The rise and rise of Tulsi Gabbard

(The article was originally published in Indian Express on February 22, 2025 as a part of Dr Madhav’s column titled ‘Ram Rajya’. Views expressed are personal.)

Donald Trump, no doubt, is the most powerful leader in the US. But who is the second-most powerful? It is Tulsi Gabbard, the enigmatic Hawaiian, a woman of colour born to a Samoan father and an Irish mother, a practising Hindu, a serving lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve, and a fiercely independent and opinionated leader. She heads the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI), the umbrella organisation of 18 intelligence agencies of the US government, including the FBI and CIA. As the director of this coveted body, Gabbard is a gatekeeper at the White House and the eyes and ears of the US President.

The 43-year-old’s meteoric rise in US politics is fascinating. She got into politics in the state of Hawaii at just 20 years old. Gabbard rose to become a Congresswoman in 2010 and continued for eight years until she took the decision to quit and try her hand at the Democratic Party presidential primary debates in 2020. Her move was seen by many as premature and ambitious. She finally withdrew from the race, but not before ruffling many feathers in her party.

Gabbard’s greatest strength is her commitment to what she believes to be right. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, she became a bitter critic of Islamist terror and vowed to fight against it. This prompted her to volunteer for the Army Reserve in 2003 and she was in Iraq on active field service in 2005. She served in the US Army until 2009 and rose to become a lieutenant colonel, a rank that she still holds.

It is interesting that while devotion to Krishna and the Bhagvad Gita shaped her religious beliefs — something that she wears on her sleeve proudly — her field job in the Middle East shaped her political views. Gabbard’s tryst with Hinduism began when, as a child, she followed her parents to an American disciple of Srila Prabhupada, Chris Butler, who was running a yoga and meditation centre. The entire family acquired a Hindu identity, with Tulsi’s siblings adopting Hindu names like Jai, Narayan, Bhakti and Vrindavan. Tulsi remains an ardent Krishna devotee. She became the first Congressperson to take oath on the Bhagvad Gita.

Gabbard carried copies of the Gita, considered a manual of righteous war (dharm yuddha), to Iraq. But her views about that war landed her in several controversies as she developed an anti-war conviction in her years on the brutal battlefields of Iraq. She insisted that what the US was doing in the name of the “war on terror” was anything but righteous. Like Arjuna, she was rattled by the death and destruction caused to American lives and assets during the war on terror. She believed that dictators like Assad were actually protecting Syrians from terror groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. Her criticism of the US’s war activities earned the wrath of her Democratic colleagues, including President Barack Obama. However, these qualities endeared her to Donald Trump. Gabbard met Trump in 2017 when he became President and gradually moved closer to him. She formally left the Democratic Party in 2022 and endorsed Trump’s candidature in 2023, for which she was richly rewarded.

Gabbard’s India connection has been a matter of debate. While many admired her pro-Hindu and pro-India views, she faced criticism from American liberals. Eyebrows were raised when she met Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month in Washington, DC, since it is unusual for the DNI to meet a foreign dignitary alone. But Modi and Gabbard have known each other for at least a decade.

Gabbard met Modi briefly for the first time when she visited New York for the UN General Assembly in 2014. A few months later, when she came to Delhi to address an India Foundation event, a longer meeting took place between the two, which cemented their acquaintance. They met on several occasions later. In early 2015, Gabbard married her long-time friend Abraham Williams in a traditional Hindu ceremony at Oahu in Hawaii. Having known her for some years, I attended the wedding carrying a gift and message from Modi. The PM conveyed “warm greetings” on the “joyous occasion”, especially underscoring happiness over the decision to have their “nuptials according to traditional Vedic ceremony”. He added that “India cannot be fathomed in one visit alone”, and invited Gabbard to visit again.

Gabbard has been a vocal supporter of India and Hindus and a votary of strong US-India ties. “There is great excitement and opportunity that’s being felt on the ground both in the US and India and I think we are headed in the right direction. There are definitely some challenges that will have to be overcome but the intention and heart are moving in the right place. There is great opportunity for both of us in many areas from security to economy and many other things that we can do together,” Gabbard said delivering her address on ‘The Future of Indo-US Relationships’ at the India Foundation event in 2015. She continues to hold that conviction to this day.

Gabbard’s unorthodox politics came under scrutiny during an hour-long confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, when some members insinuated that she had loyalties elsewhere. “Those who oppose my nomination imply that I am loyal to something or someone other than God, my own conscience and the Constitution of the United States,” she shot back at the committee, dismissing the absurdity of “accusing me of being the puppet of five different puppet masters at the same time — Trump’s puppet, Putin’s puppet, Assad’s puppet, a guru’s puppet, and Modi’s puppet”.

Gabbard has been a vocal critic of the Deep State. Today, she heads the alleged source of it — the DNI. It will be interesting to watch how she tames it.