Donald Trump to address ‘Hindu Republicans’ in New Jersey

EDISON

(USA): When it comes to ethnic enclaves, you can’t get more “desi” in US than Edison, New Jersey. Little India does not even begin to describe it.

Named after the inventor Thomas Edison, the township is 44% White and 43%

Asian

, with an

Indian

domination. From Dana Bazaar to Sabzi Mandi, from the Patel Brothers to Sukhadia’s, the enclave is such a beehive of desi enterprise that it carries voter registration forms in Gujarati.

To this desi lair comes Republican presidential nominee Donald

Trump

on Saturday evening in one of the most audacious outreaches — given his constant dissing of immigrants and foreigners. More to the point, he has not reached out to a religion-specific audience (while broadly disdaining Muslims and Jews), and his agreeing to address an event hosted by the Republican

Hindu

Coalition (RHC), which clearly equates India with Hinduism, represents an unusual tie-up.

The man who has swung this event is Chicago entrepreneur Shalabh (“Shalli”) Kumar, who has raised more than a million dollars for the Trump campaign, and who believes the Republican candidate is unfairly demonised. Noting that it is the first time in the “history of India, the US, and the Hindu civilisation that a presidential candidate is coming to a Hindu event during an election campaign,” Kumar maintains that Trump has no animus toward American minorities, foreigners, and immigrants, and in fact admires hard-working legal immigrants from India.

“It is the media which caricatures him and distorts his views. He is the best thing that can happen to India and Indian-Americans,” Kumar told TOI in course of the Republican National Convention, where he pitched the idea of Trump addressing a rally under the aegis of the RHC that the Chicago political operator founded in 2015, after handing over checks amounting to nearly a million dollars.

Kumar is avowedly Hindu and is unabashed about the religious affiliation. He says he got the idea of forming the RHC after attending the Republican Jewish Coalition conference in 2015 and noting their level of influence in shaping and making policy. “There are lot of similarities between the two communities, and in fact, Hindu-Americans have even better income and education metrics. There is no reason why we should not go beyond just professional development and into public policy,” he argues.

Kumar is unfazed by the fact that a majority of the Indian-American community leans Democratic, and one recent polls shows only 7% intend to vote for Trump. He hopes the Edison event will correct the perception that Trump is anti-immigrant, promising a rousing event that will be “part religious and cultural and part-Bollywood.”

Although temperamental and unpredictable, Trump himself has cut a 25-second video promising an “incredible” event, although every rally of his is now turning out to be gobsmacking. Still, the rally, a charity event ostensibly aimed at raising money and support for victims of terrorism, has been moved from a larger arena that had a 17,500-capacity to a more modest venue. Some find even that disturbing.

Edison also falls in New Jersey’s 6th Congressional district, which is the home turf of Democratic congressman Frank Pallone, a long-time hero for Indian-Americans. Pallone and a coalition of South Asian leaders have scheduled a briefing shortly before the RHC event for their take on Trump. “Donald Trump has a history of discriminating against minorities, peddling anti-immigrant rhetoric and dangerous foreign policy proposals. He has demeaned and publicly humiliated women. He is bad for business in New Jersey and bankrupted his Atlantic City casino, refusing to pay his small business contractors,” they said.