It was not a surprise to hear the claim that “America is not a racist country” at August’s minority-spotlighting Republican National Convention. What was surprising, however, was the woman who spoke that line. The irony of Nikki Haley denying racism’s continued existence while donning an undeniably Americanized name — she was born Nimrata Randhawa — was not lost on many. Yet the apparent internal contradiction between her race and her ideology is not unique to her; rather, she is only the most prominent representative of a larger group of Indian American Republicans whose identity and party find themselves in an increasingly jarring tension.
It should be noted that most Indian Americans, both politicians and not, are not members of this group. Only 18% identify as Republicans, and they tend to embrace cultural and racial differences rather than shying away from them — as exemplified by the meme-ification of Kamala Harris’ first name as “comma-la.”
Yet the prominence of Indian Americans in the conservative community is still undeniable. The deep-red South has had only three non-White governors in its history; of these, two — Govs. Haley of South Carolina and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana — have been Indian Americans. (Even more strikingly than Haley’s, Jindal’s first name was assimilated from Piyush to Bobby.) The Republican Hindu Coalition is prominent enough to count Newt Gingrich as its honorary chairman. Perhaps most notably, the “Howdy, Modi” rally held jointly by President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi drew 50,000 supporters of the president, mostly Indian, to Houston last fall.
Indeed, many Hindu Americans — the RHC’s name is deliberately chosen — see much to admire in the Grand Old Party. This affinity is most visible in the realm of foreign policy. Over the past decade, Indian Hindus have grown more and more prone to a religious conception of India, rather the secular one enshrined in the country’s constitution. This shift has been epitomized by the success of the Hindu nationalist Modi, who was barred from entering the U.S. for many years on account of the anti-Muslim violence he provoked and condoned while governor of the state of Gujarat in 2002. And American supporters of Modi admire Trump for more than his animosity toward Muslims: His public persona of being “tough on China” also endears him to Indian Americans. Their country of origin has come under increasingly frequent and severe threat from the Chinese military, and many have attended the numerous “Boycott China” protests — spurred by India’s recent crackdown on Chinese imports — held this summer in several U.S. cities. Trump’s close relationship with the Indian prime minister, evident both from the “Howdy, Modi” rally and its counterpart, “Namaste, Trump,” held this winter in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, seems to cement his support among Modi’s most avid American supporters.
Domestically, too, Indian American constituents can often find reason to approve of Republican policy. They are among the highest-earning ethnic groups in the United States, a trait which, in the absence of other factors, would already predispose them toward the Republican Party from a fiscally self-interested standpoint. They are disproportionately entrepreneurs, another category that skews Republican, and tend to support the so-called “family values” that conservative politicians often appeal to.
Indian American Republican politicians, meanwhile, are able to mostly sidestep the issue of race in their campaigns in a way not generally available to other politicians of color. By being vocal about their conversions to Christianity and heavily promoting pro-Christian policy in their respective states, both Haley and Jindal have been able to avoid the accusations of un-Americanness that would likely have dogged other first-generation immigrant governors in heavily conservative states. They have, in fact, both been able to weaponize their faith instead: Haley has speculated about whether Barack Obama is a Christian, and Jindal has repeatedly attacked the secularism of the so-called “liberal elite.” For the most part, their name-changing has gone unquestioned by the conservative base. Both governors were able to rhetorically appease cultural conservatives enough to focus on fiscal and other ostensibly nonracial policymaking during their terms.
Yet this balance of culturally conservative rhetoric with fiscally conservative policies appears to be becoming outdated as GOP orthodoxy moves into a space increasingly dominated by cultural and racial concerns that come into direct conflict with Indian identity. None of these issues is more prominent than immigration. While for years Republicans were staunch supporters of the pro-high-skilled immigration policies most Indian Americans or their parents utilized to enter the U.S., the stunning electoral success of Trump’s nationalist protectionism has sent the Party in a dramatically opposite direction over the past few years. Most notably, Trump has consistently worked to curtail the H-1B visa program — three-fourths of whose 580,000 beneficiaries are Indian — first with his 2017 “Buy American, Hire American” executive order and recently by suspending the program entirely. While these policies have fairly broad support among most Americans, they are likely to alienate the Indian American community, of whom nearly 310,000, or almost 8% of a population of about 4 million, hold an H-1B visa, and many more of whom originally entered the country under that program. Since July, many harrowing stories of Indian families torn apart by the visa ban have been reported, and it is unlikely that they will go unremembered by the community.
Not only are issues like these likely to encumber a significant Republican coalition among Indian Americans, they are also symptoms of a larger trend that poses a danger to the continued success of politicians like Haley. The GOP’s well-documented departure from a party strictly conservative in the economic sphere but diverse culturally has been occurring for decades, but Indian American Republicans have so far been able to avoid this issue. Now, as evidenced by Trump’s recent moves to curtail a policy strongly associated with Indian immigration, they can no longer “pass” as White traditionalists. The Republican Party is turning into a party meant for one specific group, and Indian Americans seem to have been — or are about to be — denied membership.
It is clear that the modern, populist GOP has little room for Indian Americans. As its increasingly xenophobic nativism continues to supplant the economic philosophies that once drew them to it, they will be forced to choose between leaving the party and working to reform it from its margins.
Despite these trends and this bleak future, some Indian Americans are still working to ascend in the GOP’s ranks. Haley, for example, is widely considered a likely presidential nominee in 2024, and the Washington Post has judged her most likely to be the U.S.’s first female president. Yet, with this analysis in mind, such a prediction seems shortsighted. It is doubtful that she will be able to retain the support of a base increasingly defined by its race and native culture, and even more unlikely that she will be able to rely on the racial appeals that bolstered Trump’s 2016 win and which are becoming more and more central to any GOP campaign. For Indian American Republicans, the future appears dismal.
Image by Srikanta H. U is licensed under the Unsplash License.