(RNS) — In the Trump coalition, they see a burgeoning multiracial religious right that has ample space for Hindu Americans.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump listens as Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during a campaign rally at Thomas & Mack Center, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Richa Karmarkar
November 12, 2024
(RNS) — Days after Donald Trump’s sweeping presidential win, reactions around the country ranged from surprise and sadness to, in Texan Burt Thakur’s case, relief.
“What a moment,” he told RNS. “The biggest comeback in political history, I would say, for any world leader in modern times.”
A Republican congressional hopeful who ran in Frisco, Texas, under the slogan “one nation under God, not one nation under government,” Thakur — a former Navy sailor, nuclear power plant worker and immigrant from India — has much in common with the average faith-based Trump voter. Though Thakur lost his March primary in northeast Texas, “arguably the most evangelical part” of the state, Thakur said he had “never felt more welcomed” than when he campaigned as a conservative in his district
For so long, says Thakur, Hindu Americans had to wait their turn to enter the political space as anything other than a Democrat. But now, with openly Hindu Republican figures like Vivek Ramaswamy, Tulsi Gabbard and even Usha Chilukuri Vance, the wife of Vice President-elect JD Vance, Thakur sees a burgeoning multiracial religious right that has ample space for Hindu Americans.
“If we want to build a bridge, if we want the Vivek Ramaswamys of the world to get into office, if we want our voice heard, these groups are waiting for us,” said Thakur, who added he has often been “one of the only brown faces in the room” at Republican-led events. “We just have to show up.”
Political observers have noted the uptick in Trump-supporting Americans from various ethnic and immigrant backgrounds, especially Latinos and Asians, as the marker of a changing America. The Democratic Party has too often relied on the support of Indian Americans, says author Avatans Kumar, who, like many in his immigrant cohort, initially leaned to the left.
“Indians, Hindus specifically, are very deeply religious people,” said Kumar, who moved to Chicago for a Ph.D. in linguistics in 1994. “And progressivism is not alien to us. It comes to us because we are Hindus — very progressive, liberal minded. But there’s a limit to it. So I think we may have, you know, broke that limit for many of us.”
Notions of DEI, Critical Race Theory and affirmative action led Kumar to question the state of the meritocracy he once valued in his chosen country. For him, the breaking point came, as it did for many Hindus, in 2023 with a senate bill in California. Bill 403, supported by many Democrats, would have codified caste as a protected category under existing anti-discrimination laws. Governor Gavin Newsom ultimately vetoed the bill after fierce opposition from prominent Hindu advocates who argued it misrepresented the Hindu faith as intrinsically caste-based.
RELATED: As caste bill meets defeat, Hindu Americans on both sides make their voices heard
Trump’s “America First” views, where ideology is more important than identity, greatly appealed to Kumar.
“I don’t think identity should be a big factor,” he said. “You are who you are, and our dharma tells us to be loyal to our nation, the country where we live. You know, we made this country home, and we will be very loyal. But also, India is our spiritual homeland, that’s the connection we have.”
In a pre-election 2020 survey, 72% of registered Indian American voters said they planned to support Biden, a share that fell to 61% percent for Kamala Harris in the month before the 2024 election — while Trump support went from 22% to 32%, according to the Indian American Attitudes Survey conducted before both elections.
President Joe Biden’s administration of “mostly activist ideologues,” said Kumar, did little to support a diplomatic relationship with India. In contrast with liberals’ criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule, and the occasionally violent Hindu nationalism of his Bharatiya Janata Party, Trump has instead publicly shown his great appreciation and admiration for the leader of the world’s largest democracy.
“We will also protect Hindu Americans against the anti-religion agenda of the radical left,” posted Trump on Diwali. “Under my administration, we will also strengthen our great partnership with India and my good friend, Prime Minister Modi.”
The majority of Indian Americans either approve of or have no opinion on Modi’s performance as prime minister, and most value a strong partnership between India and the U.S., according to a 2023 survey by Pew Research Center.
But Trump’s foreign policy is only a small piece of the puzzle, according to D.C. native Akshar Patel. Increased inflation and pathways to legal immigration, the latter of which is especially relevant to the majority-immigrant population with a decadeslong backlog for citizenship, were the issues strong enough to sway otherwise progressive-minded Hindus like himself into a Trump vote.
“Diversity, tolerance, pluralism, things like that: those are Hindu ideals,” said Patel, who in 2018 founded the independent news outlet The Emissary, which discusses Indian and American history and politics. “On the flip side, though, ideas around God, family and natural patriotism, you could say those are also Hindu values.”
But Patel warns against characterizing the multi-religious coalition as a “pan-Republican phenomenon,” instead calling it a distinctly “Trumpian” one. He noted the backlash over Harmeet Dhillon, a practicing Sikh, reciting a prayer to Waheguru (the Sikh name for God) at the Republican National Convention, with some calling it “blasphemous” and “anti-Christian.”
“I think that is a real part of the Republican Party, which I guess Hindus need to be cognizant of, and keep one eyebrow up,” Patel said.
Srilekha Reddy Palle, a board member of the nonpartisan American Hindu Coalition, has been a vocal supporter of Trump throughout the 2024 campaign season. Some of her colleagues were “instrumental,” she said, in getting Trump to mention the violence against Hindus in Bangladesh in his October X post. “Kamala and Joe have ignored Hindus across the world and in America,” added the post.
But her support for Trump goes beyond “superficial” identity-based lines, says Palle, who ran for county supervisor in her home state of Virginia in 2019. “I just want us to be at a point where anyone can stand on the stage,” she said, noting how in local elections in her state candidates still feel a need to emphasize their Christian faith.
“That kind of thing should go away from America,” she added. “That’s what I call religious freedom. Religious tolerance alone is not religious freedom. It just means that you practice whatever you want, but you should be agnostic when it comes to running, when you come into the public eye.”
On either side of the American political spectrum, many Hindus like Reddy feel pride in the influx of Indians in lawmaking positions, like the six Congress members elected just this cycle, or Hindus like Ramaswamy, Gabbard and Kash Patel — who are all expected to have a role in Trump’s government.
The goal for AHC, she says, is to move the community away from opening wallets and photo ops, and towards getting more like-minded people into leadership positions.
For Indu Viswanathan, director of education for the Hindu University of America, “there’s nothing more Hindu than viewpoint diversity,” or the ability to empathize and understand other perspectives, including those of her more right-leaning colleagues. The former public school teacher says too many in the Indian American community, among the wealthiest and most educated ethnic group in the nation, live in their enclaves and are not exposed to the reality of mainstream America.
“This is where the culture wars, and a lot of social justice has done us a disservice, because in the name of being inclusive, it’s actually created a lot of more isolating categorization of people,” she said. “It’s really easy to get fired up, and it’s really easy to feel like you’re drowning.”
But Viswanathan sees Trump, with his felony convictions, as “not at all aligned with dharmic values,” and is especially cautious of the alignments some Hindus are making with an increasingly nationalist form of Christianity in a nation that has historically misrepresented or even denigrated ritualistic forms of the religion.
“Your everyday American is actually really open minded,” she said. “So we don’t need to make ourselves fit in that way. We can actually be really authentic in our representations and expressions and understandings of the world. Don’t try to dilute or make your sort of experience of Hinduism digestible to others,” she said.
“The more diversity of expression that we see, not just in politicians, but in media and entertainment, in all of these different spaces, the richer our country is, the richer the representation of Hinduism is. And I think we’re all better off for it.”
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