Mumbai-born Eboo Patel, 33, the only Indian American thus far appointed by President Barack Obama to the 25-member Advisory Council, has said that he was honoured and blessed, and ready to get to work and operationalize President Obama's commitment to inter-faith cooperation.
In an interview with rediff.com after he and the other members appointed to the inter-faith office -- initially for a one-year term -- met Obama in the White House, Patel, the founder and executive director of the Chicago-based international non-profit, Interfaith Youth Corps, said: "President Obama (in his inaugural address) has spoken about how America's patchwork heritage of Christians and Muslims, of Jews and Hindus and non-believers is not only a domestic strength but a force for peace in the world."
"And, my organization and the broad movement that I am a part of, we do the day to day work of that -- we train young people to be inter-faith leaders, to start their own inter-faith service projects all around the world," he said.
Patel said, "I have had staff in India this past year, and I will be going to India in a couple of weeks to do some of these presentations and trainings -- we network inter-faith leaders around the world who are implementing their projects -- and we are on the media and we are in policy circles talking about the importance of building religious pluralism in a world where too many people are convinced of the clash of civilizations."
Patel is the author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, and also writes a popular blog, The Faith Divide, which explores what drives faiths apart and what brings them together.
Patel acknowledged that as a member of President Obama's inter-faith initiative, would help him spread the message of his organization even more domestically and internationally by using the White House inter-faith office as a bully pulpit.
"Also, I would like to advise the President and his staff on how we can change the pattern from religious conflict to religious pluralism and that's going to be my mission," he said.
"And, I really believe that young people are the key to that. I believe that young people will either be the architects of religious pluralism or the foot-soldiers of religious extremism."
Patel said that during his conversation with President Obama, he had specifically spoken of the importance of young people in advancing the goals of this White House inter-faith office.
He said Obama had spoken "of inter-faith dialogue," with the 15 members he had appointed "and he talked about the importance of reaching out, especially to the Muslim world -- and I consider India because of its large Muslim community -- I think he had pockets of India in mind too. He talked about the importance of faith communities being involved in concrete service efforts."
Patel said that when Obama "said all of these things, I couldn't help myself and I raised my hand and I said, 'Mr President, we could join all of those things and we can build a movement where young people are the leaders of bringing religious communities together, to dialogue and implement concrete social action initiatives."
"For example, how wonderful would it be if the different religious communities in the world decided that they were going to work to end malaria together, instead of working to fight each other," he said.
Asked what Obama's reply to his intervention was, Patel said, "He shook my hand and he said to me, 'What you said is very important and we will be following up.'"
While acknowledging that he was the only Muslim among the 15 members appointed, Patel said he believed he was "selected as somebody who is doing important work in the world in terms of build inter-faith cooperation."
But he asserted that "the fact that I am very proud of my Muslim heritage and my Muslim inspiration for doing that work, was simply an added benefit. But, I would like to think that I was selected for the high quality of the work of the Inter-faith Youth Corps."
However, Patel said, "I suspect that there will be one or two other Muslims appointed," and hoped that the President would also appoint people representing the Hindu and Sikh faiths too. "I certainly hope that he does."
White House officials told rediff.com that Patel was indeed selected for the organization he had founded and the work it was doing and not as a Muslim representative.
They acknowledged that since there were 10 more members to be appointed to this Advisory council, it was likely there would be Muslim, Hindu and Sikh representatives appointed, besides the Christian and Jewish representatives already among the 15 members already named.