JD Vance’s hopes for Usha’s conversion and the politicisation of religion in the social media era

This article was first published on ABC Religion & Ethics.

Responding to an audience question put to him during a recent Turning Point USA event, US Vice-President JD Vance expressed his hope that his wife, Usha, who was raised in a Hindu family, would convert to Christianity. After explaining what drew him to the Catholic Church, Vance said:

It was a surprisingly candid remark in an age of secular pluralism – and surprisingly, it provoked two kinds of responses.

First, there were the incensed headlines and opinion pieces in Indian and American media by people who felt personally offended. Hindu American Democratic politicians weighed in: Raja Krishnamoorthi criticised Vance, while Ro Khanna struck a more diplomatic note, saying the Vance family should be left out of politics.

Two prominent Republican Indian American politicians who are also Christian converts, Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal, have so far remained silent on the issue.

Second, social media erupted in fiery exchanges between Christian and Hindu nationalists. Conservative Christian Indian American commentator Dinesh D'Souza – notorious for his combative rhetoric – faced fierce backlash from pro-Hindutva journalists and trolls after suggesting that his ancestors were oppressed low-caste Hindus who had converted to Christianity.

Around the same time, young Indian cricketer Jemimah Rodrigues copped a renewed barrage of online hate for thanking Jesus for her success.

Usha Chilukuri Vance was caught in the crossfire between Christian and Hindu fundamentalists because of her status as a high-profile, upper-caste Hindu woman. She herself has not taken a rigid religious position, nor has she publicly objected to her children being raised Catholic. Historian of South Asia Audrey Truschke captured the difficult position of the Second Lady in a social media post: “Usha Vance is an enabler and victim of far-right intolerance.”

Meanwhile, in the face of the social media outcry, Vance doubled down on his remarks:

For now, Vance has managed to shut down the controversy, projecting a populist religious message aimed at reassuring his Christian nationalist base in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination.

This episode serves as a stark reminder that the politicisation of religion – Catholicism and Hinduism in this case – is intensifying in the age of social media, making our world an increasingly intolerant and dangerous place for ethnic, religious and gender minorities.

Publicising one's faith has long been a commonplace of American politics. Presidential candidates have traditionally associated with mainline Protestantism and evangelical Christianity. Being Catholic once was a serious handicap for US presidential candidates. Yet Catholicism has experienced a remarkable political resurgence amid the modern culture wars.

Many Western politicians have found their social conservatism aligned with Catholicism: just think of Boris Johnson in the UK, Tony Abbott in Australia and Bill English in New Zealand. The United States appears primed for a conservative Catholic president – with Vance and Marco Rubio standing out as the most prominent successors to Donald Trump.

It is interesting to consider why this might be? The Catholic Church remains the only major Christian denomination that officially maintains conservative positions on a series of divisive cultural issues: it does not endorse same-sex marriage and continues to regard homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered”; the priesthood is restricted to celibate men and its leadership is overwhelmingly male and white; it is opposed to abortion, contraception and surrogacy; it rejects “gender theory” and teaches that “sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception”.

Popular right-wing social media personalities have found a significant audience within the Catholic fold. The staunchly anti-trans and anti-woke commentator Jordan Peterson has publicly supported his wife's conversion to Catholicism. Though not a professing Christian himself, Peterson frequently appears in Christian fora and online with the influential Catholic bishop Robert Barron.

And then there is the controversial Black conservative influencer Candace Owens, who recently left Reformed Evangelical Protestantism and converted to Catholicism. She herself has claimed that, in his final days, Charlie Kirk “was praying the rosary, Charlie was going to Mass”. Regardless of the accuracy of these assertions, American conservatives have clearly found common cause with Catholic Christianity.

Meanwhile, far-right groups and individuals have been actively appropriating and weaponising Catholic symbols. The Australian-born shooter who massacred worshippers at Christchurch mosques in New Zealand drew on Crusade tropes and referenced Catholicism in his manifesto. Also in New Zealand, a far-right group describing itself as “a martial-monastic Christian brotherhood of swole saints” – who aim “to achieve and maintain authentic manhood in defiance of the degenerate and effeminate carcass of the West” – rebranded themselves as Wargus Christi.

In July, a video from Dublin showed Irish thugs pushing and kicking a disoriented Indian man. Many reports omitted a key detail evident in the footage: one attacker barked, “We're f**king Christians, Catholics. Go, go, go [back home] ”, while also chanting “Hail Mary, full of grace” twice. In September, wooden crosses, crucifixes and Bible verses were prominently displayed along with British flags and anti-immigrant placards at far-right activist Tommy Robinson's “Unite the Kingdom” protest in London.

Just as Western conservatives and those on the far right have embraced a certain Catholic zeal, there has also been a global reassertion of Hindu religious pride that blurs the line between cultural revival and political weaponisation.

