Jindal’s ‘American-ness’ has hurt him at the national level.
By Sujeet Rajan
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NEW YORK: So, what happened to Bobby Jindal?
Why has Jindal become an almost pariah-like entity in the Republican Party, a wreck at the bottom of the heap of presidential aspirants? Why is he scoffed at by politicians across the aisle? Why is looked down upon by the Indian American community? Why is the governor of Louisiana, who once evinced so much admiration from India, where his parents emigrated from, now scorned for his undiplomatic comments? Why is Jindal, who has been so successful at everything else in his life, become a miserable failure at the national level?
It’s simplistic to assume answers to those puzzling questions is present in Jindal’s name itself, as one Washington Post blogger misconstrued it; as if changing a name from Piyush to Bobby – and living in the same community, gives somebody greater power. We are not talking of charlatans who trick people by assuming fake identities, move to different locations to prey on new victims. Or those who take on nicknames for ease of pronunciation.
In Bobby Jindal’s case, the change of name from Piyush to Bobby didn’t really happen because of a TV show ‘Brady Bunch’ – most kids anywhere around the world want an alias at some point in their lives after being influenced by screen characters – but in fact, it was cemented in his identity because of the Christian religion he immersed into wholeheartedly, followed devoutly, loved the church he went to and the inner peace and harmony it brought in his life. Christianity was and has become the basis for everything Jindal has done so far in his life. Jindal has not compromised on the ideals of the religion he believes in fiercely, not even in his career as a politician.
To an extent, Jindal’s problem has been his name too, though not ‘Bobby’ which he has been fully in control of since his childhood days, but his surname, Jindal, which has proved to be slippery, from the time he started his career in the political arena, in contest for Governor, and lost to Kathleen Blanco, in 2003.
I covered Jindal’s unsuccessful bid for governor, and when he ran successfully for Congress, in Louisiana. Jindal was leading in his contest against Blanco in the run-up to polling day, but the whispers about his ‘Indian’ background became louder, as his own campaign feared.
Blanco ran a negative campaign successfully, in a state where racial segregation has never gone away fully. On the day the poll results were announced, there were hardly any family members of Jindal present, not many Indians were in the crowd. It was a bitter defeat for Jindal, who in his own mind attributed it to his being cast as an ‘outsider’ because of his skin color, despite his belief that he was as American as Blanco or anybody else.
Louisiana saw and felt that hurt of Jindal. They realized they had hurt the man who really deserved to be governor, spurned him for his skin color. Jindal in subsequent elections, for Congress and governor, won with overwhelming margins. Louisiana embraced and supported the man who had embraced them with complete conviction and fervor.
The name Jindal, and the color of his brown skin is perhaps the reason he had to say with a winning smile, announcing his presidential bid this year, “I’m tanned and ready’, to make people nationally look and go beyond the color of his skin, and at the same time, for others to believe and buy his ‘all-American’ identity which he inherited by birth, but had to earn through hard work at every step of his life. He wanted America to embrace him and his ideals like Louisiana did almost eight years ago.
When Jindal makes a passionate plea for America to renounce hyphenated identities, like Indian-American, Chinese-American, African-American, he is – contrary to many who falsely assumed that he is trying to get away from his Indian-ness – being a super idealist, one who believes that utopia is around the corner. For Jindal, there is no point in making him a hyphenated Bobby-Jindal evoke memories of an American with an Indian background. Just the word ‘Bobby’ would do. ‘American’ would be best, to describe him.
Of course, Jindal fails to recognize, that unlike himself, most Americans are torn between different cultures, heaped on them through their parents.
Jindal’s failure at the national level, as has been exposed with polls showing him miserably out of contention for even the opening primary debate next month on Fox News, is because in his eagerness to assume the ‘all American’ identity, become the complete Louisiana politician who immersed himself in all things locally, he lost touch with the rest of the country, forgot how to understand the pulse of an evolving nation of immigrants. Worst, Bobby Jindal stopped being a global citizen of the world.
In advocating his religious far right views, and narrow political prism as seen through his experience as governor of Louisiana, Jindal, is now no more willing to back down on conservative values he imbibed growing up, and loves. Those values earned him a spot for two consecutive terms in the governor’s mansion. For Jindal, it’s not important any more that he wins this election or not by making sane, politically right noises, and flip flop, whether it be on immigration, abortion, evolution, or on international issues like rapport with India, China, and Russia.
Jindal, in his contest against Blanco, never went on a negative campaign, stuck to his game plan, which was to present Bobby to Louisiana, bank on their getting his viewpoint, living his ideals as their own. It did work.
Some detractors of Jindal say he worked more during these two terms as governor to promote his candidacy for president. The truth is that every MBA student dreams of running a company someday. There is no governor who doesn’t hope to become president one day.
But, Jindal is now finding it hard to push that same strategy he implemented in Louisiana, to Americans all over the United States. He doesn’t want to compromise on his religion, his ideals on conservative issues. It’s what has shaped his and his family’s life, what he imparts to his three children, shares with his wife, Supriya Jolly Jindal, who also converted to Christianity.
Jindal’s case is that of an extremely intelligent and hard-working man driven by idealistic goals, consumed by his religious zeal, to the point where politics doesn’t really matter in the long run. Jindal will be soon out of the race, out of contention for the White House, but the far more interesting question is what will he do once his term as governor comes to an end at the end of this year?
It’s hard to see Jindal do anything in his life which is not connected to his devout Christian values and conservative views.
Importantly, America needs more people like Jindal to show their commitment and work to a country they have fully embraced and love, rather than many so called patriots who become American citizens, but remain outsiders from within, and yearn for the country they left behind.
Jindal may be, as that ridiculous saying goes, ‘brown from the outside and white from the inside’ but what he really is, is a deeply religious man who has worked hard to do well in life, respected his own choices, stood by his own convictions. Fortunately for him, Louisiana understood and believed in him. Unfortunately for him, America doesn’t.
(Sujeet Rajan is the Editor-in-Chief of The American Bazaar).
1 Comment
Jindal’s actions betray his outward religiosity. I cannot look into Jindal’s heart, but I don’t have to because of the extreme disconnect between his words and his actions.
For example, his refusal to expand Medicaid will result in hundreds of deaths, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Jindal’s stubborn refusal was to protect his image as a conservative for the 2016 race. In other words, he is willing to let people DIE in order to try to get into the White House.
What else do you need to know to know that Jindal is a world-class phony? But there is more, much more. Vet this man and you will see.
Jindal has for seven years been running a presidential campaign disguised as a governor’s office. He deserves every last bit of humiliation his defeat is going to bring him.