Indian-origin Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who seems the second runner in the next year's elections after his party's boss Donald Trump, defended his faith as Hindu and respectfully described how all religions teach the same lessons while elaborating on freedom of religion. While addressing a crowd of Iowa voters in a CNN town hall Wednesday night, Ramaswamy said, "I would speak the truth and lose an election rather than winning by playing some political snakes and ladders."
"If I have to wrap up my political career, I will. But I would never fake convert (the religion)," he said when a woman from the crowd asked him whether his religious beliefs were at odds with the Founding Fathers.
Who is Vivek Ramaswamy?
Ramaswamy was born on August 9, 1985, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Indian Hindu immigrant parents. His father, V. Ganapathy Ramaswamy, a Tamil-speaking Brahmin from Kerala, was a graduate of the National Institute of Technology Calicut. He worked as an engineer and patent attorney for General Electric, and his mother, Geetha Ramaswamy was a graduate of the Mysore Medical College & Research Institute. His mother worked as a geriatric psychiatrist.
Notably, ever since Ramaswamy declared his candidacy for the Republican Party nomination in the 2024 United States presidential election, the founder of Roivant Sciences, a pharmaceutical company since 2014, voters raised doubts about his religious background amid the fact a majority of the American population is Christan.
Meanwhile, detailing the core principles of his Hindu faith, the 38-year-old Ramaswamy underscored that his views are aligned with “Judeo-Christian values” which are shared by many Iowa voters. However, he acknowledged he would not be "the best president to spread Christianity".
"I could not be “the best president to spread Christianity": Ramaswamy
Ramaswamy said his Hindu upbringing aligns with the core tenets of Christianity, while also maintaining he studied at St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati, which is a Christian school."I’ll tell you about my faith. My faith teaches me that God puts each of us here for a purpose. That we have a moral duty to realize that purpose. That God works through us in different ways, but we’re still equal, because God resides in each of us. I think those are the same Judeo-Christian values that I learned at St. X," he said.
"Respect your parents... don't kill... don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal and don't commit adultery. We share the same values in my faith like Christianity," added the Hindu leader.
Also, the father of two, asserted that his job was not to spread Christianity and added this would not be a work assigned to the President of the United States. Ramaswamy asserted his job is to stand for the “Judeo-Christian values” which are shared by many Iowa voters.
