Restaurant owner nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for work with Tempe's Indian community
Raveen Arora was about 7 years old when Mother Teresa visited his school in Kolkata.
The Catholic nun who devoted her life to giving lined up Arora and his classmates and asked the boys to donate a rupee. One by one the students reached into their pockets, pulled out change and handed it to her as she walked down the line.
Arora, whose working-class family had resettled in the area years earlier as refugees, slid his hand into his pocket.
But knowing he had nothing to give, his hand lingered there. When Mother Teresa asked why he put his hand in his pocket, a young Arora said it wasn’t to copy his classmates but because he wanted to help.
“Mother Teresa told the class, ‘This is the example I want to teach. You must want to give, do not have to give,’” Arora said as he recounted the story.
The soft-spoken Tempe businessman is full of anecdotes from his childhood. There was the time he met Martin Luther King Jr. when he was 11 and they talked about inequality. Inequality was a familiar concept for Arora who grew up in a strict class system where lingering effects of British colonialism kept Indians out of certain places, like the cricket field he and his grandfather tried to visit when he was 3 but were told that Indians and dogs weren’t allowed, he said.
He doesn’t retell the stories to get a reaction, though they certainly elicit one. These are moments that sparked a lifelong interest in public service and a desire to improve his community by helping people regardless of their race or status, which this year earned Arora a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Service organizations from across the world banded together to recommend Arora, 72, for the prize for his work in India and Tempe. Locally, he has helped entrepreneurs get their start at his plaza on Apache Boulevard, led water and food drives for people experiencing homelessness and donated his time through various volunteer groups.
“He epitomizes what every community or socially-minded person wants to be, a servant leader in the truest sense,” said Deborah Arteaga, executive director of Tempe Community Action Agency, or TCAA, which supported his nomination.
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From Kolkata, India to Tempe
Arora was born in a refugee camp in India in 1948.
The country had declared independence from Britain the previous year and was split along religious lines into two countries, India and Pakistan, amid escalating tension between Hindus and Muslims.
The northern province of Punjab, a religiously diverse area with Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians where Arora’s family was from, was one of the hardest hit. The area was divided between Hindu-dominated India and Muslim-dominated Pakistan and fears of religious persecution led to the displacement of millions who relocated across the newly drawn borders.
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Arora’s family was one of the last to leave on a refugee train that took them to a housing settlement in the newly formed India, he said.
The family later resettled in Kolkata.
There he became involved with school groups and service organizations, kicking off a lifelong dedication to helping people.
After secondary school, he earned degrees in accounting, finance and business management. He worked as an accountant and specialized in audits, maritime fraud and white-collar crime before moving to Los Angeles in 1981 to pursue a doctorate degree he never completed.
Instead, he opened a financial consulting firm at the encouragement of a friend.
In 2002, Arora and his wife followed their daughter to Tempe where she had enrolled at Arizona State University.
Arora, who was retired and looking for a new opportunity, found it in a rundown building along Apache Boulevard just east of McClintock Drive.
'I wanted to bring India closer to people'
At the time, that stretch of Apache — once a major thoroughfare connecting Washington, D.C., and San Diego — was blighted with empty motels, abandoned store fronts and graffiti and there was a growing homeless population camping in the area. In some ways it reminded Arora of home, he said.
“There was just something that stuck with me,” he said. “I told my wife, 'I think I’m going to set up something here.'”
He envisioned an Indian community center. His wife and others were skeptical.
Arora opened India Plaza in 2003 with a market, gift shop, yoga studio and eyebrow threading business. The tagline was “Where India comes alive,” and Arora hoped to showcase different types of Indian businesses there, he said.
The growing Asian population in Tempe helped support the center but its reach extended beyond that community, too. That was Arora’s goal.
While the plaza became a gathering space for the East Valley’s Indian community, Arora wanted to elevate the status of Indians in metro Phoenix by teaching people about Indian food, music, culture and values and in the process tear down stereotypes about Indians, he said.
