Vivek Ramaswamy’s bid for US President is talk of the town among diaspora

The healthcare and tech sector entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy’s nomination for the US Presidential election bid is another example of Indian Americans making a mark in the political arena, Sanjeev Joshipura, Indiaspora’s Executive Director said.

“Vivek Ramaswamy is not a conventional politician, to put it mildly. It will be interesting to see how America reacts to his candidacy,” Indiaspora’s Executive Director said.

“His jumping into the presidential fray is another example of Indian-Americans making a mark in the political arena. As the Indian diaspora becomes more established and integrated into American life, we have seen this trend steadily increasing across all levels of government. Our diaspora is civic-minded and wanted to engage in the nation’s public life,” he added.

Earlier, on Wednesday, Ramaswamy announced his 2024 US presidential election bid.

“We’ve celebrated our “diversity” so much that we forgot all the ways we’re really the same as Americans, bound by ideals that united a divided, headstrong group of people 250 years ago. I believe deep in my bones those ideals still exist. I’m running for President to revive them,” tweeted Ramaswamy in a video announcing his intention to run for president.

He reiterated that this was not just a political campaign, “but a cultural movement”.

“Faith, patriotism and hard work have disappeared. Wokeism, climate and gender ideology have replaced them. We hunger for purpose yet cannot answer what it means to be an American. We long for that answer,” he added.

37-year-old Vivek Ramaswamy is a native of southwest Ohio. His mother was a geriatric psychiatrist and his father worked as an engineer at General Electric.

“Diversity” is not our strength. Our strength is the set of ideals that unify us across our differences. Without that, “diversity” is meaningless,” said Ramaswamy.

“We live in a culture that rejects truth and embraces relativism; that rejects equality and embraces “equity”; that rejects excellence and embraces victimhood. I’m all-in for America First, but we must first rediscover what America is,” he added.

Ramaswamy was born on August 9, 1985, and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. His parents migrated to the US from Kerala.

He is the second Indian-American to enter the 2024 Republican presidential primary after Nikki Haley.

He is the fourth Indian-American ever to run for the White House –Bobby Jindal ran in 2016 and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2020.

He attended Harvard University for his undergrad and later got a law degree from Yale University.
Ramaswamy is the author of “Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam” and has been dubbed “the CEO of Anti-Woke Inc” by The New Yorker.

Ramaswamy joins the Republican field following ex-US President Donald Trump and former South Carolina governor and former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s presidential bid announcement.

A second-generation Indian American, Ramaswamy founded Roivant Sciences in 2014 and led the largest biotech IPOs of 2015 and 2016, eventually culminating in successful clinical trials in multiple disease areas that led to FDA-approved products, according to his bio.

He has founded other successful healthcare and technology companies, and in 2022, he launched Strive Asset Management, a new firm focused on restoring the voices of everyday citizens in the American economy by leading companies to focus on excellence over politics.

Ramaswamy is married to Apoorva Tewari Ramaswamy, an Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

Before entering the presidential ballot, Ramaswamy and Haley have to win the Republican Party’s presidential primary which will start in January next year. The next US presidential election is scheduled to be held on November 5, 2024.