The Township of Edison, New Jersey has extended three more
years for its six year agreement with the Indian Business Association IBA to
organize the India Day Parade.
‘As a result, the IBA is assured of hosting the Official New
Jersey India Day Parade through 2024. This
agreement is the latest example of the IBA working with local governments
across New Jersey
on behalf of our community,’ a statement from Dhiren Amin, president of IBA
said.
‘We thank the Township
of Edison, the Edison
Council, and Mayor Tom Lankey for their support and vision. By
extending the agreement, they have helped ensure that a united Indo-American
community will be able to celebrate India’s Independence Day for the
foreseeable future.
‘By ensuring the continuity of this decade long tradition, the
township of Edison, along with the Township of Woodbridge, will remain the home
of the official NJ India Day Parade, an internationally known event that
attracts over 35,000 individuals from across the United States,’ Amin said.
But Peter Kothari, a rival leader belonging to the Oak Tree Road
India Business Association commented sarcastically, ‘Why (is Edison)
giving three years only? Give them a lifetime.
‘All your property -- Edison is your own.
Anybody who's your supporter, give it to them for life. What difference does it
make?’
Critics like Kothari see politics and favoritism toward one
group at work in the extension, according to the Star Ledger.
The parade has been a contentious affair for the past
several years, as two as IBA and OTIBA vied to host it.
In the past, the permit was given out year-to-year, not in
decades-long increments. Some years, IBA got the permit; other years, it was
the Oak Tree Road
group. One year, they both got permits, and ran separate parades on the
same route.
The first parade was held in 2005 under the India
Festival and Cultural Committee led by OTIBA leader Bimal Joshi and others.
Next year, the IBA took over. Joshi said earlier that his group too joined with
them in the hope that they would be accommodated and the organization would
function democratically.
Joshi then accused that the IBA
was in the hands of a few people who rotated their leadership roles. They held
no election and would not accept new members. He said he along with 45 other
businessmen gave applications with checks, two years ago, but no action was
taken.
The IBA leaders denied it. They
accused that the other group wanted to break IBA.
June Choi, former mayor of Edison, favored IBA and they got permission without any
problem despite opposition from Joshi’s group as long as Choi remained mayor
till 2009. They organized parades for six
consecutive years.
Then Antonia Ricigliano became
mayor of Edison defeating Choi. The current
problems started two days after the parade in 2010.
Joshi applied for a permit to hold the 2011 parade and it was
granted by the new administration under Mayor Ricigliano overlooking the claims
of IBA.
When the IBA applied for the
permit a few days later, it was told that the permit would be issued to those
who applied first.
The IBA then obtained a permit
from Woodbridge Township. IBA accused the Edison leaders of favoritism and playing politics rather
than dealing fairly with all.
The issue went to court.
During the first parade in 2005, Joshi and another person were
arrested while hanging signs, advertising the parade, on a utility pole on Oak Tree Road.
Both were charged with obstructing police and resisting arrest.
Both later settled with Edison; the charges were dismissed, but both agreed to
pay a $150 fine for violating a law against posting material on private
property.
In 2006, actress Bipasha Basu,
who attended as Grand Marshall alleged in public that some of the organizers
misbehaved with her, which created a hue and cry both in India and the US.
In 2014, the new administration of Mayor Lankey gave the IBA
a seven-year permit.
Satish Poondi, the IBA's legal adviser and an attorney at
the Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer firm, noted that the IBA is nonpartisan. He
also rejected the notion that the IBA was political in nature.
"We encourage members to get active at all
levels," Poondi said. "We've done nonpartisan voter registration
drives. We understand it's not a vacuum, but to correlate that — it's not
fair."
Poondi said any of the money raised by the parade goes back
into the parade.
According to the group's 2013 tax forms, the IBA took in
$115,852 in 2013, and spent $107,191. Of that, about $60,000 was directly
attributable to parade-related expenses, including $21,350 in "floats
expenses" and $7,950 in "celebrity expenses." The parade is
usually led by Bollywood actors.
