(RNS) — At a U.S. Senate committee hearing Thursday (Jan. 30), former Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, will face questions about her career, from her dramatic departure from the Democratic Party in 2022, to her 2017 visit to Syrian strongman Bashar Assad and her comments echoing Russian disinformation.
But along with criticism of her politics, Gabbard has fielded questions about her religious identity. The first U.S. congresswoman to take her oath on the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu Scripture containing Lord Krishna’s teachings that she carried with her on deployment in Iraq with the Army National Guard. Gabbard has often credited her religious upbringing as the basis for her views and refers to Hindu concepts of dharma, or duty, and seva, the selfless service outlined in the Gita.
“Real spiritual understanding, or real religion, transcends sectarianism,” she told a crowd in 2016 at the 50th anniversary gala of ISKCON, the International Society of Krishna Consciousness. “Each and every one of us, whether we call ourselves a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu or any other designation, we each have this intrinsic opportunity to cultivate our own personal loving relationship with God.”
Not all Hindus are comfortable with Gabbard’s Hinduism, however, with some smearing the tradition as a “cult.”
Gabbard was raised in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition — a sect, or sampradhaya, with a special affinity for Lord Vishnu’s incarnation of Krishna — a blue-skinned deity often pictured with his consort, Radha, and with his favorite instrument, the flute. Gabbard’s particular branch of the sect is the Science of Identity Foundation, a group founded by Siddhaswarupananda, also known as Chris Butler, who broke from ISKCON — a Gaudiya Vaishnava group more commonly known as the Hare Krishnas — in 1974.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, left, administers the House oath of office to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, during a ceremonial swearing-in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 3, 2019, during the opening session of the 116th Congress. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The charismatic Siddhaswarupananda founded SIF in his home state of Hawaii, where Gabbard’s parents joined him — her father, who is of Samoan and European ancestry, converting from Catholicism. (Some sources refer to him as a “Catholic Hindu.”)
An offshoot group led by a guru like Siddhaswarupananda is nothing out of the ordinary in Hinduism. Gurus are often worshipped or even deified for their ability to pass along teachings to lay believers.
In this way, said Graham Schweig, a professor of comparative theology at Christopher Newport University who has studied the history of ISKCON, “It is very natural for the trunk to grow branches, and from the branches to grow sub branches and twigs.”
Critics point to Siddhaswarupananda’s views on homosexuality, his authoritative traits and other harmful beliefs alleged by former members of SIF, but Schweig, who met Gabbard in 2016, said the cult label mischaracterizes SIF. It leans on Vaishnava traditions rather than Butler’s own musings, he pointed out, and its leader doesn’t influence followers beyond spiritual matters. As is evident in Gabbard’s participation in other Hindu ceremonies and events, SIF doesn’t silo itself from other groups.
Earlier this year, more than 50 Hindu organizations signed a letter of solidarity with SIF, citing what the letter termed an influx of “anti-Hindu rhetoric” in the media.
Anuttama Dasa, communications director for ISKCON, called Gabbard a great friend to ISKCON who “regularly sends messages of good will and hope” on holy days, offers her “appreciation of Lord Krishna’s sacred teachings” and “often mentions (ISKCON founder) Srila Prabhupada as one of those from whom she seeks wisdom and guidance.”
U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, at a news conference in Honolulu, Jan. 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, File)
In a statement, Dasa said, “Especially during these times of great polarization, we request that Tulsi Gabbard’s faith, the Vaishnava tradition, and the Hindu religion more widely, be offered the respect they are due.”
Anang Mittal, former head of digital communications for House Speaker Mike Johnson, said Hindu Americans of Indian origin have had no issues accepting her into the Hindu fold. In fact, he said, many Indians are surprised to know Gabbard, whose mother is of European descent, doesn’t have any Indian heritage.
“We’re not beholden to some community leader or group leader,” he said. “That lack of solidarity is our benefit and it’s our superpower.” This feature of the faith can be a weakness, he said, because its lack of unity makes it hard to fight against attacks, but he added: “It also allows us to be free of any sort of ideas, or that ‘Hindus think one way, or Hindus think another way.’ You just can’t say that. There’s just not a possibility.”
Mittal also dismisses as “vile” accusations that Gabbard is a defender of Hindu nationalism. One anti-Gabbard website has been urging the public to be aware of the “political chameleon whose principles and allegiances are malleable.” Other Gabbard critics have noted her relationships with dozens of American Hindus who are organizationally linked to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, particularly the Overseas Friends of BJP.
The Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group for the American Sikh community, has been working with some senators on the intelligence committee to raise concerns about Gabbard’s history at her Thursday hearing. The coalition’s executive director, Harman Singh, pointed to the Indian government’s alleged attempts to silence its critics on U.S. soil, including at least two assassination plots on Sikh opposition leaders. Gabbard’s friendliness with India, the coalition says, raises questions about her suitability to stand up to the Modi regime.
These concerns, said Singh, have nothing to do with her religious background, but solely with her public positions on legislation recognizing India and Modi’s track record.
The Hindu American Foundation, a group whose members have also been accused of having connections with India’s nationalist organizations, chalks up the doubts about Gabbard to what it calls “dual loyalty smears” familiar to any Hindu in prominent spaces, especially in politics.
“While the meaning or intent behind the label of Hindutva may not always be obvious, the impact is,” executive director Suhag Shukla wrote in 2019, after Gabbard gifted a copy of the Gita to Modi. “It paints legitimate Hindu American efforts to self-define as inherently suspect and robs them of their agency to engage in the public square, invest in their community needs, and contribute possible solutions rooted in Hindu teachings to the most critical issues of our age.”
Mittal compared the accusations to past fulminations that Italians were loyal only to the pope, or the Jewish people were instruments of Israel. “We’re going through the same cycle of skepticism, derision, some level of hate, and then eventual acceptance,” he said. “At some point, that will happen.”
