(The Political Line newsletter is India’s political landscape explained every week by Varghese K. George, senior editor at The Hindu. You can subscribe here to get the newsletter in your inbox every Friday.)
Vivek Ramaswamy in the U.S. and Suella Braverman in the U.K. have emerged as prominent votaries of national identity in their respective countries.
What do Vivek Ramaswamy, the rising star in the Republican camp in the United States, and British Home Secretary Suella Braverman have in common? Apart from their Indian origins and brown skin, they have emerged as notable leaders of conservative politics in the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively, two pillars of the Anglo-Saxon world. Not just that, they are emerging as ideologues of western identity. Paradoxical as it appears, two brown people are offering new interpretations of American and British identity. Both of them spoke last week on their favourite topic, immigration and citizenship rights, which also make them a favourite among conservative groups in the U.S. and the U.K.
Mr. Ramaswamy, whose conversation in Tamil with an Indian-origin supporter during one of his recent rallies made for interesting viewing, is a practising Hindu seeking the leadership of a party that Christian conservatives consider their own. He is telling Republican voters about the commonalities between the two faiths, particularly in challenging what he calls new secular religions. He is a critic of the manner in which American capitalism has turned against the middle class, and has strong views on controlling migration, and securing the border. Like Donald Trump, Mr. Ramaswamy is also a critic of the U.S. support for Ukraine. He, like Mr. Trump, believes that American identity is broken, and it can be repaired only through faith-driven collective action, and restricting membership. He is opposed to birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
Ms. Braverman, who aspires to be Prime Minister, has become a champion of western identity. On September 26, at a speech in Washington DC, she said uncontrolled migration poses an “existential challenge” to Western nations, and called for restrictions. “Multiculturalism makes no demands of the incomer to integrate,” she said in the speech.
“The unexamined drive towards multiculturalism as an end in itself combined with the corrosive aspects of identity politics has led us astray,” Ms. Braverman had said in comments about clashes between people of Indian and Pakistani origin in Leicester in September 2022.
What might be linking these two brown leaders to conservative politics? Some reasons can be thought of. Brown populations are family oriented, and suspicious of the left cultural agenda in the west. The gender debate that overwhelms left politics is not very attractive for brown people. Brown people also feel meritocracy will be more helpful for them than affirmative action and accommodation that left politics promotes. On the other side, white conservative voters are aware of their shrinking numbers, and the inevitability of continuing immigration into their societies. Conservative politics based on Christian faith will become unsustainable, and it needs to find allies in migrant populations. That makes the marriage of brown and white populations for conservative causes a reasonable one. In the process, western identity could increasingly turn brown, even as racist prejudices continue on a parallel track.
Federalism Tract: Notes on Indian Diversity
Border in air
The Mizoram government has decided against collecting the biometrics and biographical data of ‘refugees’ from Myanmar while the Manipur government has sought more time from the Centre in view of the ongoing Kuki-Meitei conflict to complete the exercise. People on both sides of the international border belong to the same ethnicity.
Keeping a language alive
A language spoken by barely 1,600 people living in parts of West Bengal bordering Bhutan is to get a dictionary, thanks to the efforts of a professor at the University of Calcutta.
No English in Bihar
What was to be a formal event to inaugurate a model hospital in Bihar turned into an angry declamation against the English language after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar lost his cool over the use of English signboards on the hospital premises.
Forest rites
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking recognition of the Sarna religious code for tribals. In the three-page letter, Mr. Soren stressed that the population of tribals in the State has declined from 38% to 26% in the last eight decades, and their nature worship should be accepted as a separate religion.
Poetic conflict
The recent speech by Rashtriya Janata Dal Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha during the Special Session of Parliament has set off a war of words between Rajputs and Brahmins in Bihar. Participating in the debate on the women’s reservation Bill, Mr. Jha had quoted a verse from popular Dalit poet Om Prakash Valmiki’s ‘Thakur Ka Kuan’ (Thakur’s well), which made an appeal to “kill the Thakur within”.
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