The west always lectures other countries on “religious intolerance” and often tries to play the global police on issues concerning secular and religious freedom. But how much does the west walk its own talk when it comes to secularism and religious freedom?
Most western countries proudly call themselves multicultural societies. But when it comes to considering a non-Christian candidate for the highest office, the deep-seated racism and intolerance for other religious faiths erupts forth.
The Republican Presidential candidate of the US Vivek Ramaswamy recently became a victim of Hinduphobia as he faced a question about his Hindu roots while he was campaigning in Iowa. A voter asked him, “What do you say to those who say to you that you cannot be our President because your religion is not what our founding fathers based our country on?”.
Ramaswamy replied that he was a Hindu and he wouldn’t fake his identity to get to the top of the political snake and ladders game. He then asserted that Hindu Dharma and Christianity had the same value set at their core- respect for the institution of family, sanctity of marriage, rejection of adultery, good moral values, etc. While Ramaswamy tried hard to highlight the apparent parallels between Hinduism and Judeo-Christian values, he categorically emphasized that he could never become a fake convert and wasn’t perhaps the right person to propagate Christianity in America. He also said that it wasn’t the job of a President to be a pastor anyway.
While all mainstream Bharatiya media has covered this issue and one can see numerous news reports on the incident involving Vivek Ramaswamy being questioned about his Hindu faith, what is astonishing is that none of the media seem to find anything wrong about the questioning itself. The articles are either merely stating the facts or hailing Ramaswamy for standing up for his Hindu faith. But none of the coverage is critical about the intent of the question itself. It’s a deeply problematic question laden with racism and Hinduphobia.
First of all, for a country that calls itself multicultural and polices the entire world on supposed attacks on minority rights, how can it take for granted that its would-be President should be a representative of Judeo-Christian values? As a person belonging to the Hindu minority in Christian majority America, the question puts Ramaswamy in a rather tight and uncomfortable spot. The question also insults Hindu Dharma by suggesting it does not conform to the values the founding fathers of America based the country on.
The question is cleverly framed and the Hinduphobia bit is very subtly inserted but it’s there in the open for all to see. What sort of values are these anonymous people referring to? And why should Hindu Dharma be inimical to these values? Does the question then suggest that the US was founded on White Christian imperialist values, and Hindu Dharma being the religion of the primitive colonized heathen, is inimical to those values? That seems to be the implied message of the question. That’s why it reeks of bigotry and Hinduphobia.
The cleverly framed question literally forced Vivek Ramaswamy to accept that America was indeed founded on Judeo-Christian values. To justify himself to the white American voter further, Ramaswamy is forced to find superficial parallels between Hindu Dharma and Judeo-Christian values. What can be indeed more demeaning for a Hindu? Hindu Dharma is a world apart from the extreme black-and-white dichotomy and reified dogmas of Abrahamic faiths. But Ramaswamy has to equate his faith to Judeo-Christian values to prove he is worthy enough to be the President of the US.
The question takes it for granted that the US was founded on Judeo-Christian values. That assumption is itself racist and value laden. What about the culture and faith of the Native Americans that Christianity systematically wiped off? Doesn’t America originally belong to those people? By questioning Vivek Ramaswamy’s Hindu faith and flatly declaring that the US was founded on Judeo-Christian values, the question takes the superiority of Abrahamic faiths and the subservience of “pagan” religions like Hindu Dharma for granted, and that’s what is problematic.
As a Republican Presidential candidate in the US, it’s not in Vivek Ramaswamy’s place to take on the bigotry and Hinduphobia unleashed on him through that question. Yet, it’s not the first time that Ramaswamy has been targeted for his Hindu faith. Ever since he joined the Republican poll fray, discussions about the possibility of a Hindu candidate appealing to the extreme right-wing Christian Republican voter base of the US have been frequent in American media.