“I wanted to bring India closer to people and show people that we are peace-loving, sharp, intellectual and welcoming,” he said.
Arora and his family opened The Dhaba restaurant in the plaza in 2008, specializing in home-style Punjabi food. The idea for a restaurant grew out of a school project his son worked on while at ASU and it helped further Arora’s goal of bringing people together, this time around the dinner table. Today the restaurant is a popular meeting spot for community leaders and politicians.
In addition to promoting Indian culture, the plaza has helped spur economic development in the area and served as a sort of business incubator where entrepreneurs have opened anything from a barber shop to a vintage clothing store.
TCAA, which provides financial and housing assistance to residents and whose board Arora sits on, has offices in the plaza, too, Last year, they opened a daytime respite center there for people experiencing homelessness.
A desire to help
Outside of the plaza, Arora found other ways to integrate himself into the Tempe community.
He joined service organizations and local business boards that provided him the opportunity to create a more equitable community by contributing his time and money.
Today he serves on 22 boards, leading the United Food Bank and Tempe Chamber of Commerce boards of directors, and he estimates he racks up more than 1,000 volunteer hours each year, he said.
Arora and his staff have handed out water bottles each summer to people experiencing homelessness who camp near the plaza since it opened in 2003 and more than 20,000 meals since the restaurant opened in 2008, he said.
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He’s helped local college students with financial assistance and immigrants transition to their new home.
“He truly sees that taking care of basic needs first enables people to be who they envisioned, to be productive and empowers them to give back to others,” said TCAA’s Arteaga.
Arora credits that to his upbringing in Kolkata.
His father worked menial jobs and they lived in a small servant’s quarter before moving into a one-bedroom apartment. Arora walked 5 miles to school because they couldn’t afford the bus fare, he said.
But what the family lacked in financial means they made up for in the lasting lessons they impressed on Arora, including the value of education and the importance of treating people humanely as well as being humble, empathetic and kind, he said.
Nearly 70 support Arora's Nobel nomination
Seeking to honor his work in Tempe and beyond, local, national and international groups, elected leaders and community members joined in writing letters of recommendation in support of Arora’s nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize.
The effort was spearheaded by Satish Lakhotia, founder of India-based service organization Alliance International. Arora said he’s received close to 70 endorsements.
One of the supporters, Neal Lester, said Arora demonstrates a passion to do whatever he can to help marginalized communities — work that has become even more important during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lester met Arora about five years ago through a mutual friend and the pair clicked over their work in the community and interest in fostering discussions that could lead to a kinder and more compassionate society, said Lester, founding director of Project Humanities at ASU.
Arora and his wife have since become involved with Project Humanities, which seeks to build understanding across diverse groups through conversations about shared ideas and experiences. They’ve attended programs, participated in discussions and contributed financially to the effort.
“We are excited to be part of a band of people cheering him on,” Lester said.
Arora, who learned of the nomination effort in January, said the experience has been humbling.
“I won’t win, not in my wildest dreams, but the sheer fact that 60-plus people put their faith in me has made me a better Raveen,” he said.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said 329 candidates were nominated for the prize this year. Heads of state, university professors and directors of policy institutes, past prize winners and Nobel committee members can recommend someone for the award.
Nominations are currently under review and the Nobel Committee will vote on winners in October. The award will be presented in Oslo in December.
Reach reporter Paulina Pineda at paulina.pineda@azcentral.com or 480-389-9637. Follow her on Twitter: @paulinapineda22.
This story is part of the Faces of Arizona series. For years, people in Arizona’s diverse communities have said they don’t see themselves reflected in the newspaper, and that they want to see more good news about their people. These profiles are a step in that direction. Have feedback or ideas on who we should cover? Send them to editor Kaila White at kaila.white@arizonarepublic.com."
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Raveen Arora of The Dhaba in Tempe nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
