For those who have been to plot the trajectory of a typical US intelligence chief, it could probably contain navy service, an Ivy League schooling, and a profession spent transferring by means of authorities businesses. What it could nearly definitely not embody is a private and religious connection to India, is a practising Hindu or an oath of workplace taken on the Bhagavad Gita. However Tulsi Gabbard just isn’t a typical intelligence chief.
Subsequent week, Gabbard, now serving as the US Director of Nationwide Intelligence, is ready to go to India. The struggle veteran has had an extended profession in each politics and the navy. It will likely be the primary journey to our nation by a senior White Home official beneath the Trump administration.
A Totally different Sort of Intelligence Chief
To know what makes Tulsi Gabbard’s India go to so uncommon, we’ve to first perceive Tulsi Gabbard herself. She is the primary Hindu ever elected to the US Congress, the primary particular person of Samoan heritage to serve at such a degree, and the one US intelligence chief who overtly describes herself as a “Karma Yogi” (an individual who believes in selfless motion as a religious obligation).
“My mother and father raised all 5 of us with an essential worth of karma yoga and all the time desirous to be of service by means of all the pieces that we do,” she had mentioned in a 2012 interview. Gabbard was first uncovered to the Hindu religion in childhood however it was as a young person that she actually embraced it. She immersed herself within the Bhagavad Gita, making it the inspiration of how she noticed the world. In 2013, when she took her oath of workplace in Congress, she didn’t swear on a Bible, as most politicians do. She swore on her personal private copy of the Bhagavad Gita.
“It’s a chaotic time and nobody can say with certainty what tomorrow seems like […] however we discover certainty, energy, and peace within the observe of Bhakti Yoga and Karma Yoga taught to us by Krishna within the Bhagavad Gita,” Gabbad had mentioned in her historic Graduation Deal with to the Class of 2020 throughout Hindu College students Council’s (HSC) digital graduation.
The silver-haired chief’s religion is central to her identification. She practices yoga commonly, follows a vegetarian food regimen, and actively integrates Hindu values into her management fashion. Her husband, Abraham Williams, can be Hindu, making theirs a uncommon political marriage rooted in Vedic custom.
Assembly with Modi
Earlier this yr, throughout Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s go to to Washington, Gabbard was the primary US official to satisfy him at Blair Home on February 12, simply hours after he arrived within the US capital. That reality alone speaks volumes. There isn’t any scarcity of high-ranking US officers who meet with Indian leaders, however few have the form of private connection to India that this military veteran does. When Gabbard first met Modi in 2014, she introduced him with a duplicate of the Bhagavad Gita, calling it the textual content that had guided her all through her life. Modi is broadly identified to be a lifelong proponent of yoga and Hindu philosophy, so he instantly understood the importance of the gesture.
She met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his go to to Washington (Getty Photos)
Gabbard has lengthy embraced her connection to the Indian diaspora, releasing annual vacation movies celebrating Diwali and fostering a detailed relationship with Indian-People. Together with her brown pores and skin, black hair and Sanskrit identify Tulsi, she is commonly mistaken for an Indian-American. She is ceaselessly described as a “Hindu-American,” a phrase that collapses religious perception and nationwide origin right into a single class. Hers is a novel place: an American politician whose religion aligns extra intently with a international nation than with the bulk tradition of her personal nation.
Political and Army Profession
She has been a lieutenant colonel within the U.S. Military Reserve since 2021 and beforehand served as a U.S. Consultant for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021. She began her political journey early. At simply 21 years previous, she turned Hawaii’s youngest state legislator.
Gabbard’s navy profession started in 2003, when she joined the Hawaii Military Nationwide Guard. The next yr, she was deployed to Iraq (2004-2005), serving in a medical unit and incomes the Fight Medical Badge. In 2007, she accomplished officer coaching on the Alabama Army Academy, and in 2008, she was deployed to Kuwait as a Army Police officer. Even whereas serving in Congress, she continued her navy service (turning into a significant in 2015). In 2020, she transferred to the U.S. Military Reserve and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 2021.With Gabbard now main US intelligence operations, the stakes of her India connection are larger. That is, in spite of everything, is the birthplace of the philosophy that has guided her life, and it’s also a rustic that performs an more and more vital function in US geopolitical technique. It isn’t usually that the Director of Nationwide Intelligence can be a practitioner of Bhakti Yoga, somebody who sees governance by means of the lens of obligation, service, and karma. And but, in Gabbard, that’s precisely what India will encounter.
It’s uncommon to see a frontrunner for whom India isn’t just a international coverage concern, however a religious and mental residence. As Tulsi Gabbard arrives in India, she does so not simply as a high-ranking US official, however as somebody who carries a chunk of India along with her.
