Nikki Haley: Indian-American Trump Card!

The first-ever Indian-American to be nominated to a cabinet-level post in the US adds more than a touch of diversity to President-elect Donald Trump’s line-up.

- Ashish Kumar Sen

It wasn’t so long ago that South Carolina governor Nikki Haley described Donald Trump as “everything a governor doesn’t want in a president”. Trump fired back, on Twitter: “The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!” It came as a surprise, then, when Trump, now President-elect of the United States, picked Haley (the daughter of Indian immigrants) to serve in his Cabinet as ambassador to the United Nations. And that Haley accepted.

Haley’s nomination erodes “stereotype portrayals” of Trump, says Ronen Sen, a veteran diplomat who served as India’s ambassador to the US. Sen says it undermines critics’ arguments that Trump will usher in a phase of US isolationism and downgrade the post of the US ambassador to the United Nations; that he will deepen socio-political divisions; that he is against non-white immigrants; and that he has a deep-seated bias against women.

The US Senate must confirm the nomination before Haley can pack her bags for New York City. Haley already has the distinction of being the first Indian-American female governor of a US state. Sumit Ganguly, the Tagore professor of Indian cultures and civilisations at Indiana University, says Trump can now fend off some of his critics through his appointment of a “prominent, thoughtful, telegenic Indian-American Republican woman”. He adds: “The fact that she is an up-and-coming player in the (Republican) party does not hurt either.”