United States Vice President JD Vance has sparked a massive controversy when he voiced his desire for his Hindu wife Usha Bala Chilukuri to adopt his Christian beliefs.

What incited even greater outrage was his description of her as “agnostic” and his shocking reluctance to recognize her “Hindu faith,” despite his earlier candid acknowledgment of how Usha and her religion helped him draw closer to Jesus Christ. Likewise, she linked Hinduism to her excellent upbringing and pointed out the role it played in shaping her parents into such admirable people.

“I was never baptised. I was raised Christian but never baptised. I was first baptised in 2018. Usha was raised non-Christian. She is actually not Christian. But I remember when I started to re-engage with my faith, Usha was very supportive,” he pointed out while talking to Fox News.

Vance’s latest statement has come months after Usha’s declaration of her clear disinterest in conversion to Christianity during an interview with Meghan McCain where she emphasized that her children were being educated about India, her religion as well as traditions through trips to the country and relevant books.

Meanwhile, the Republican leader who credited his wife’s beliefs for assisting in his own religious journey seems to be failing to accept her clear reluctance to embrace Christianity. Furthermore, Vance’s statement comes across as blatant appeasement, pandering to religious bigotry and supremacist ideology that is raising in the USA.

Vance’s contradictory comments from now and earlier reveal stunning hypocrisy and even a degree of political shrewdness. He is the man who expressed guilt for taking his spouse to mass as she was not a Christian and felt regret over the fact that she “didn’t sign up to marry a weekly churchgoer.”

Moreover, Vance disclosed that Usha was comfortable with their church visits and aided him in carving his own spiritual path but it appears to be too much to expect the same from him in return. Now, Vance does not hesitate to boast to a crowd of thousands that he would like to get his Hindu wife converted into Christianity, fully cognizant of the rising anti-India and Hinduphobia present in the nation.

The vice president understood what his supporters wished to hear and certainly met their expectations, without reflecting on the implications of his remarks or perhaps he simply did not care because the political agenda and religious supremacy take precedence. Worse still, he essentially cast his wife to the racist wolves to secure their backing and attract their support.

Usha highlighted her Hindu background

Usha mentioned in the aforementioned conversation with McCain that her grandmother prays daily, performs puja, and regularly attends the temple. “My children have plenty of access to the Hindu tradition from books that we give them, to things that we show them, to the recent trip to India, and some of the religious elements of that visit,” she conveyed.

She noted that they had given their children the liberty to choose their own path and stated, “So what we’ve ended up doing is we send our kids to Catholic school, and we have given them each the choice, right? They can choose whether they want to be baptised Catholic and then go through the whole step-by-step process with their classes in school.” 

“We had to have a lot of real conversations about how do you do that, when I’m not Catholic, and I’m not intending to convert or anything like that,” the second lady of the United States outlined while discussing their interfaith household. “Kids are smart. They know I’m not Catholic, and they know there are many ways to experience the divine,” she emphasized. However, her spouse does not seem to hold the same view, especially at this time, as indicated by his public efforts of pressuring her to convert.

“My parents are Hindu and that’s one of the things that made them such good parents and good people and I have seen the power of that in my own life. I knew that JD was searching for something. This just felt right for him,” Usha likewise conveyed in the interview to Fox News.

Vance who is well aware of his wife’s Hindu heritage, which he attributed to his own spiritual awakening, has opted to label her as “agnostic.” He married a Hindu but apparently draws the line at naming her religion in front of his radical fans.

Racists target Usha and her children due to their Indian heritage

The white Christian nationalists express their animosity and disdain towards Hindus and Indians on a daily basis. No one from the community, not even those affiliated with the Donald Trump administration, is immune to this rampant hatred. A similar incident unfolded when Usha and her three children were targeted by this vitriol.

Vance’s nomination as vice president was severely criticised due to his marriage to a non-Christian brown person. She was subjected to racial slurs while the neo-Nazis derided her ancestry, skin color and background. Social media was rife with bigoted and xenophobic posts such as “Tragic. I presumed Vance was a Christian,” “Our forefathers are rolling in their graves,” “Christ is King, not a distasteful Indian idol,” and “Will a cow soon be in the White House,” among others.

Nevertheless, Vance supported 25-year-old Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employee Marko Elez after his resignation over racist posts even after the vitriol directed at his family, rather than taking a stand against the irrational enmity towards Hindus and Indians. He even received backlash for emboldening such elements but remained unfazed.

Vance had been siding with these bigots despite knowing the adverse effects it could have on both the larger Indian Hindu community and his own family.

Elez had written “I was racist before it was cool,” “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” and “Normalize India hate,” on his later deleted social media account and was exposed by The Wall Street Journal.

Interestingly, Vance had earlier identified as a “Never Trump guy” and rightly emphasized that “there is undoubtedly an aspect of Donald Trump’s backing rooted in racism or xenophobia.” However, he subsequently referenced “many successes in office” as a reason for altering his perspective on the president after being selected as a running mate.

Conclusion

The Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, which was once a refuge for the aspirations of conservatives weary of leftist hypocrisy and appeasement towards Islamists, has now devolved into a white Christian extremist cabal. Disturbingly, even the tallest right-wing leaders occupying the most influential positions are catering to this audience.

Nonetheless, it is even more crucial to note that these remarks not only reinforce the delusions about religious or race supremacy but also empower the hateful sentiments against Indians in general and Hindus in particular, as proven by ongoing and increasing incidents of violence. This rhetoric has far-reaching consequences for Indians, even transcending the borders of the United States.

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