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Farah Anwar Pandith has an unusual name and a difficult mission. On her maiden visit to India, her native country, after she was appointed Special Representative to Muslim Communities in June 2009 by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pandith explained the reason behind her Arabic name and Hindu surname.
She was born in Jammu and Kashmir, but before she was two, her family shifted to America. Pandith's ancestors were Hindus who converted to Islam many decades ago, so she still has a Hindu surname, as it is quite common in Kashmir. She grew up in Massachusetts. No surprise that not only does she have an American accent and education; she also has an American mindset.
With ease, poise and confidence, Pandith defends her country wherever she goes. In India, she was invariably asked difficult questions. However, her mission to make Islamic communities across the globe understand the US' point of view seems to be a difficult one. She claims that she has been assigned the task of executing Clinton's vision, for engaging with Muslims around the world on a people-to-people and organisational level.
Surely, Pandith's job, the first of its kind in the US administration, is taken seriously as she reports directly to the Secretary of State. Her emphasis during her visit to New Delhi and Mumbai was to have as many 'people to people' contacts as possible.
She said, "We are working with partnership on the ground and working our way up with Muslim communities. Our approach is very nuanced. It is very focused on grassroots."
After the 9/11 attack, during the George W Bush administration, America suffered from an image crisis in the Islamic world. The Barack Obama administration is working assiduously to repair this image. Pandith's idea is to evolve a 'partnership' in whatever Muslim communities are doing and getting support from Washington in whichever country she visits like Brazil, Indonesia, African and the Gulf nations.
During her India visit, she faced sharp questions on the Palestine issue, but her intellect and effusive self won many hearts in the capital. She gave standard replies, but with feminine grace and American commitment. Farah has a way with words to charm the questioner and avoid saying anything controversial.
In one of the gatherings that she attended in New Delhi, Congress spokesman and Member of Parliament Abhishek Sanghvi said, "Farah not only has a high IQ, she also has a high EQ."
Her emotional quotient was surely at test when she met hundreds of Indian Muslims, answered difficult questions about the US occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and responded to queries about the profiling of Muslims in her country after 9/11, and even on the detention of actor Shah Rukh Khan at an American airport.
She said that President Obama has put the Palestine issue on the fast track by appointing a special envoy who is working 'day in and day out' to resolve it.
She repeatedly said that she wants to network socially and use new media like Facebook, blogs and such communication tools to understand Muslim views, and then take those views to the top level of the US administration.
Pandith said the 'down to top' approach is her idea of addressing the 'Muslim issue'.
She says that her department's programme doesn't come from Washington, it comes from various communities and goes forward.
"I am moving things up" she says. Pandith adds that America is building up social entrepreneurship through her work. She insisted that she wants to understand how young minds navigate the complexities of an issue like Afghanistan.
She said, interestingly, that in Muslim communities, "My job is not to win hearts and minds, my job is to build partnerships at grassroots levels for the common goal. And, if over the course of time, their minds and hearts change, that is wonderful."
Pandith had quite an impressive experience of dealing with the 'Muslim world', when she was senior advisor to the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs.
She has worked quite a lot on 'violent Islamic extremism'. Her PhD thesis was on Kashmir. Before joining the State Department, she served as the director for Middle East Regional Initiatives for the National Security Council. She has also worked for the US Agency for International Development.
While explaining her job, she told an audience at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, "This is not a one man's show by the way. It's not that I am wandering around the world as an individual and trying to meet people. This is an effort by all the US embassies around the world to engage the Muslim community. We are trying to get deep into their life and work with NGOs who are doing things."
She said that the US embassy in India is 'working very hard' to work with the NGOs. According to Pandith, Americans are going deeper into the issues of Muslims.
She said that after Obama took over as the US President, America is seeking 'mutual interest and mutual respect with the Islamic world' and that is the foundation on which her country is moving forward.
Now, America wants long-term partnership and collaboration with all kinds of Islamic people. Pandith said, "America's focus is on the next generation" of Muslims.
Two years from now, says Pandith, new ideas of young Muslims will be taken to the larger platform with US support. It can be in the fields of education or science or technology, said the special representative, adding that America is integrating innovators of the Islamic world.
She says, "There has been lots of miscommunication about America in the Muslim world and what it is to be a Muslim in America and how we think about Muslims around the world. By opening up this discourse, we are catching up."
Pandith says what she is doing has not been done before at this scale, but she is confident of success.
Surely, Pandith created positive vibes, but most Muslims were skeptical about the end results. A student at the Islamic Centre in New Delhi asked her, "You are occupying two Islamic countries and then talking about partnership?"
But Pandith is not deterred by skepticism. She insists that the Obama administration will be the game changer for the Islamic world's relations with America.
She says that hers is not an effort to engage in problematic areas, it is an effort to find ideas forward to cement the partnership of Islamic countries with America.
She says. "I want to build the network of like-minded people. How do you connect?"
Pandith explained that she is trying to connect the ideas of Muslim communities in New Delhi with the communities in Jakarta and Nigeria. She is facilitating the connection of ideas of people working in different countries. So far, Pandith has visited 12 countries that include Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.
"I went to these places because we respect Islam and want to understand the next generation of Islam," she says.