Sequeira’s Insinuation Is A Disservice To Her Piece

To the editors:



As a former freshman liaison of Bobby Jindal during his Fellowship at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, and simply as a politically interested Indian-American, I may be expected to respond to Jessica A. Sequeira’s thoughtful article, “The Brown Blessing” (comment, Jan. 30) with defensiveness on behalf of the Indian-Americans who disproportionately back Mr. Jindal. Instead, I’d just like to correct a tangential and perhaps unintended insinuation in her otherwise well-argued piece. She writes: “converting from Hinduism to Christianity as a senior in high school (and later asking his wife to do the same), attending Brown University and Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, working as a consultant at McKinsey…the only part of ‘Indian-American’ he embodies lies after the hyphen.” The implication that Mr. Jindal’s religious persuasion, educational achievement, or professional choices were anomalous given his Indian heritage is not required for Ms. Sequeira to make her central point. And somewhat humorously, a bit of research about Christianity in India, a visit to the Brown and Oxford campuses, and perhaps most tellingly, a quick tour of almost any McKinsey office in the U.S. would almost certainly reveal the irony therein.



VIVEK G. RAMASWAMY ’07

New York City, N.Y.

February 3, 2008