That the faith of a Presidential candidate should be a topic of discussion in a country that portrays itself as the champion of human rights and all sorts of freedoms worldwide might shock some of us but it doesn’t come across as a shock to the American media. That’s precisely where the double standards are glaring. While the liberal US media lectures Bharat on the supposed lack of religious freedom, it finds no issue with the constant harassment of a Republic Presidential candidate because of his Hindu faith.
The right-wing Christian media of the US is rather openly suggesting a Hindu is not yet fit to become the President of the US. A media publication called Deseret News sponsored by the church carried an article on the recent incident in which Ramaswamy was questioned about his Hindu faith. The article turns the tables and makes Ramaswamy a perpetrator rather than a victim by declaring in the headline “Vivek’s strange strategy to win over religious voters”.
https://www.deseret.com/2023/12/15/24001460/vivek-ramaswamy-religious-voters-nikki-haley
Whoever wrote the article seems to have issues with Vivek Ramaswamy’s categorical statement regarding the primacy of his Hindu identity and his assertion that he would never become a fake convert just to up his political game. “Vivek Ramaswamy is taking a big gamble in his efforts to win over conservative Christian voters. Instead of playing down his Hindu faith, he’s using simultaneously as a defense and as a bludgeon – by accusing another candidate’s conversion to Christianity as a political ploy.”, says the opening paragraph of the article.
The” another candidate” being referred to here is Nikki Haley, another Republic Presidential candidate in the fray, a Sikh by birth who reportedly converted to Christianity after marriage. The article is basically trying to shame Ramaswamy, a practicing Hindu for calling out fake Christian converts. That Ramaswamy agrees that America was founded on Judeo-Christian values and is trying to find parallels between Christianity and Hindu Dharma is not enough for the article writer it seems.
The expectations are that he should aggressively encourage Christian conversions and denounce Hindu Dharma to qualify as the rightful candidate for the white Christian US Republican voter. “Does Ramaswamy think questioning the faith of another candidate will make his own faith seem more sincere? It’s a strange approach, especially as many Christian voters already seem skeptical of Ramaswamy’s faith”, says the article further.
Vivek Ramaswamy’s post on X regarding the question he was asked about his Hinduism roots has many comments calling out the hypocrisy of such a question. “The hypocrisy in the question is crazy! Freedom of religion is part of our constitution but why should we elect a candidate who practices Hinduism? Wild”, writes one user.
“Our founding fathers were mostly Deists. Remarkable that people think it’s somehow Christian based”, writes another user.
But there is an equal number of comments questioning Hindu Dharma. “He keeps using the singular for the god he’s talking about, but Hinduism is a polytheistic religion, so I wonder which god he’s referring to: Indra, Shiva, Krishna, which?”, writes a user. “Please, don’t say anything about caste system and sati pratha of Hinduism!!!”, writes another user.
What is stark here is that Vivek Ramaswamy was literally forced to put Hindu Dharma in a box and justify the religion within the framework of Judeo-Christian values, thus acknowledging the supposed supremacy of the Abrahamic faith systems. Imagine if the reverse would happen in Bharat. What if the Congress leader Sonia Gandhi were questioned by voters that her faith is different from the faith practiced and propagated by the founding fathers of Bharat, that her faith stands for different values, and would the people of Bharat accept her as a leader?
Imagine the kind of hullabaloo that the woke lobby would create if Sonia Gandhi or any other leader practicing Christianity were asked such a question in Bharat. The local and international media would be full of articles condemning Bharat for its lack of religious freedom and crackdown on minorities. This issue would overtake every other issue of national importance for weeks on end. One wouldn’t be surprised if the United Nations decided to take this up!
Yet, in a country like the US, one can get away so easily for casually declaring that a Hindu is not fit to be the President of the United States because he is a Hindu. The vulnerable Hindu, instead of calling out the hypocrisy of the question and outrightly rejecting it, is forced to justify his faith to a Christian audience, that his faith is as morally upright and normal as theirs.
The saddest part is, the western media aside, the Bharatiya media too seems to have internalized the colonial and Hinduphobic gaze of the neocolonial Judeo-Christian framework.
