Chatterjee was among several Indian-Americans who travelled to India with President Clinton, on March 2000, to make certain that New Delhi and Washington could move together. He was equally involved in working assiduously to make then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to the US, in September 2000, a resounding success.
In 2001, he was awarded a Padma Bhushan by the Indian government for his role in improving Indo-US relations. It was no coincidence that this was about the time some of the sanctions against India were lifted while the new Bush administration was redoubling efforts to forge a belated strategic partnership with the country.
In accepting the accolade, Chatterjee said, 'I am humbled by this great honour and acknowledge that it is not me who has been recognized, but the whole Indian-American community.'
But if one assumed he was going to rest on his laurels or ride away into the sunset, one couldn't have been more wrong. He was gearing up for his next challenge. It came early in 2006 when President Bush returned from his reciprocal trip to India in March and began trying to facilitate the US-India civilian nuclear agreement he and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had agreed upon a year earlier. The legislation was going nowhere.
Chatterjee swung into action once again, putting together a group of Indian-American activists and high-tech entrepreneurs under the banner of the US-India Friendship Council, and also roping in several specialty community organizations with considerable clout and influence like the Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin and the Asian American Hotel Owners Association.
Image: With US Congressman Bobby Jindal, right
Photograph: Jay Mandal
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