Indian American political Star : Reverse Swing: Nikki of America

Nikki Haley | http://MikeGhouseforIndia.blogspot.com
Indian American political Star : Reverse Swing: Nikki of America

Nikki Haley is a breath of fresh air; she is a moderate Republican representing the mainstream GOP values, that none of the current front line GOP candidates are able to articulate. I have used the word moderate because the right leaning Republicans do not value any one supporting immigration, religious freedom, liberty and freedom.

They are usually anti-immigrants, anti-gays, bomb-every-country, and anti-anyone-who-is-not-a-Christian. They are war mongers and have destroyed America during the Bush years, the Indians may not have felt the pinch, but nearly 43 Million Americans lost their jobs, businesses were shut down, anti-Indian (job taken away) sentiment grew, homes were foreclosed... divorces were on rise. War is an enterprise of evil men.

I sincerely hope, she gets to be nominated as VP, she will change the course of the dialogue and bring some sense on the campaign trail, to set herself up for 2020. The Hannity's and other conservative talk show hosts like her  - for only one reason - she went against Obama in relocating Boeing to her state. Once they hear "whole" of her, they may not like her as much.  If you recall, Chris Christie was a star, just because, simply because he welcomed Obama to help his state during the devastating floods, he was cursed by the Republicans. Rush Limbaugh calls a good Republican is one who hates Obama.

Way back when she was in Dallas to inaugurate Mahatma Gandhi statue, I wrote, " Nikki Haley must be a moderate Republican like me, even though she is billed as a conservative Republican.  She sounds like Obama with inclusiveness, a trait missing among the conservative Republicans and acutely deficit with regular Republicans." More about it at - http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2014/05/ground-breaking-ceremony-of-mahatma.html 

Well, I am not a Republican anymore after 30 years of being one, but chose to go independent, because I want to support the candidates who are good for America and my loyalty is to America and American values and not any party.  At one time independents were less than 10%, now it has grown to be a clear third. 

The article says, “Desis have a “Bobby and Nikki problem”, and it goes beyond the peculiar Indian-American rejection of conservatism. Their hatred of Jindal stems largely from his public statements that he is “American”, not “Indian-American”. Thin-skinned Indians misinterpret this as a rejection by Jindal of his Indian-ness, as opposed to seeing it as a pitch for an America that’s free of ethnic pigeonholes.”

Tunku has opened a new window for Indians to consider, that is, “seeing it (Jindal’s approach) as a pitch for an America that’s free of ethnic pigeonholes.”  Most of us did not see it that way, but glad to look at it in that manner.  However, I am still trying to understand Jindal, here we are, proud of him as a fellow Indian and he does not want the Indian in his American descriptor and that is disappointing. He should proudly say, which most of us say, that no one can take the Indian out of me.    

Wonder if the BJP members of Indian Americans are fond of the Republican Party? As both of them have similar attitudes towards society, and those who differ with them. They are conformists and not free thinkers. 

Ms Haley is Indian-American, and Christian, and a political star.

The article concludes, “But let’s remember that Nikki Haley is American and lives in America, and has the right to convert to any faith she fancies. It is no one else’s business but hers. Those who argue otherwise are primitive bigots who need to get a life.”

Yes, every human should be free to believe whatever the hell he or she wants to believe,  and eat, drink and wear what pleases him or her.

Mike Ghouse
www.TheGhouseDiary.com
http://MikeGhouseforIndia.blogspot.com

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Read column at: https://shar.es/16L8yK [ shar.es/16L8yK ]

  

Written by Tunku Varadarajan | Published:January 17, 2016 12:10 am

Nikki Haley

On the night of the State of the Union address last week, when many in America were prepared to swoon over Barack Obama — only to be turned off by a speech that was self-aggrandising — a woman of Indian origin, her tone measured, her teeth as white as a Trump rally, stole the show from the Democratic president.

Nikki Haley, born Nimrata Kaur Randhawa, is the Republican governor of South Carolina, and to her fell the chore of delivering the response to the President, an American tradition in which a hapless opposition politician is picked by his party’s establishment to speak for a handful of minutes after the Big Cheese has finished.

The task is cursed: the nation has had just about enough of politics after the presidential peacock-dance. So it treats what follows either as an opportunity to turn off the TV, or to titter at the short (and usually impotent) speech. The worst in recent memory was the response by Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, to Obama’s first State of the Union in 2009. With the nation on an Obama high, Jindal’s squeaky voice and pedantry made him an object of derision. His decline as a national politician began that very night.

Haley’s response, by contrast, was the finest I’ve heard, and the excited talk after she spoke was all about how she’d make a perfect Republican vice-presidential candidate.

And yet her words didn’t please everyone: Ann Coulter, a conservative pundit who has made a handsome living by being the shrillest woman in America, tweeted that “Trump should deport Nikki Haley.” This was a response to Haley’s measured words on immigration, in which she’d invoked her own immigrant background while lauding America’s tradition of legal immigration. Haley was suitably tough on the subject of illegal entrants to America, but things have come to such a pass on the Republican right wing that support for immigration of any kind is seen as un-American.

The editorial page of The Wall Street Journal came to Haley’s defence, out of a shared belief in the economic and cultural value of immigration. There
was little defence, however, from Indians on Twitter. And their rejection of Haley was, if anything, more ugly than Coulter’s nativist tantrum.

Desis have a “Bobby and Nikki problem”, and it goes beyond the peculiar Indian-American rejection of conservatism. Their hatred of Jindal stems largely from his public statements that he is “American”, not “Indian-American”. Thin-skinned Indians misinterpret this as a rejection by Jindal of his Indian-ness, as opposed to seeing it as a pitch for an America that’s free of ethnic pigeonholes.

Although Haley has never been dogmatic about her self-definition, the desi Haley-hatred comes from many of the same bigots who despise Jindal, accusing her (and Jindal) of converting to Christianity for political gain. This crude objection to conversion is very Indian, born of a general Indian inability to accept that religion can be a matter of personal election.

The idea that one is forever of the faith of one’s ancestors is so embedded in the Indian psyche that many can’t imagine that a person’s conversion could have occurred for a reason (or by a process) that isn’t venal. The hysteria that overwhelms the debate on conversion in India is proof of this.

But let’s remember that Nikki Haley is American and lives in America, and has the right to convert to any faith she fancies. It is no one else’s business but hers. Those who argue otherwise are primitive bigots who need to get a life.

The author is the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. @tunkuv

- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/reverse-swing-nikki-of-america/#sthash.oP0s4g1j.cwaKHjzy.dpuf