The ascendance of Hindutva or Hindu nationalism in Western countries has largely gone unnoticed. Early Indian immigrants to the West tended to keep their religious identity personal and apolitical. But over the last decade, the rise of the Hindu right in the West mirrors its political ascent in India.

A peculiar feature of the Hindu right in the West has been a certain affinity with white supremacists and Zionists, united in their shared antipathy toward Muslims. It's no coincidence that Norwegian mass shooter Anders Breivik's sprawling manifesto named Hindu nationalists as allies in a war against Islam.

More recently, Hindu nationalists opposed New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Just last month, a pro-Hindutva website approvingly referenced JD Vance's derision of Mamdani's concern about Muslim safety in American public spaces. And after Mamdani was elected mayor, the Hindu social media sphere openly lamented his victory: “Anti-Hindu democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani becomes New York City's 1st Muslim mayor”.

But this partnership was doomed from the start – even upper-caste Hindus would eventually be sidelined on account of the colour of their skin and their faith. For example, after touting the new American conservatism, proudly Hindu (and Brahmin by caste) multimillionaire Vivek Ramaswamy was quietly excluded from Donald Trump's inner circle. As Audrey Truschke puts it, when minority groups align with the American far right, “they are tolerated in a second-class way”.

Even Dinesh D'Souza, a prominent figure on the American right and pro-Trump Christian, confessed himself stunned by the MAGA racist abuse online that branded him part of “a race of slaves”. When Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel shared happy Diwali wishes, he drew a far-right Christian pastor's jibe: “Go back home and worship your sand demons.”

Likewise, this year's Halloween greeting post by Vivek Ramaswamy with his kids has provoked racist remarks. Try as they might, these passionate advocates for the American right are being insulted and rejected simply for their brown skin and Indian names.

From the perspective of the Hindu right, while the white race is courted as an ally, Christianity has become an increasingly sore point – particularly when it seeks to convert India's low-caste and Adivasi communities, thereby diminishing the country's Hindu majority. We need only recall how in 1999 Hindutva fanatics burned Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons alive. One of the jailed killers has just been released for “good behaviour”.

It stands to reason that, while Muslims remain Hindutva's primary enemy, Christians are not far behind.

In January 2025, shortly after Vance became the vice-president, Indian media celebrated Usha as “the first Indian-American and Hindu Second Lady”. Many Indians obsessively debated her caste identity: some reported she is likely a Kamma, a dominant, land-owning group in South India; other reports claimed her parents are “Telugu Brahmins”.

The Vance family's visit to India in April stoked Hindu fantasies of befriending a politically powerful white figure. Indian media gushed over images of the Vance children dressed in Indian attire and posing before the Akshardham Temple in New Delhi.

It wasn't long, however, before reality hit. In July, Vance criticised tech companies for hiring foreign workers instead of Americans. Later, he reiterated his support for reforming the H-1B visa programe, a pipeline for Hindu tech professionals chasing a better life in the United States.

Over the past two decades, a sizeable number of Indian arrivals in Western countries – whether as visitors, students, skilled workers or permanent residents – has sparked xenophobic backlash and waves of voter anxiety. Populist politicians in the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have attempted to position themselves in order to appeal to such anti-immigration sentiment. I'd count JD Vance among them.

As aspirational Hindus reeled from the news of immigration restrictions, Vance's expressed wish for Usha's conversion to Christianity delivered the ultimate affront. To proud, dominant-caste Hindus, a high-profile defection like hers would mean public humiliation and risk triggering a wave of opportunistic conversions to access the American Dream. Qualified as it was, Vance's proselytising struck a raw nerve.

Neither JD Vance nor Usha Chilukuri Vance, nor their supporters on either side, should be taken as exclusive representatives of Christianity or Hinduism.

With some caveats, I myself hold deep admiration for the Hindu epics – the Valmiki Ramayana and the Mahabharata – which stand among the greatest works of world literature and philosophy. The vast corpus of ancient Indian writings can itself be used to challenge dogma and orthodoxy. Moreover, Indian Buddhism and the spiritual humanism of Kabir, Ravidas and Guru Nanak can function as reformist currents within the broader Indic religious and philosophical tradition.

I have also known Christian churches in Brisbane, Australia and Christchurch, New Zealand that reject the politics of hate and seek to live out Christ's teachings: feeding the hungry through free community meals, advocating for the marginalised, and praying for non-Christians and for world peace. That's why I find it rather perverse to see the likes of JD Vance use Catholic teaching to further the Trump administration's cruel practices.

Ultimately, it is actions that define us, not labels. An atheist, secularist, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist engaging in works of peace, justice and mercy expands the kingdom of God. Conversely, weaponising Christian identity for the purposes of disharmony, slander or prejudice is blasphemy against the teachings of Christ. Over against the opportunism of populists like JD Vance and Hindu nationalists, we need to reclaim the universal and humane core of religion and wield it only ever as a force for good.

Rajiv Thind is a literary scholar, fiction writer and visiting academic at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. This article was first published on ABC Religion & Ethics.

Source: Scroll
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