he served as president of the student body and editor-in-chief of the yearbook in his senior year. At Harvard, Amin participates as a senior staff member of Harvard Model Congress, an educational government simulation that is the largest program of its kind in the nation, drawing over 1,500 high school students from across the country to Boston for its annual conference. Having been a delegate himself while at Baylor, Amin served as the deputy chief of staff during his freshman year at Harvard and deputy business manager last year. Amin has also been active with the American Red Cross, serving as a summer hospital volunteer for five consecutive summers in Chattanooga. Further, he has also been active politically. Last summer, while interning at Davis & Wallace, P.C., a law firm in Chattanooga, Amin was responsible for organizing and coordinating campaign fund-raising events for former congressman Bob Clement’s (D-TN) campaign for U.S. Senate and worked directly with the candidate in this campaign.

HARI K. KONDABOLU

Hari Karthikeya Kondabolu’s family lives in Queens, New York and he interned with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY). Although the Senator’s office received approximately 400 applications for summer internships, this is the third summer in a row that IACPA has been able to place an intern in this office. Kondabolu attended Townsend Harris High School in Queens and will be a senior at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine in the fall, where he majors in Comparative Politics. He spent his junior year at Wesleyan University where he focused on globalization, identity and race, and the impact of popular culture on society, both inside and outside the classroom. Kondabolu interned last summer in the office of the Queens District Attorney, where he worked in the Hate Crimes/Anti-Bias/Youth Gangs Bureau. This provided him with a first-hand view of how the criminal justice system works. The experience motivated him to seek a career path that will enable him to work to improve the lives of minorities. He hopes that the WLP will provide him with insights on how to pursue this goal. Kondabolu is a huge fan of baseball, “indie rock” music and stand-up comedy. He is considering attending law school and becoming an attorney, and hopes that the upcoming summer will help him to clarify his career options.

SUSHIL JACOB

Sushil Jacob is a rising junior at Brown University, in Provide-nce, Rhode Island, where he majors in International Relati-ons. He interned with his home state Senator, Jack Reed (D-RI). Jacob is studying Political Economy and Development with focus on developing nations. He plans to study abroad in Latin America during his junior year of college and write his senior thesis on issues of sustainable development. He has been active at Brown in the minority student community. During his sophomore year, he served as a Minority Peer Counselor for first-year students. In the South Asian community, Jacob was involved this past year with the annual Political Action Weekend. He arranged for a South Asian theater group, SAATH, to perform a play about domestic violence in the South Asian community. Jacob has also been involved in creating interfaith dialogue on campus. Last year, he helped start a residential house on campus called the Interfaith Program House. He also helped to create and lead the Faith-Based Activism Coalition, a group that focuses on creating a forum for dialogue and activism across faiths. One of his principal goals at college is to create communities across lines of faith.