2024 US Presidential elections: Indian-origin contenders Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley dial up interest

Vivek Ramaswamy, 38, is the most active campaigner on the landscape, travelling hundreds of miles almost every day and appearing on countless TV shows and podcasts. (Image source: Twitter/Zachery Henry)

Campaigns for the 2024 Presidential election of the United States have already begun in full earnest. For us in India, it’s a spectator sport, but it has certainly got more interesting with Vivek Ramaswamy in the fray. Ramaswamy, an American of Indian origin, is trying to get the Republican Party nomination to stand for President.

Another candidate, Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and American ambassador to the United Nations, is also of Indian origin, born to Sikh immigrants, but Ramaswamy is certainly the one who has drawn more attention. On Thursday, Elon Musk tweeted (X-ed?) that he thinks Ramaswamy is “very promising”.

He is a very promising candidate https://t.co/bEQU8L21nd— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 17, 2023

Ramaswamy, 38, is the most active campaigner on the landscape, travelling hundreds of miles almost every day and appearing on countless TV shows and podcasts. He also seems to have very clear views on most matters and is making some radical promises about what he would do if he were elected US President.

He says that if he becomes President, he will abolish the Department of Education to give parents greater choice about where, how and what their children will learn. He says he will shut down the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and reduce federal government staff by 75 percent. He wants to “make a deal” with Vladimir Putin on Ukraine and rejects much of climate change and green energy activism.

There is very little chance that he will be elected in 2024. In fact, he has very little chance of even getting the Republican Party nomination. Former President Donald Trump is far ahead of him in opinion polls of Republican voters, but in a few polls, he comes second after Trump.

He has based his campaign on 10 principles, which he lists in a recent tweet: “1. God is real. 2. There are two genders. 3. Human flourishing requires fossil fuels. 4. Reverse racism is racism. 5. An open border is no border. 6. Parents determine the education of their children. 7. The nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to mankind. 8. Capitalism lifts people up from poverty. 9. There are three branches of the US government, not four. 10. The US Constitution is the strongest guarantor of freedoms in history.”

This is what Americans call a classically “conservative” agenda—we Indians call it “right wing”. But hardly any politician—not even Trump—has expressed his views so unequivocally on the many issues that are currently roiling US politics, policy and society, such as gender identity, climate change, migration and general wokeism. But then, it was his criticism of corporate wokeism that brought Ramaswamy into the public limelight two years ago.

His super-achiever CV is almost a cartoon stereotype of everything that seems to make some Americans wary of Indian-origin people. In fact, just reading about it can be exhausting. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Ramaswamy topped school and studied biology at Harvard University. At Harvard, not only did he ace all exams, he found time to play tennis, rap under the name “Da Vek”, win student elections and co-found Campus Venture Network, which sought to support student entrepreneurs.

After graduating, he joined a hedge fund and rose to be a partner by age 28, while also attending Yale Law School and earning a degree. He then set up a drug development company, Roivant Sciences, and pulled off the largest initial public offering (IPO) in US biotech history till then.

Whew.  And a few years later, increasingly bothered about the American corporate climate that seemed to push ESG—environmental, social and governance—investing over merit, he stepped down as CEO of Roivant and wrote Woke, Inc, a book that became a bestseller and brought him to TV talk shows and public attention.

It should surprise no one that he has been asked about his religion. America, whose constitution assures freedom of religion to all its citizens, is a deeply Christian country. The National Prayer Breakfast is an annual event every February which the sitting President attends. Obviously Vivek Ramaswamy, who claims to be a practising Hindu, has a problem here.

Till now, he has answered all questions about his faith unapologetically. He says that he is not a Christian, but “we do share the same Christian values that this nation was founded on”. He says that Jesus was “a son of God, absolutely”, though a New York Times article noted that “'a’ is a sharp distinction from the central Christian belief that Jesus is the Son of God”.

The NYT article goes on to say: “At campaign stops, Ramaswamy refers to Bible stories, including the crucifixion of Jesus, and quotes Thomas Aquinas. He frequently mentions his experience attending a ‘Christian school’ in Cincinnati (St Xavier High School, a Catholic school). And he contrasts ‘religions like ours’, which have stood the test of time, with the competing worldviews of ‘wokeism, climatism, transgenderism, gender ideology, covidism’.”

But another Republican Party hopeful, Ron De Santis, has already attacked him for being “very much ingrained in India’s caste system”. Ramaswamy’s crime, of course, is that he was born into a Brahmin family.

He has very little chance of being elected President next year, but he is only 38 years old. He has at least 40 years to achieve his grand ambition. His intelligence and energy cannot be doubted. No one can of course say for sure whether he really believes in the 10 principles that he touts. Shut down the FBI? Is that even possible? But he has been putting his money where his mouth is. He claims to have spent $15 million of his personal money on his campaign till now.

As things stand, Donald Trump is set to win the Republican Party nomination for Presidential candidate. What if he chooses Ramaswamy as his Vice-Presidential running mate? Ramaswamy has said that if he becomes President, he will issue a pardon order for all the crimes that Trump has been accused of, and Trump has responded to this quite effusively.

Whichever way it goes, the US Presidential race has become more interesting for us Indians, living thousands of miles away from the action.