Why ‘proud Hindu’ Rishi Sunak’s rise to British prime minister is a big deal
A Hindu now leads a country that for two centuries subjugated Hindus around the world.
(RNS) — As Rishi Sunak, the new prime minister of the United Kingdom, prepared to lead his country amid economic, political and social turmoil, he used the term “proud Hindu” to describe himself. That identity matters to millions, British and not, around the world.
For some years now, “proud Hindu” would be understood in the West as referring to someone who endorses majoritarian politics in India. For decades, the idea of a proud Hindu ran counter to the shame felt by those of us born and raised in Western countries. Born and raised in the United States, I was well into my 30s before I could call myself a “proud Hindu.”
Sunak’s use of the phrase finally makes a genuine connection with a religion that has existed for thousands of years and whose influence is felt across the globe.
There is more to Sunak’s Hindu pride, however. A few (but only a few) Western news outlets have taken note of Sunak’s religious identity, noting that he took the helm of the United Kingdom on Diwali, Hinduism’s festival of lights and one of its most important holidays. But the media has largely failed to grasp the significance of the ascent of a Hindu to the leadership of a country that for two centuries subjugated Hindus in the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere.
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To this point, the few Hindu modern heads of state have governed Hindu majority countries (India, Nepal and Mauritius) or where there are large Hindu populations (Guyana, Trinidad and Singapore). A Hindu was elected prime minister of Fiji in 1999 but was overthrown in a coup within a year.
Besides demographics, Hindus have been shunned because the British colonizers strenuously codified a caricatured idea of Hinduism, and their scholars reimagined the religion based on their own prejudices. That framing was influential for American scholars and journalists as well. Nearly a century ago, the writer Katherine Mayo published “Mother India,” an attack on India’s Hindu culture and a plea for Americans to support British rule over India. She called “Hindoos” “men who enter the world out of bankrupt stock” whose “hands are too weak, too fluttering, to seize or to hold the reins of government.”
Mayo’s description was embraced in the United States and championed by Winston Churchill, the conservative British leader who viewed Hindus as backward and degenerate. The irony shouldn’t be lost, then, that Churchill’s party has now embraced a Hindu as its leader.
Even in the 75 years since India gained its independence from the British Empire, Hindus around the world, but particularly those of Indian descent, continue to struggle with identifying as Hindu, or the degree to which they claim their Hinduness. There’s a profound shame associated with practicing a religion that has been the subject of exotification, vilification and marginalization, outside of the few countries where Hindus are majority.
Whether we are fans of his politics or not (and I am not), many of us “proud Hindus” will be invested in Sunak’s success, in hopes that he may not be the last head of state in the West to identify that way.
(Murali Balaji is a journalist and a lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Pennsylvania. His books include “Digital Hinduism” and “The Professor and the Pupil,” a political biography of W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)
Indians embrace UK’s new Hindu prime minister as their own
British people of Indian descent celebrated their new prime minister as a “proud Hindu," saying he did not shy away from embracing his faith and Indian culture.
NEW DELHI (AP) — The next prime minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, has embraced his Indian and Hindu heritage — and on Monday, people across the former British colony proudly celebrated his victory.
Social media and TV channels in India were awash with congratulations for the 42-year-old Sunak, who is set to become the first person of color to lead Britain. The former Treasury chief was chosen by a governing Conservative Party desperate for a safe pair of hands to guide the country through economic and political turbulence.
For many Indians, who are celebrating Diwali, one of the most important Hindu festivals, it was a instance to say: He is one of our own. “It is a moment of pride for India that the country which ruled us for many years has now a prime minister of Indian heritage,” said Manoj Garg, a New Delhi businessman.
Sunak’s grandparents hailed from Punjab state before the subcontinent was divided into two countries — India and Pakistan — after British rule ended in 1947. They moved to East Africa in the late 1930s before finally settling in the U.K. in the 1960s. Sunak was born in 1980 in Southampton, on England’s south coast.
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His ancestral link is not his only association with India. He is married to Akshata Murty, whose father is Indian billionaire N.R. Narayana Murthy, founder of tech giant Infosys.
In April 2022, it emerged that Murty, who owns a little less than a 1% stake in Infosys, did not pay U.K. taxes on her overseas income. The practice was legal, but it looked bad at a time when Sunak was raising taxes for millions of Britons as chancellor of the Exchequer.
Indian TV channels appeared star-struck by Sunak’s victory. Across the bottom of the screen on New Delhi Television ran the words: “Indian son rises over the empire.” India Today news channel, meanwhile, took a jab at the U.K.’s economic and political turbulence, using the Hindi term for someone of Indian background: “Battered Britain gets ‘desi’ big boss.”
Last year, Indians celebrated Kamala Harris’s Indian heritage when she became U.S. vice president.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Sunak on Twitter and said he is looking forward to “working closely together on global issues.”
“Special Diwali wishes to ‘living bridge’ of U.K. Indians as we transform historic ties into modern partnership,” Modi wrote.
Some said Sunak’s selection was particularly special for the country with its recent celebration of 75 years of independence from British colonial rule.
“Today, as India celebrates Diwali in its 75th year as an independent nation, the U.K. gets an Indian-origin Prime Minister. History comes full circle,” lawmaker Raghav Chadha tweeted.
Others celebrated Sunak as a “proud Hindu,” saying he did not shy away from embracing his faith and Indian culture. They shared videos on Twitter showing Sunak taking his oath of allegiance as a lawmaker in 2020 on the Hindu holy book Bhagavad Gita.
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Other videos shared on Twitter showed Sunak praying to a cow, considered holy by Hindus, when he was running for Britain’s top job for the first time in August. In a Hindu ritual conducted in London, Sunak touched the cow’s feet while his wife offered carrots to it. Sunak also performed “aarti” in front of the cow — a Hindu ritual involving the waving of oil lamps.
Sunak has been public about his Indian origins — and his love for cricket. He has also talked about his abstinence from beef on religious grounds.
“I am thoroughly British, this is my home and my country, but my cultural heritage is Indian,” he told reporters in 2020.
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Associated Press video journalist Shonal Ganguly contributed to this report.
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