DNA Edit – US vote bank: Tulsi Gabbard’s proposal says a lot for Asian Indians

It is a measure of the growing clout of Asian Indians in the Big Apple that Tulsi Gabbard can lay claim to the biggest office in that country. Four-time Congresswomen Gabbard told a TV interview that she had decided to run for the presidentship. It makes her the first Hindu-American to stake claim to the White House and should she win the party nomination and eventually emerge victorious in the complex race to the Oval House — a long shot by any reckoning — Gabbard will become the first non-Christian and the first Hindu President of the United States. She is not alone. According to US media accounts, there is also Kamala Harris, who is slated to announce her name anytime. Born in American Samoa in 1981 to Carol and Mike Gabbard, Tulsi is the fourth of five children, all brought up in the Brahma Madhwa Gaudiya Sampradaya, that her mother embraced following her introduction to the Krishna movement. That Gabbard, with her background in the US military and an Iraq war veteran, can hope to crack the country’s top post — some would argue, the highest office in the world — is a tribute to how influential Asian Indians have become in the US. Sure, that is not going to be Gabbard’s main pitch when she gets down to the business of campaigning, it certainly says a lot about the confidence that Indians living in American can now boast off, from their early modest days. According to the 2017 United States Census Bureau data, Indian Americans are the second largest group in the country after Chinese Americans. The Bureau typically uses Asian Indian to avoid confusion with the country’s indigenous population commonly known as American Indians. Little wonder that successive American Presidents take Indians living in that country seriously. After all, which politician does not love a vote bank?